A couple of people glanced their way, but the noise level in the garden had risen back to deafening levels—MG doubted most people could hear anything further than a couple of feet away.
“Are you done?” he asked. “Can you come inside with me? Clem said she’d fix us something to eat in the kitchen.”
“I’m done for now. Let me put the guitar in my case and then we can go.”
Once she’d grabbed the case, Joe grasped her hand, working his way through the crowd as he moved toward the side entrance. MG took the chance to check the tables again for the phantom Aunt Nedda who’d probably never been there in the first place. As if her great-aunt would be caught dead in the Faro.
It was only because they were held up for a moment as Joe tried to navigate around a group of boys who looked too young to be drinking that she saw her at all. Great-Aunt Nedda huddled on a bench, her eyes closed tight.
She dropped Joe’s hand and fell to her knees beside her, suddenly aware of just how very old she was. “Aunt Nedda,” she murmured. “Aunt Nedda, can you hear me? Aunt Nedda, it’s Mary Grace.”
She grasped her great-aunt’s hand, frightened by the chill on her skin. “Aunt Nedda,” she said more forcefully.
Joe’s hand fell on her shoulder. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. I think she’s sick. We need to call an ambulance or something.”
Aunt Nedda’s eyelids fluttered suddenly, and then she was staring at MG. Her bony fingers fastened tight around her wrist. “Hurts,” she croaked.
MG squeezed her hand. “Hang on, Aunt Nedda. We’ll get people here to help you.”
“Don’t leave.” Her fingers tightened almost painfully. “Stay.”
“I won’t leave you,” she said, glancing back at Joe again. He turned and began pushing his way more urgently through the crowd.
Aunt Nedda stared at her blankly. “Harmon?”
MG bit her lip. “No, Aunt Nedda. It’s just me. Mary Grace.”
After a moment, she nodded. “Harmon.”
MG blinked at her.
Delirious.
She took her other hand, holding them both in front of her. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’ll all be okay now.”
After a moment, Nedda nodded again. “Yes.”
Joe figured it wasn’t all that surprising that the Konigsburg Municipal Hospital was packed during a festival weekend. He
was
surprised that MG wanted to stay. Once her great-aunt had been admitted and was on her way to treatment, he’d assumed that would be it. He’d apparently assumed wrong.
MG sat on a plastic chair in the waiting room, her face pale in the fluorescent lights. He put his hand on hers and started to say everything would be all right. But then he stopped himself.
It wouldn’t be all right, of course. Nedda Carmody was a very old woman who’d had a very serious heart attack. Why she’d been in the Faro Tavern was anybody’s guess, but at least they’d been able to get her some help there. If it had happened at her house she’d probably be dead already.
He wondered briefly if Great-Aunt Nedda’s health problems would have any effect on the possible foreclosure at the farm. Knowing the way financial institutions worked, he doubted it. If MG couldn’t make the payment, she’d be out. His jaw tensed.
She’ll make the goddamn payment—or I will.
The door to the waiting room hissed open and MG’s head jerked up. The other two or three people in the room swiveled toward the doorway too. A doctor in scrubs stood just inside, holding a clipboard. “MG Carmody?” she called.
“That’s me.” MG stood a little shakily, and Joe stood too, his arm around her shoulders.
The doctor walked toward her briskly. “Your aunt’s been placed in the intensive care unit. She’s been stabilized. We’ll know more in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Is she going to die?” MG asked flatly.
The doctor paused, looking slightly less self-assured than she had before. “Her condition is very serious. At her age, it’s difficult to give a definite prognosis. As I said, we’ll monitor her for the next twenty-four hours.”
Which meant Great-Aunt Nedda was likely to die if he was any judge. He pulled MG closer. “Will you get in touch with us if her condition changes?”
“Of course.” The doctor was back to brisk again. “I’d advise you to go home for now. If anything happens, we’ll let you know.” She gave MG a quick nod, then moved smartly back toward the door.
“Come on.” Joe pushed MG gently toward the same door, one arm firmly across her shoulders. “They have your cell phone number—you don’t need to stay. You do need to eat something. And then you need to get some sleep.”
She nodded mechanically. “I guess.”
“Do you want to go back to the Faro?” He was guessing not, given what had happened the last time they were there.
“Is my guitar in your truck?”
He nodded. “I picked it up when you went with your great-aunt in the ambulance.”
She shuddered. “Then no.”
“Let’s go back to the farm. I’ll fix you something there. You do have food there, right?”
She nodded again. “I think so.”
“Then let’s go.”
MG did, in fact, have some food in her refrigerator, although it wasn’t much to brag about. Joe fixed a couple of hamburgers and pulled down a bag of potato chips. He didn’t feel much like doing anything fancy himself.
She ate automatically. He wasn’t sure she even knew what she was putting in her mouth.
“I didn’t like her,” she said flatly after she’d pushed her plate away.
He didn’t have to ask who
her
was. “Understandable. She was trying to make your life miserable.”
“But she was Grandpa’s sister. It’s like I’m losing him all over again.”
“She may get better.”
But she probably won’t.
They both knew that.
“She may. I guess…I’d like to talk to her again. See if we could work some things out. For Grandpa’s sake.”
“It might happen.”
“She kept asking for this guy in the ambulance. One of the attendants said he was a lawyer.”
“Did they say someone would contact him?”
She nodded.
“Maybe she had something to take care of in her will. Does she have any kids?”
“A daughter. I don’t know where she is—my mom might. I’ll have to call her.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then pushed herself to her feet. “Got to feed the chickens. They don’t care how much crisis I’ve got in my life.”
“Nope.” He pushed his own chair back. “That’s the thing about livestock. They’ve got their own timetable. I’ll do it. You stay here.”
He switched on the yard light as he stepped out the back. By now, of course, the chickens were asleep, or they were supposed to be. He’d refill the feeder and the water bottle and check on things in minimal time without disturbing them any more than he had to. Then he was going to get MG into bed, one way or another, with no ulterior motive whatsoever. The woman needed to sleep, and so did he since he had a contest tomorrow.
He had started toward the gate, grabbing the bag of cracked corn, when something thudded against his leg. He stared down.
Into the outraged eyes of a leghorn rooster.
He blinked. “Robespierre?”
The rooster pecked at his ankles again, squawking.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see MG sprinting across the yard. “Robespierre,” she cried. “You came back!”
The rooster swiveled toward her, then went on the attack, pecking at her feet. MG danced back out of reach, her lips spreading in the first smile he’d seen since they’d found her great-aunt. “I’m so glad to see you, I’m even willing to overlook the fact that you’re trying to perforate me.”
“Let’s get him into the chicken yard so he’ll still be here tomorrow morning.” Joe opened the gate then managed to shoo the attacking rooster inside the fence.
MG narrowed her eyes. “Why does he look so weird?”
Joe gave the rooster a more thorough inspection than he had before. Brown body. Flopping coxscomb. Tail? He paused, narrowing his eyes. “He lost his tail.”
Where he’d once had a proud stand of black feathers, Robespierre now sported a couple of limp quills. “No wonder he’s pissed.”
“He’s always pissed,” MG said affectionately. “Now he just has a specific reason for it.” She reached into the bag of cracked corn and tossed a handful in front of the rooster. “Here you go, you old reprobate. They’ll grow back. At least”—she glanced at Joe—“I assume they will, right?”
“Can’t see why they wouldn’t. Coyote must have gotten pretty close.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. He got away. Good for you, Robespierre. Welcome back.”
Joe sighed, heading for the hen house. “Let’s get the ladies fed and then go back inside. I’m beat, and you should be too.”
MG slid her arm around his waist. “Yeah, I am. But all of a sudden I feel a little better than I did.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Joe was up at five on Saturday morning. He didn’t necessarily want to be, but his brain wouldn’t let him sleep any longer. He slid out of bed as quietly as he could, glancing back once at MG. She lay on top of the sheets, her long legs slightly bent, her arms curved against her pillow, red-gold curls tousled around her head. He could see her lovely breasts and a small tuft of gold hair at the curve of her belly.
His groin gave a quick throb. Okay, probably not the best thing to be concentrating on if you want to get up and moving.
He took a quick shower, running his hand over the stubble of hair on his scalp. He should shave it off. Or maybe not. Maybe if he got through this miserable competition without losing his cool, he’d let it grow out again. He wondered if MG might like the idea.
Move it, asshole.
He headed for the kitchen and the coffee pot that was already perked. Maybe foodies were supposed to prefer French press, but he wanted his coffee hot and ready when he was. And that was now.
“Joe?”
MG stood in the doorway, curls wisping around her face, her T-shirt barely covering the essentials.
Ah, geez.
“Go back to bed,” he said shortly. “I need to do breakfast and start packing stuff up, but that’s no reason for you to get up.”
She shook her head. “Fat chance. Everybody in the kitchen’s going to be there. Even Jorge. And I need to check on Great-Aunt Nedda when there’s somebody there who can tell me how she is.”
She turned back into the bedroom where he heard sounds he assumed were related to putting on clothes. Ah well, there was always tonight.
Tonight. After the contest.
Shit, when had this stupid competition become so important? Probably since Todd Fairley had decided to go
mano a mano.
He smiled, thrusting his hands in his pockets. Somehow or other he was going to crush that little asshole, but first he was going to cook a few rings around him.
MG was right, of course. When they walked in, the kitchen was full—Jorge, Leo, Darcy, even Plac and his cousins. And Ezra, cowering in the corner.
Joe rubbed his hands together, feeling another jolt of adrenaline running through his system. “Okay, boys and girls, let’s get to it. Breakfast first. Jorge and Leo, after breakfast today, you’re in charge of the kitchen. I don’t care how you do it, but do it right. Lunch is likely to be big with all the tourists in town for the festival. I’ll do my best to get back in time for dinner, but I don’t know how long this thing is going to take so you might as well figure on doing that too.”
Jorge grimaced slightly, although given his normal deadpan it was hard to tell. Joe shook his head. “I’ll take brunch tomorrow. You can both stay home.”
“Who goes downtown with you?” Leo asked.
“MG can help us get everything inside and get set up. They only allow two chefs per restaurant so it’s just Darcy and me after that.”
“Anything else need to be prepped?” Plac looked more keyed up than anybody else in the kitchen.
Joe shook his head. “We’ve got it covered. Right?” He glanced toward Darcy. Correction, nobody was more keyed up than she was.
“We’re good,” she said, wiping her palms on her apron. “We’re super.”
He didn’t think he’d ever heard her use the word
super
before, but he decided to let it go.
“Okay, let’s do this.” He started toward the dining room, buttoning his jacket.
Jorge stepped in front of him, his lips edging up into one of the few smiles Joe had ever seen him give. “Kick him in the balls, Chef.”
Joe blew out a breath. “Yeah. That’s what I had in mind.” He managed his own grim smile, then buttoned the last button on his coat and settled his beanie on his head. If nothing else, he was going to cook the best damn omelets anybody in this hotel had ever tasted.
MG surveyed the large room that served as the competition kitchen. the Rose’s contingent was the first to arrive, although it was close to the official starting time at eleven. Somehow the people in charge of the contest had managed to lug four stoves in there, although they weren’t anything like the stoves in the kitchen at the Rose. For one thing, they were electric rather than gas, which she guessed wasn’t surprising. But they were also more like home kitchen stoves than the monsters she’d grown used to. No flattops, no salamander. One oven.