The Time of Her Life (24 page)

“Gerald called.” Then she explained what he needed to know and
Jay’s day turned end over end.

“I’ve been going over the report, Jay. And I’m worried you’re
not going to be happy with the numbers. You okay?”

Not okay. He was having visions of The Arbors filling beds on
the government’s dime. Not that he had a thing against the government providing
for patients who needed care. He didn’t. He supported that assistance through
his taxes and was grateful people who needed care could get some.

But The Arbors wasn’t about spreading around the minimum level
of care. The Arbors was about utilizing cutting-edge advancements and supporting
the research that broke ground with Alzheimer’s. Risking that status would
undermine The Arbors’ fundamental goal. The first step onto a slippery slope
that would only lead one way—down.

He couldn’t answer Susanna’s question, so he asked one of his
own. “Anything else?”

Their gazes met across the length of her lovely body stretched
between them, an intimate connection. He hadn’t expected Susanna in his
life.

She shook her head. “No.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“T
HEN
SHUT
DOWN
THAT
laptop
and forget all about Gerald and that report right now,” Jay told Susanna.
“Neither of us can do anything. And no worrying about the staff, either. I’d be
surprised if any of them has a clue who the partners are. We’ll handle the
situation the same way Northstar did. Once we decide what to do, we’ll tell
them.”

But Jay didn’t have a clue what that might be. Leaving The
Arbors to Northstar’s care in these circumstances was simply unacceptable. This
entire transition period had been an exercise in relinquishing control. Jay
hadn’t. Not much, anyway. He’d been stubbornly resisting one change after
another. That much was evident in the face of a really big change, one that
would impact The Arbors much more than the kind of coffee they served.

The only thing he could do was take a deep breath and clear his
head, so he could look at all the angles.

He had way too much emotion right now. His whole life felt as
if it hung in the balance of this acquisition, as if he might implode if he
couldn’t get out of here.

But he didn’t want to leave Susanna and what he’d found with
her.

And he’d promised everyone at The Arbors not to leave them on
unstable ground.

“I still have things to do at the facility before I’m done for
the day, but I won’t go back unless you promise you won’t sit here and stress
out for the rest of the afternoon.”

He would stress enough for the both of them.

“I promise.” She forced a smile.

The fact that she had to work so hard for that smile told him
he shouldn’t believe her.

But Jay had to leave to get a grip. He needed a new plan
because the one he had was coming apart.

Butters and Gatsby accompanied him from the cottage, and he
didn’t bother taking the golf cart. The walk would help him work off the
edginess, calm the frustration. With any luck. And as far as he could tell, his
luck had taken another unexpected turn.

He was not going to allow medication to be dispensed by folks
with sixteen hours of training. He was not going to allow patient assistants
earning minimum wage to be responsible for more residents than they could
reasonably care for.

He didn’t give a hoot about the regulatory bureau, which did
nothing but put deterrents in place to avoid catastrophes.

The Compassion to Care.

He had trusted Northstar to provide that level of service...no,
he had
hoped
Northstar would hold to the same
standard, but he hadn’t trusted them. If he had, there would have been no need
for any transition period.

That truth suddenly seemed so simple.

His trying to cover all the bases...and Susanna in the middle.
He hadn’t understood the position she’d been in until right now. She wasn’t
happy with what was going on, but she needed her job to provide for her family.
All along she’d been trying to appease both Northstar and Jay, jumping through
hoops to find some common ground.

And he’d fought her every step of the way. Over coffee, for
Christ’s sake.

Butters let out a bark and chased after something scampering in
the underbrush. Jay dragged himself from his thoughts and realized he hadn’t
walked to the facility, but to his granddad’s old farmhouse. He hadn’t been here
in a while.

Leaning against the fence, he waited for Butters to return,
noticing the rotted slats his great-granddad had insisted be replaced every
spring. He’d corral Jay and Drew, have Gran pack a picnic then herd them down
here for a day of hard work....

“Why do we have to work?” Drew asked,
tossing the knife so hard that the blade sliced into the hard-packed dirt
halfway to the hilt. “We’re only kids.”

Great-Granddad didn’t answer right away,
kept rolling that toothpick around his lips until Drew withdrew the knife
and gave Great-Granddad his attention.

“You’re part of this family, Drew. You
have to do your share whether you feel like it or not.”

Drew didn’t say anything, but Jay could
tell he didn’t like that answer one bit.

“Is that why Gran takes care of
Great-Grandmom?” Jay wanted to know.

Great-Granddad nodded slowly. He did
everything slowly because he was real old. Walking and talking and milking
the cows. And he didn’t fix the fence at all because he couldn’t get up when
he knelt down anymore. So he handed Drew and Jay the tools and gave
orders.

“
That’s exactly right, Jay-boy,”
Great-Granddad said. “Makes your Gran feel better. She’s taking good care of
her mama and the more she learns about the Alzheimer’s disease, the more she
feels in control. She’s putting things in place in case she winds up like
your great-grandmom.”

“Will she? Wind up that way, I mean?” The
thought of his strong, laughing Gran sitting in a wheelchair, staring out
the windows with the same smile on her face during every Sunday dinner,
every birthday party, every time the wisteria bloomed then the peonies then
the gardenias then the azaleas.

Even Drew wanted to know. He was back to
playing with the knife again, but he was listening real closely. Jay could
tell because they both knew that Great-Granddad only told the truth. He
didn’t care how old they were. He treated them like men.

“There’s no way of telling, Jay-boy. We
just got to hope.”

Jay wasn’t sure why he remembered that long-ago conversation
now, several lifetimes after the fact. Now when the fence was rotting and there
was no one left to run this place but him. And Susanna.

But it turned out his grandmother hadn’t come down with the
disease. His mother had. It had started with her lists. If she didn’t write it
down, she wouldn’t remember. She’d laugh and blame menopause, which she swore
would kill her. It hadn’t, but the need for lists never went away even after the
hot flashes did. Lists in her purse. Lists in her pockets. Post-it notes all
over the house. Even on her rearview mirror in the car.

Then one day they’d found her trimming the arbors in the
midsummer when everything was in full bloom.

Things had gone downhill from there.

She hadn’t lingered like her own grandmother. Maybe she’d
decided she wouldn’t live unless she could live as herself.

As educated as Jay was about the disease, he still couldn’t
shake that idea. That somehow she had the will to know she didn’t want to linger
that way.

One day, she just started winding down.

Doctors couldn’t find a thing wrong with her. Dad had said to
stop looking, to let her be. Then Dad had died suddenly. Mom went right behind
him. And somewhere along the way, Jay had stopped caring about this fence and
the abandoned farmhouse now aging into disrepair.

When he finally pushed away from that rotting old fence, there
was one question standing out from all the others he had no answers for. One
question that felt more urgent than the rest put together.

Had he lost his hope somewhere along the
way, too?

* * *

S
USANNA
NEVER
THOUGHT
she’d appreciate catching a virus, but that virus was the only thing
saving her from a complete meltdown. She simply didn’t have the strength.

“Are you sure you’re feeling up to this?” Jay asked again. “I
don’t want you to get wiped out and not be able to attend Mrs. Harper’s memorial
service tomorrow.”

Susanna smiled to reassure him, heart melting, as always, by
his concern for her. All his careful plans for the final sale had exploded. He
was trying to salvage something from the wreckage of his hopes to leave The
Arbors. And now she had an even bigger bomb to drop.

She hadn’t had the heart to tell him of her suspicions. Not
until she knew for sure, anyway. And that wouldn’t happen until she took a
pregnancy test. Of course, her ob/gyn was in New York, which meant she was
considered a new patient with the practice Charles had suggested. The first
available appointment was over a month away. She’d go the home pregnancy kit
route. But another day or two of denial wouldn’t hurt.

“Jay, I’ve been cooped up in that cottage for four days. I’m
happy to get outside. The vitamin D is good for me.” She wouldn’t give up one
minute of the time they could spend together. Not now.

He eyed her thoughtfully then gave a decided shake of his head.
“All right, then. You sit right in that chair and start absorbing vitamin D. And
don’t get up, got it?”

“I thought I was supposed to hand you the tools, so you could
show me what to do?” Knowledge she probably would never need now. The chances of
this deal happening were looking less promising by the day.

Which left her wondering where Northstar would send her. And
how she could possibly leave...especially now. The future loomed before her more
uncertain than ever before. How could she possibly work these sorts of hours as
a nearly forty-year-old single mother? Just the thought made her head pound. But
there was positive thought in there somewhere. Karan was pregnant, too. Maybe
Susanna should consider returning to New York, so they could rear their kids
together.

Jay eyed her with a frown. “Are you sure you’re—”

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t believe her. So she motioned him to get going. Then
she sat back and watched him climb the ladder with a wicked curved-blade
trimmer. He wore only jeans and a flannel shirt. He didn’t seem to mind the wind
that had her bundled up in a layered sweater and jacket. And he looked great
with the breeze ruffling his hair, his movements all bristling with contained
energy, entirely male.

“This is important, Susanna. Chester knows how to trim back the
arbors, but he doesn’t have men to spare.”

“That’s why you do it yourself?”

“Pretty much. But I work at it nonstop for every day after work
and on weekends. Takes me the better part of two weeks, and that’s really the
only window. If you don’t catch things at the right time, you’ll undermine
growth for the entire season. They won’t withstand the cold and will be
susceptible to diseases.”

“Sounds like taking care of kids.”

Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. Don’t
freak out.

“Really old kids maybe. My great-grandmother planted most of
these when she first came to live here after marrying my great-grandfather.
Place was a farm back then.”

“And your family has kept them up ever since?”

“Hard not to. My great-grandmother loved them even when she
couldn’t remember she was the one who’d planted them. My grandparents would
wheel her out here and let her sit in the shade while they worked on pruning
everything. My grandmother took care of them the longest, but my mother was
definitely more into them. She added a lot of new vines around the lake.
Different strands more climate resistant. They’re the ones you can see from your
office. She planted them as a gift for my grandmother on Mother’s Day one
year.”

“Your grandmother didn’t get out of that office all that often,
I’m guessing.”

Jay shook his head.

“What a thoughtful gift, then.” Like mother like son,
apparently. “Walter said they’d be beautiful in spring.”

“They will.”

There was wistfulness in that admission, Susanna was sure. She
couldn’t understand Jay. By his own admission he wanted love in his life. He
wanted everything she’d been so blessed with—beautiful kids, great family,
supportive friends. She’d seen yearning in the way he’d handled everyone over
Christmas, the charming, skilled host who never met a stranger.

But he lived such an isolated life.

Why had his world narrowed until it only encompassed work, and
her? She wanted to know more than anything and wondered if he even knew.

“I gave Chester the name of the arborist I use.” Jay trimmed
back dry twigs skillfully, letting them drop to the path below. “Don’t need him
all that often, but when something comes up, it’s best to call right away. He
can handle anything if we catch it quickly enough. In fact, if everything does
work out, it might be best to pay him to visit regularly. He’s got a service.
The money for upkeep has always come from the household budget, but that might
have to change if Northstar does takes over. Guess I should put all this in the
manual. I hadn’t factored in the logistics of upkeep.”

That was a significant admission for a man who’d tried to cover
every base. This whole situation boiled down to Jay and what he was willing to
live with. Would he be able to walk away and trust her,
anyone,
with his legacy?

The Arbors. The residents. The staff. The arbors that his
great-grandmother had planted. He knew everything about these flowers, his green
thumb passed down genetically.

A gift she hoped he would pass along.

She took notes as he showed her where to cut back on each
variety of vine, how the wisteria differed from the peonies from the lilacs. He
explained why it was so important to slant each cut to minimize the risk of
disease. He brought the care of these flowers to life until she could almost see
this knowledge being handed down generation to generation.

So she listened and jotted notes as Jay spoke in that deep-silk
voice until the futility of her notes finally got the better of her.

“Do you think you’ll need to finish the manual, Jay?”

He was a long time in answering. “I’m having a hard time
thinking clearly about everything.”

“Oh.”

To her surprise, he hung the clippers on the ladder and climbed
down. Grabbing the bottled water from beside the toolbox of garden supplies, he
took a deep swig. Then he sat down on the top of the box and faced her.

“I wasn’t going to bring this up until you were feeling a
little better, but I’m thinking of taking off for a while if you’d be willing to
cover for me here.”