Page 115 of And Now, Back to You

“To get another one of these powdered doughnut things, and to get you a cronut, since you are seemingly bound to the table for the time being.” She grins at me, and another happy and completely foreign swoop twists beneath my sternum. She collects some of our plates, balancing them in her arms. “Lottie made fancy pastries as an apology and I’m not mad about it.”

“Wait.” I reach out and grip her arm. Rub my thumb along the inside of her wrist, just because I can. Words stick on my tongue. Promises I have no business making. Declarations that aren’t suited to half-deserted lodge lobbies. I swallow all of it down, and push it to a place to deal with later. When we’re back home, maybe. “Can you get me two cronuts?”

If Delilah notices my deflection, she doesn’t comment on it, flitting off in the direction of the pastries but getting sidetracked by the same trucker at the fireplace. He looks flabbergasted by her sudden attention, blinking up at her from beneath his hood like she’s a particularly bright and shiny foreign object that’s dropped directly out of the sky.

“She making friends again?”

Mark appears at the end of the table with a bag of jerky, a scarf wrapped so many times around his neck that only the top half of his face is visible.

“Yeah,” I answer. “I think so.”

Mark drags a char from a nearby table to ours. He unwraps some of his scarf. “Once, when we were on assignment in North East, she convinced a bunch of duck farmers to let her hold the babies.” He shakes his head. “Almost came back with thirty-two ducklings in the news van.”

“I believe it.”

On the other side of the lobby, Delilah resumes her quest for pastries, but stops by another table, seemingly greeting the two older men there by name. She points to the folded-up newspaper, plucks a pen out of one of their front shirt pockets, and quickly scribbles something on it. I’m tracking her like a weather system, watching as she drifts over to the tables.

“Have you heard anything from Keith?” I ask.

“Nope.” Mark takes a gargantuan bite of jerky. “I imagine he’s nursing his wounds. He doesn’t like being eclipsed in popularity, and Delilah has been doing that since she joined the station.”

“Is there a plan for when you get back?” I’m worried that when I’m not around to play buffer, Keith is going to become more antagonizing toward Delilah. “How are you going to—”

Glass shatters somewhere nearby. My head snaps up and Delilah is standing just a few steps from the table she just abandoned, her phone to her ear, the plate she was holding in pieces at her feet. But it’s the look on her face that has me pushing out of my chair and striding across the lobby, gripping her elbow as soon as I’m close enough to reach for her.

“What is it?” I ask. “What’s happened?”

Her face is pale, her big brown eyes filling with tears. She slips the phone away from her ear, holding it limply at her side.

“It’s my grandpa,” she manages, voice thick. “He had a fall. They said—” She wets her lips, chin trembling. “The nurse said they don’t know how bad it is. That he hit his head and there was a lot of blood and—”

Her breath hitches and she stops. Tries to collect herself. My grip slips up until my fingers are curled around her bicep, tugging her into me. “They’re taking him to the emergency room now,” she whispers into my chest, nose against the hollow of my throat. “They’re taking him to the hospital and I’m here and the roads are—I don’t even know what the roads are like and, I don’t know when I can get there and—”

“Shh, it’s all right.” I smooth my hand over her hair. “I’m gonna get you back there.”

“How?” Her voice wobbles, clouded with tears.

“Trust me,” I whisper. “Let me take you home.”

It’s a relief to slip into problem-solving mode. Like this, my brain and my body work together. Get Delilah home pounds through my mind like a war drum. A clear set of stepping stones to walk across until I’m at the other side.

I send Delilah to the room to pack while I track down Lottie. A quick conversation confirms that the roads are still in no state to be driven on, and my stomach sinks.

“How long, do you think?”

Lottie glances out the window. The parking lot is a sea of smooth white, the road beyond sparkling in the midafternoon sun.

“The road crews here work quickly and likely have already started on the main routes in and out of town, but I’m worried about the ice. It could complicate things.” Her kind eyes find mine. “The priority in storms are hospitals and other social services, not hotels. I’m sorry, Jackson. But I don’t know if I can get you out of here today. Or even tomorrow.”

I thread my hands together behind my head. I’m about to grab a shovel and start making a path myself. “What if—”

“Hello, uh. I might be of some assistance.”

Dustin, the truck driver with a crush on Delilah, shuffles his way forward, his hat in his hands. He bends the bill of the cap, then smooths it out again.

“I don’t mean to overstep, but I was listenin’ from the corner.”

I wave him off, unconcerned with the semantics of eavesdropping. “Can your truck handle the roads?”