The electric whir of a golf cart had me pivoting on my crutch, and I sagged in relief when Jillie—who I only knew from photos—and Pops rolled up beside me with someone else seated in the back.
“You made it,” Jillie said with a smile, but I couldn’t spare her any attention. Not with Pops, who could have been a stand-in for Sam Elliott with his bushy mustache, dark eyebrows, and gray hair, sitting beside her in a button-up Hawaiian shirt and…jorts.
My gaze zeroed in on his bare knees.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen his knees, but there they were. Just…there.Looking at me.
And I couldn’t stop looking back.
This year was really menacing me. Why could I seethisso clearly, but not the girl-slash-woman-slash-hardy-senior-citizen I’d almost killed?
Sometimes I thought the universe hated me—at least a little bit.
“Addy?” Pops asked, and I plucked at my shirt, pulling it away from my sticky skin as I lifted my gaze to his face. “You okay?”
No, considering I was just thinking thatI might need a pair of jorts to survive this weather.
“All good,” I said, shrugging out of my flannel. How much social credit would I lose if I tied it around my waist? My eyes flicked down to Pops’s knees again, and I yanked off my glasses to clean the lenses with the sleeve of my flannel.
“Well, well,” a voice said from beside me, making mejump and then scramble to not drop my glasses. “Hello there, young buck.”
I turned toward the newcomer as I put my glasses back on, then flicked my gaze to the now empty spot in the back of the cart. When I turned back to her and found her probing gaze on me, I bundled up my discarded flannel and held it in front of me like a shield.
She was definitely a resident here, based on her… umm. If everything about her was anything to go by.
“Oh, Wilbur. He’s such a strong, young man,” the older woman crooned as she turned her attention to Pops. “And you said he’s staying for the weekend?”
“That’s right,” Pops said, still sitting in the golf cart.
I surreptitiously glanced down at the older woman’s knees to check for scrapes, though surely if this were the woman from earlier, she would’ve recognized me.
She’d also likely be in the hospital.
Since my brain was officially addled at this point, I also took a discreet inhale of the woman, and my sensitive nose scrunched.
Menthol and roses.
Not a hint of lavender.
“Gracious, young man. If I were ten years younger,” she said with a sigh.
I frowned at her, then at Pops, who just shrugged unhelpfully.
The woman stepped in front of me, blocking my view of Pops, and held out her hand. “I’m Lenora C. Apworth, but you may call me Miss Lenny.”
I smiled and took her offered hand, noting the rings on nearly every finger and several clunky bracelets on her wrist. “Adair, ma’am. It’s nice to meet you.”
She kept hold of my hand and covered it with her other. “I’m part of the unofficial welcoming committeehere at Live Oak. We’ve just about finished giving Wilbur the grand tour of the grounds.”
Pops appeared beside her then, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his…
I glanced down because I just could not help myself, and yep. They were still there.
His jean shorts.
He arched a bushy eyebrow at me that dared me to comment and then nodded at Miss Lenny and Jillie. “We’re good from here, ladies. Thank you for the tour.”
“Here, don’t forget this,” Jillie said, rounding the golf cart and holding out a folder to Pops with the Live Oak logo on the front. “Director Links’s assistant will call me soon for an exact time for tomorrow’s meeting. Morning is usually the best time for these kinds of things, so that’s my best guess right now.”
