Hello, Again (Book 2)

Old Beginnings

KATHERINE

I was halfway to the door when the phone rang.

Erland breezed past me, snatched the keys from the foyer table, and shot me a cheeky salute before closing the screen door behind him.

"I need the car, Erland!"

He shrugged and tapped his wrist as if to say, Can't wait forever.

The phone persisted.

Frustrated flared through me, but I swallowed it down. Every problem had a solution, right? I waved him on. "Start the car. I'll be there in a minute."

I fished my phone from my pocket and tapped out an apologetic response to Betsy. She wouldn't have a problem waiting at the bakery, but it may be more difficult to convince the cake designer to hold my spot. I clicked send, took a steadying breath, and lifted the home phone from the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Hey, sweetie." Mom's voice shook as she spoke, which instantly made me straighten, my free hand going to clutch the barstool at the island.

"What's going on?"

Mom let out a breathless laugh, and I worried for a moment if she was having an episode. She'd had a few in the years since her accident, bursts of moments where she would lose her sense of place or self. Enough to make her doctor prescribe some meds for when she couldn't be calmed. But those moments were punctuated mostly by hallucinations of Dad—and with trying to find the man that had been my birth father.

"What are you seeing, Mom?"

"I'm... I'm fine, Katherine. I'm okay. It's your grandfather."

I scowled. My empathy evaporated like dew under the springtime sun, just like it did whenever Mom bothered to tell me about the man that tried to ruin my life for the blood that flowed through my veins. "What now? You told him I wasn't going to pay for his cigarettes, right?"

A muffled sound came over the receiver, as Mom seemed to speak with someone beside her. The other voice came across annoyed, in curt tones, and when Mom returned, she sounded more strained than before.

"Mom, are you at the prison?" I fought the groan that threatened to escape me. "I told you not to bother with him—"

"Dad is sick, Katherine." She let out another shaky laugh. "The prison doctor even said he may not make it to the end of the week. They have to transfer him to the hospital. I'm going there now—"

"Mom, I can't do this right now—"

"Katherine, I need you to look on my laptop and find the contact for Mr. Justin Williams. I'll call you once I see him."

I started to protest more, but the dial tone signaled that Mom had hung up.

It'd been two years since I first came to Alabama to start work at Wayward. A year and a half since a judge sentenced Gramps to twenty years for conspiracy and fraud. It wasn't a life, but it might as well have been for his age—and it was still less than what that rat bastard deserved. Anger flared up in my chest and if I was still on the phone, I might have spit fire over the call.

I slammed the phone onto the receiver.

"Hey, Kat, I'm about to leave without you—" Erland entered the kitchen, swinging the keys around his finger. He froze when he saw me, the keys falling to the tiles with a discordant jingle.

He was at my side in an instant. "What's the matter?"

I pressed my lips together until I was sure I could keep my voice from shaking. "Mom called. Gramps is sick. She wants me to talk to the lawyer that wrote up his will."