Chapter 16: The Wheelchair

Nate's POV

I was the one holding the gate when Mallory came up the path.

She stopped in front of me with her hands on the wheelchair grips.

Her mother sat in a blue cardigan with a blanket over her knees.

The woman's eyes were bright and unfocused, and they moved over the white chairs without settling on any of them.

"I haven't walked into a single place of his in seventeen years," Mallory said quietly. "Tell me it's only a lawn."

"It's grass," I said. "Some chairs."

"That's what I thought."

She lifted her chin, and she pushed her mother through.

Nobody on the lawn said a word.

She took the chair down the aisle, past the brass numbers on the front-row seats, and stopped six feet from Gordon Wardell.

He had not moved.

He stood under the arbor of white roses with his hands at his sides.

Mallory's mother looked up at him, and her face cleared for a moment.

"Mr. Wardell," she said politely. "Is it about the pipes?"

Mallory closed her eyes.

"Yes, ma'am," Gordon said, and his voice came out rough. "Something like that."

"They're fine, you know," she said. "My husband had a man look at them. You can tell your people."

"I will."

"He's out in the truck," she said. "He's loading the boxes. He's very tired. I told him to come inside and sit down, and he said in a minute."

Her hand moved on the blanket.

Gordon looked at her, and I watched his face change.

He had known what he was doing for seventeen years.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Don't Need Your Blue Roses Anymore from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.