The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

out and walked.”
    God only knew how far she’d walked before she saw something that looked familiar to her shrouded mind—the newspaper office—and went inside. It was strange, Dixie thought, but some things about her aunt hadn’t changed. Like her indomitable spirit. She might not have known where she was, how she got there or how to get home, but she hadn’t given up.
    It had been weird, going back and forth between the two hospital rooms. Dixie and her mother laughed about it, agreeing that the hospital really ought to put the sisters on the same floor to make things easier for their visitors.
    Little aftershocks of fear kept pinging through Dixie when she thought about what might have happened.She wished she could find the owners of that car and thank them for not locking it. She wished…a huge yawn shut down her fuzzy thoughts.
    “We’re there,” Cole said, pulling up in the driveway of Jody’s home.
    So they were. It was ten o’clock at night after an extraordinarily long day with almost no sleep the night before. She was brain-dead with fatigue, but she did notice it when Cole got out, too.
    Dixie stopped with one foot on the porch, staring at him through narrowed eyes. She ought to shake his hand, thank him and send him on his way. That would be the smart thing to do…only she was so tired. And it felt so right for him to be here.
    His wry smile suggested he’d guessed some of her thoughts. “C’mon, warrior,” he said, draping an arm around her shoulders and nudging her toward the door. “You can be tough tomorrow. Tonight you’re staggering like a drunk woman. You need sleep.”
    She let him steer her into the house, then pulled free. “You’re not sleeping with me,” she informed him as she headed upstairs, but her voice may have lacked conviction. The yawns were hitting with every other word now.
    He didn’t follow her up the stairs, though, so it seemed he’d accepted the boundaries she’d set. Good, she told herself. But she felt weepy with frustration when she couldn’t find her suitcase. Where had Merry put the stupid thing?
    Never mind. She stripped and climbed into bed,and that was all she knew for several hours…except for a few moments when she rose partway from the depths and noticed Cole’s arm around her waist, his breathing steady and quiet in the darkness.
    That was all right, then. She went back to sleep.
    She woke at nine-ten the next day—rested, alone and confused.
    For several minutes she lay quietly in bed, remembering the day before. And the night, when nothing had happened…except that it had, somehow. While she was sleeping, something had changed.
    When she pushed back the covers and sat up, she smelled bacon and saw her suitcase. Had it been by the foot of the bed all along, or had Cole brought it up?
    A frown pleating her forehead, she gathered some clothes and headed down the hall to the bathroom for a shower. Thirty minutes later, she went downstairs.
    She wasn’t surprised to find Cole still there, reading the paper. “Your mom and your aunt both spent a good night. We can pick Jody up around noon.”
    We? She nodded cautiously, heading for the coffeepot. “Thanks for checking on them.”
    “I wanted to know, too. Coffee’s reasonably fresh,” he added, looking back at his paper, “but the bacon’s cold. Do you want some eggs?”
    Her mouth twitched. His one culinary achievement. “I’m okay with bacon and toast.” She padded to the pantry and took out the bread.
    Neither of them spoke as Dixie put together a simple breakfast. Cole seemed entirely comfortable with both the silence and the company. Or else he was just absorbed in his newspaper.
    Dixie, on the other hand, felt uncharacteristically awkward, off balance. Naturally this made his ease irritating. “Anything interesting in the news?” she asked as she brought her toast, bacon and coffee to the table.
    He looked up with a slight smile. “You interested in the Dow Jones?”
    “No.”
    “Then probably not.” He went back to his paper.
    She resisted the urge to snatch it out of his hands, congratulated herself on her maturity and applied herself to her meal.
    He’d left the back door open. The air was fresh and surprisingly warm, the sky clear and sunny. She could hear birds talking to each other, the hum of tires on the street out front and giggles mixed with bouncing noises from next door. The kids there had a trampoline.
    Cole had never liked having the TV or radio on