Free Pizza My Heart 1 by Glenna Sinclair Page B

take what I could get.
    “You need to come,” I told him.
    “Ladies first.”
    It was already late afternoon by the time we got back to the cottage, even though it seemed as if no time had passed at all.
    “Nana, we’re home,” I said, putting the bouquet of flowers on the table. “Are you awake? Feeling better? Need another hair of the dog?”
    She didn’t answer. I went through all of the bedrooms looking for her, but it didn’t really panic until I saw her oxygen tank left on the floor in the entryway.
    “Where could she have gone?” I all but wailed, clutching my hair in two handfuls.
    “Stop,” Devon admonished. “We’ll find her. We just have to think.”
    “Her oxygen tank is right here,” I said, pointing viciously to the floor. “She needs it, Devon. She needs it to breathe.”
    “She can’t have gone far,” he reasoned. “We’ll find her very quickly.” How was his voice so calm? Maybe if it were his nana, he’d be more upset. His logic enraged and panicked me.
    “How can we find her if we don’t even know where she is?” I demanded. “This isn’t like her to just disappear. What if someone took her?”
    “June, no one in this village would take your nana,” Devon said. “Maybe she just felt like getting out and getting some fresh air.”
    “But in her wheelchair?” I moaned. “Without her oxygen tank?”
    “Come on.”
    Devon led the charge out the front door of the cottage, laughing shortly as he pointed at the wooden steps. I followed his finger to see some black streaks of rubber on the edges of the stairs.
    “Goddammit, Nana,” I muttered. “Could you picture her taking the stairs like this?”
    “Yes, yes, I can,” Devon said, chuckling. “Looks like Nana just wanted a little adventure. She wasn’t about to be cooped up in here all day long.”
    “She’s the one who sent us on the errand,” I moaned. “Why would she do that if she wanted us to take her out instead?”
    “The beach,” he said suddenly, snapping his fingers. “That’s where we’ll find her.”
    I took off at a dead sprint, Devon on my heels. It made perfect sense. Nana had gushed about the beach scene in his movie, about how gorgeous it was, how badly she’d like to visit it. That’s why we’d come all this way, after all, no matter what Devon’s intentions might’ve been. It was so Nana could see the beach. I just didn’t understand why she didn’t wait for us, for me.
    The path down to the water was treelined and littered with rocks, and I cringed when imagining her braving it by herself. I hoped she’d have accepted someone’s help to navigate down to the beach, but if she’d cruised down the stairs by herself, I wouldn’t put the rest past her.
    “She’s there!” Devon shouted. He stood behind me but taller, able to see through the clearing before I could.
    “Thank God,” I panted, grateful beyond measure that Devon had seen her and been struck by the notion that she was here in the first place. She was going to get an earful from me. This was insane, unacceptable behavior. Nana knew her limitations. It was the whole reason I lived with her and helped her. She needed me. She couldn’t be on her own.
    “Nana!” I called, wading through the sand toward her wheelchair, my sneakers slipping on the surface, forcing me to lope. “You’re in trouble!”
    My relief at finding her was lessened with the understanding that something was very wrong. Her oxygen tank wasn’t mounted on the back of her wheelchair like we usually had it rigged up. I wondered how she even got down here—how long she’d been here, alone on the beach.
    “Nana, you’re grounded,” I told her as I jogged up. “Seriously. We’re going back to Dallas this instant. You scared the hell out of me. You couldn’t have even left a note? We would’ve taken you down to the beach, if you’d just told us you wanted to go.”
    I said all of this, knowing it was still wrong. Knowing that I was talking to