She rounded the front of the truck and started up the walk. He was shifting the truck into drive to pull away when a movement caught his eye.

Marge came bustling across the yard, waving an arm at him. “Yoo-hoo.”

Bea stopped. Mitch gulped. When Marge waved her arm again, he rolled his window down.

“You headed to the church?” Marge stopped a couple of feet from the truck and put a hand to her chest. “Whew. I’m out of shape. Anyway, I was on my way, too. I’ll just hop in with you.”

Mitch resisted the urge to look to Bea for her reaction, but he knew she was watching and judging and jumping to conclusions. He could feel it.

“Uh . . . sure.” He put the truck back in park. “Might as well.”

This was what he’d tried to hide from Bea. That Marge was part of the meeting. Actually, it was Marge’s meeting to begin with. She wanted to talk with Frank about using the church building for a fundraiser for CJ’s family. According to Frank, she had big plans. And somehow Mitch had gotten roped into them.

Mitch hadn’t realized it was possible to bounce into a truck, but that was what Marge did. Everything about her was bouncy. She buckled her seat belt with more energy than he’d had in months.

Before he could roll his window back up, Bea called to him with a smirk, “You kids have fun.”

He was sure the tips of his ears were flaming red.

Turning the truck around, he headed toward the church, praying with greater fervency in his soul than he’d had in a while that Frank would not see him and Marge drive up together. Nothing like a woman to send Mitch pleading at the foot of the Almighty’s throne.

Marge leaned toward him as much as the seat belt would allow. “What were you and Bea up to today?”

“We were just up at the ranch is all.”

“Your mom seemed to be doing well on Sunday at the party. Did I hear you mention you were back at the neurologist’s last week?”

He hadn’t told her about that, had he? Taking his mother to the neurologist wasn’t something he would mention.

“Dorothy said that Frank said that you took Friday morning off work again.”

Aha.

“Yes.” Mitch turned down Main Street and cringed as several people peered into his truck as they drove past. Why hadn’t he gone the back way? “We had a follow-up appointment.”

“How did it go?”

Still reeling from his painful conversations with his dad and Bea, he shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it. Not again.

“I’m sure this whole thing has been very difficult for you.” She made a sympathetic humming kind of sound. “Has the doctor given you a diagnosis?”