Dana hiked a hip on the old wooden stool behind the counter and reached for her candy. “We’ll take care of him if he is, but I can’t imagine runnin’ this place without him. It was tough losing Flora, but Uncle Zed is the cornerstone now.” She blinked several times to keep the tears at bay.

“He said it was just a checkup and he’s never lied to us, so . . .” Tawny gulped twice. “I need a cup of coffee to go with this. You can put three cups on my bill and I’ll get us each one.”

“I’d rather have a bottle of milk,” Harper said.

“Lord love a duck!” Dana laughed. “I never thought I’d hear you say that you wanted to drink milk.”

“Or that Tawny wanted coffee over Pepsi or beer.” Harper tore the wrapper back from her candy.

Tawny went to the back of the store and brought back a pint of milk, then drew up two cups of coffee. “I’ve decided to quit drinkin’ anything alcoholic. So coffee, sweet tea, and soft drinks are the future.”

“Nick got something to do with that?” Dana asked.

“A lot.” Tawny nodded. “He said he didn’t have the courage to call until last night. He’d planned to go fishing on Monday evening and stop by my porch to see if I might be sitting outside. But it was raining. I done figured that my clumsiness and inability to say the right things scared him away.”

“And?” Harper asked.

Tawny smiled. “We talked for an hour about everything and I didn’t want to hang up, but he said he’d call again.” The smile faded. “But that’s not the issue here today. Uncle Zed is. I overheard him talking to Granny Annie last night when I had the window open in my cabin. Do you think there was anything between them other than friendship? He called her Annie darlin’ when he was talkin’ to her.”

“He calls us darlin’ all the time. It’s just an expression,” Dana said. “The cough comes from him smokin’ like a chimney, but . . .” She sighed.

“But what?” Tawny asked.

“But we need to know what’s wrong. Or if anything is,” Dana answered.

“He’ll tell us when the time is right,” Harper said.

Tawny picked up her coffee and candy and said, “See y’all later. I’m going to go get completely caught up on my book work. If the sun comes out, we’ll have a full house starting tomorrow and through the weekend, so I’ll be busy cleaning and doing laundry.”

The doctor’s vehicle was gone when she passed the café, and Zed had taken up his usual place on the bench with a cigarette in his hand. “Glad to see the sun. Rain makes my old bones ache,” he said.

She stopped and really looked at him. His face had always been thin and now it was wrinkled, but Tawny couldn’t see that his eyes were yellowed or that his hands were shaking any more than usual.

“Me too,” she said. “How often does it get this slow around here?”

“Couple or three times a year. Annie hated it. She was a real busy bee.” Zed crushed the cigarette butt on his heel. “She hated for me to smoke. I started over there in Vietnam, and when I got home, I tried all that stuff to quit—the gum and patches and pills—but I just couldn’t break the habit.”

“Shhh . . .” She put her finger over her lips. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m addicted to cherry sours.”

“That a drink?” Zed asked.

“No, it’s those little round sour candies that are two packs for a dollar in most convenience stores. I’d buy two on payday and make them last all week when I was working in the coffee shop. Being poor and not having anything I wanted was a real test, Uncle Zed. But the worst one was having the willpower to only eat my daily allotment and leave the rest alone,” she told him.

“Better than whiskey, I guess,” Zed chuckled. “I hear a couple of cars turning this way. I’d best get on inside.”

She watched him closely as he got up. He didn’t seem a bit slower than usual, and he wasn’t shuffling like some old people who used to come into the coffee shop every morning. Maybe it was just a plain old checkup.

On Thursday there wasn’t a cloud in the sky—not even a wispy little white one up there like a big long string of cotton candy. Harper kept a close eye on Zed, though nothing seemed unusual. He had a coughing fit that morning, but it sounded dry, like those that smokers get, not rattling like someone who was sick. He wasn’t as spry as he’d been when she was a little girl, but who was?

In the middle of the afternoon, she left him alone and headed out to the laundry, where Tawny was sitting in a folding chair reading a book. She hopped up on the folding table, her legs dangling while the small oscillating fan whipped her ponytail from side to side.

Tawny laid her book to the side. “I’ll be glad when tomorrow gets here. Cabins have been cleaned and my book work is caught up. I’m bored.”

“Been slow in the café, too, but it picked up a lot today. We ran out of the meat loaf special at two o’clock. Brook will be here soon. Maybe she’ll cheer you up,” Harper said.

“Johnny is riding home with her on the bus, and they’re going to study for some big test they’ve got tomorrow. But . . .” Tawny’s eyes twinkled. “That means Nick is coming to get him this evening. And that reminds me, how are things with Wyatt?”