Page 132 of The Bitterroot Inn (Jamison Valley 5)
For disappointing my son, I disliked Nell even more.
“Meet you at the car,” Hunter said, nudging Nell out of the booth. “Nell, I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Come on.” I bent to hold Coby’s hand. “Let’s go home and make cookies.”
He perked up. “Triple chocolate chip?”
“You got it, dude.”
I waved good-bye to our waitress and hustled outside, buckling Coby in his seat, then hopped in to wait for Hunter. When he slid into the driver’s seat, his worry lines were much deeper than they had been at lunch.
“What?” I asked quietly.
He shook his head. “Later.”
Later came three hours later after a double batch of cookies, serious playtime in the bathtub and five stories as Hunter and I both tucked Coby into bed.
“Well?” I asked him as I closed the door to my bedroom at the loft.
He stripped off his shirt and jeans, tossing them into the hamper. Then he climbed into bed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Something’s wrong with her.”
“What do you mean?” I stripped down and tugged on some pajama pants and a tank top.
“She is more than her normal level of crazy. When I walked her to her car, she started telling me how much Everett needed to learn manners. How much Everett needed a haircut. How much Everett needed to eat more vegetables. Everett, not Coby.”
I sank down on the side of the bed. The last thing we needed was another crazy Carlson in our lives. “This is not good. What should we do?”
“I think she needs some help. Maybe she’s never really dealt with Everett’s death or something, I don’t know. But that was not normal.”
“You think?” I said dryly, then crawled into bed and curled into Hunter’s side. “We can’t have her around Coby if she’s going to call him Everett.”
“I agree.” He hugged me closer. “I’m going to call the staff at the Grand Rapids house and see if there is more going on than I know about.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
Because if Eleanor had snapped, she wasn’t getting anywhere near my child, court order or not.
“How did she sound?” I asked Hunter the second he opened the door to my car and sat in the driver’s seat. He’d been outside, pacing in front of the hood while talking on the phone with Nell.
“Off.”
I frowned. “Just off? I need more than a one-word answer.”
“She was distracted,” he said while starting the car. “I invited her to come with us today and she declined. She said she had plans.”
“Plans? What plans?” After our lunch yesterday, Nell had returned to Bozeman, where she was staying—she hadn’t asked for a room at the Bitterroot and I hadn’t offered. I had hoped after visiting Prescott and meeting Coby, she’d be on the first flight back to Grand Rapids. I had a niggling feeling about her staying in Montana with “plans.”
“I don’t know,” Hunter answered. “She hung up before I could ask, but let’s not worry about Nell today, okay? Let’s just have fun.”
“Okay.” I smiled and reached over to take Hunter’s free hand.
He reversed out of the parking lot at the inn and started driving us toward the corn maze. Today, we were taking Coby to Howell Farm to explore their famous corn maze and pick some pumpkins from their patch. The three of us had been taking as many outdoor adventures as we could to enjoy the last days of fall. By the end of October, winter would be right around the corner—or already here.
“Is that it?” Coby asked from his car seat thirty minutes later. Hunter had just pulled off the county road onto a gravel drive that led to the farm.
“Yes.” I turned back to smile at Coby. “It looks like fun, doesn’t it, buddy?”
“Yeah! I’m gonna get the biggest pumpkin ever!”
