I shrugged, toweling myself off.
“They had a salmon breakfast sandwich,” he reported. “And were happy to make their hashbrown thing without cheese for you.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“I brought you a soy latte. Lavender.”
“Thanks,” I said again, trying to muster anything resembling enthusiasm. Judging by Elliot’s small sigh, I hadn’t been terribly successful. “El?—”
“Don’t apologize,” he called back from the other room where he was rustling about, presumably unpacking breakfast.
I sighed, then finished drying my hair and beard with the towel and hung it back up. We’d booked a week here, just in case, because I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to be a simple sign-some-paperwork thing. And if we got to leave early—well, I wasn’t going to be upset about losing the rest of the week if that ended up being the price for getting the hell out of Appalachia for good. Elliot hadn’t argued with my desire to drive to and from Staunton rather than try to stay in some sort of B&B in Scroope, if there even was one. Staunton at least felt far enough away that I might actually sleep at night.
And it was close to Noah.
I’d debated calling the Augusta Sheriff’s Office this morning, but the thought that I might get called in for questioning kept me from doing it. I’d talk to Humbolt about what was going on first, then call to see if they’d let me see or talk to Noah.
I had texted Lulu to let them know that we’d arrived and to tell me if there was anything they needed. I hadn’t gotten a response yet.
I didn’t know if Lulu was here, or if they’d stayed in Richmond.
Mostly dry, I padded out into the room to find my clothes. I noticed Elliot watching me from the un-slept-in bed where he was sitting with his food, but he didn’t make any of his usual lewd comments. I was grateful, because I definitely wasn’t in the mood, and I’d feel terrible about turning him down.
I dressed in a short-sleeve light green button-down and a pair of grey slacks, since we were going to meet a lawyer, and I felt like I had to look a little more formal than a t-shirt and shorts, like what Elliot was wearing. I wasn’t judging. He didn’t need to come in to see Humbolt, after all. In fact, he probably couldn’t, since Momma wouldn’t have known he even existed, so he wouldn’t have been mentioned in whatever she wanted to give Noah and me—or whatever she wanted to require us to do.
My breakfast sandwich—sourdough, smoked salmon, egg, capers—was actually pretty good, as were the hashbrowns, which probably meant they werereallygood, since it felt like my tastebuds were as numb as the rest of me.
I didn’t particularly want to stay long enough in Staunton to test the theory, even if there was a place with good sandwiches.
And coffee. I had the feeling that I was going to need quite a bit of that, at least.
My watch vibrated, and I stopped the alarm I’d set to tell me I needed to go to meet Humbolt.
Elliot slid off the side of the bed, shoving the last of his sandwich in his mouth.
“You don’t have to come with me,” I said.
“Yes, I do.” He said it simply, as though it were a fact.
I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.
The Law Officesof Humbolt and Mallard were in that kind of quaint main-street-style building that had probably served as a storefront for the better part of the last hundred years. The door led up a flight of stairs, and I winced my way up them, having convinced Elliot to go back down the street to get us both more coffee while I went in alone.
He’d clearly not been happy about it, but he’d gone, his jaw set.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want him with me… I did. I just didn’t know what Humbolt would say. Whether it would be a problem for me to have someone with me not mentioned in the will and who wasn’t family. Whether it would be a problem that I wanted to bring my shifter boyfriend with me.
I knew that would be a problem with the Community, but I didn’t know how much sympathy Humbolt had for their views. Whether Momma had chosen him because he shared their beliefs—or some of them, anyway—or because he didn’t.
Because that had occurred to me, too. The idea that maybe Momma, who had always looked away when Father or one of the other senior Community leaders had taken me or Noah to task about something, wasn’t as dedicated to the Community as she had been in the past. Maybe she’d wanted to find us because she wanted to leave. Or because she wanted us to know that she was sorry. That she really did love us, despite all we’d been put through.
That was the fantasy I had, anyway.
One that was pretty much ruined by the fact that even if that had been what she was doing, now she was dead. Maybe she hadreached out to Humbolt because she was dying. Or maybe she’d been killed because of it.
Either way, I wasn’t ever going to have a mother who loved me for me.
I pulled a mask out of my pocket, plain navy blue, because I also didn’t know how Humbolt felt about shifters, and I didn’t want to put him off either because of that or because he might think I was rude for not wearing a mask if he assumed I was human.
