Page 10 of Won't Back Down
They exchanged another look before Mama Flo turned away to plate up the eggs.
What is that about?
Mimi sipped at her coffee. “It’s good she’s letting you help. She’s shot down everyone else.”
Willa wasn’t one to share her pain with others. Never had been, and that had only gotten more pronounced in the years since she came back to the island.
“You always had a way with her.” Mama Flo slid a plate in front of me. “Eat up. I expect there’s a lot to do.”
Dutifully, I dug into the eggs. “How has Willa been doing, really?”
These two women might not keep quite as close an eye on Willa as they would on one of the Wayward Sons, but they still looked out as much as she’d let them. Mama Flo had been instrumental in getting Willa into the grant writing she did for a living, including hiring her for freelance work from time to time, and Mimi dearly loved gossip, so if there was anything to know, she probably did.
Predictably, she was the one who answered. “She’s doing as well as can be expected. It was good and bad that she reconnected with her grandparents. Since she came back to the island, she’s done what her mother never did, devoting herself to giving back to Hatterwick, upholding the Sutter family name. Henry and Vivian were so incredibly proud of who she’s become. But for her to lose them like this, practically back-to-back…”
It would have left her reeling. Especially with Jace not around for support.
“What about her parents? Have they been back to the island since she moved home? She hasn’t mentioned it to me, but I don’t know that she would have.”
Mama Flo pulled out a chair and sat. “Both of them came back the first year she was here. They clearly thought they’d be able to cow her into doing whatever they wanted, but they severely underestimated her.”
I barely held in a growl. “They’ve been doing that all her life.”
“True enough. Anyway, her mother’s been back a couple of times, allegedly to check on Henry and Vivian, but Willa wouldn’t see her. Since then, they’ve left her alone, so far as we know.”
I scowled down at the remains of my eggs. “Did they really not come back when her grandmother died?”
“No. Vivian was in the hospital on the mainland when she passed, and Henry insisted they weren’t having a funeral or memorial at that time. That they wanted to be honored together after he went. So that’s what Willa’s planning to do.”
Mimi leaned against Mama Flo on the bench seat in the window. “Maybe you can use that influence of yours to get her to open up to the idea of taking help from the rest of us. She shouldn’t have to handle all this on her own.”
“I don’t know how much influence I’ve got, but I’ll see what I can do.” Shoving back from the table, I took my empty plate to the sink and rinsed it off before loading it into the dishwasher. “Thanks for breakfast. I need to be getting on.”
As I headed out to my truck, I made a mental note to find some time to look for a place of my own. I didn’t feel right just camping out in their guest room, even though I knew they were completely okay with it and probably would enjoy the chance to mother me a bit. I was afraid that mothering would turn more into smothering, simply because I was the only one of their adopted chicks here at the moment. But that all had to wait. Right now, Willa came first.
The shadows under her eyes, when she answered the door of the little bungalow she shared with Bree, told me she’d spent a restless night. I wondered if that was because of the stress over her parents’ impending invasion or if this was more of her norm than I’d realized. Had she kept as much from me in those texts and emails as I’d kept from her?
“Mornin’. Ready to go?”
She reached for her purse. “Yeah.”
“Why don’t I drive?” Small though it was, it felt like something else I could take off her plate. Plus, it meant more time with her. I didn’t really feel like analyzing whether that was for her or for me.
Willa hesitated. “Roy is coming with me.”
As if summoned by the sound of his name, the big dog appeared at her side like a ghost. Hell, he’d rival some of the SEALs I’d met for stealth.
“That’s fine. A little dog hair never hurt anything.”
She retrieved some kind of seatbelt attachment from her Jeep and loaded Roy into the backseat of my truck. As soon as he was secure, she slid into the passenger seat. For a moment, I flashed back to that long ago night when I’d snuck her out hidden under a blanket in the backseat. God, it felt like a million years since then, but I was still every bit as aware of her sharing the space. Instead of the palpable anticipation she’d radiated on her escape that night, with every mile closer to Sutter House, her anxiety ratcheted up. She didn’t speak, and I didn’t press for conversation, letting her feel what she needed to feel. Nothing about this would be easy for her.
The house was more rundown than I remembered, though still a grand example of the architecture of its period. A big place like this was probably a lot for her aging grandparents to have kept up, even with hired help. After working construction after school for years before I left for the Navy, it was habit to scan the place, looking for needed repairs. The whole thing could do with a fresh paint job and having the myriad of windows washed, and the driveway needed a fresh load of crushed shells to replenish the bare spots. But there was evidence of some recent pruning and shaping of the bushes and landscaping, so it wasn’t completely untouched.
Roy didn’t bound off to investigate all the interesting scents when he was sprung from the backseat. Instead, he stayed close to Willa’s side, clearly attuned to her mood. She strode to the kitchen door with purpose, her shoulders resolute. But there, she hesitated, her hand hovering just over the knob.
“Are you okay?” It was a dumbass question. I could tell she wasn’t.
“Not really.” She dropped her hand. “I haven’t been able to make myself go back inside.”