style="font-size:15px;"> Telling when she was truly annoyed was never hard. The pink in her cheeks flamed, and her eyes ignited. “Don’t treat me like an idiot, Hunter. I know what I’m doing. If you don’t want to be part of my vision for my future, then I’m taking it in another direction. And you have nothing to say about it.”
She’d done this with the money she’d tried to give him, the money from refinancing her home. Before he could say that buying the coffee cart was reckless, possibly even ill-advised, she turned around and walked back inside.
He took a step forward as she prepared to close the door on him. “Tomorrow in my office,” he said. “What time can you be there? We’ll set a date for the Closet opening and make a plan for the money for the nonprofits.”
“I’m meeting with Bjorn to sign papers tomorrow.”
“Can you meet Monday?”
“That’s Memorial Day. Aren’t you and the Raleighs going to Fort Stevens for the Civil War reenactment? I’m working with Bjorn.”
“That’s right. Tuesday, then?”
“I’ll call you. The way my life is right now, we may have to do it over the phone.”
That was what he should want—dealing with her over the phone rather than sitting across a table from her or side by side in a restaurant booth. It would simplify his life.
“All right. But, I promised the Food Bank an answer by Friday.”
“I’ll phone you in the middle of the week.” She started to close the door.
“Incidentally...” The single word stopped her. “What about the girls?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you have to open at 5:00 a.m., what about the girls?”
There were sparks in her smile. “I thought I’d sell them into slavery for some operating capital.”
He groaned at her. “I meant, daycare doesn’t open that early.”
“And how would you know when daycare opens?”
He waited a beat. “Rainbow Daycare is my client. I know a lot about them.”
“Well, it was a stupid question, Hunter. When have you known me not to consider my girls? I have to go. Goodbye.” She closed the door.
He stared at it for a moment, thinking he might want to simplify his life, but it didn’t seem to be happening.
* * *
SANDY CALLED HER MOTHER from the sidewalk in front of Toni’s Boutique, an elegant clothing store for women on Commercial Street, absentmindedly noting the colorful resort wear in the window.
“You did what?” her mother exclaimed after Sandy told her about Crazy for Coffee.
“I needed employment, so I bought a business so I could hire myself. Makes good sense to me.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Working for yourself only means more bills, not necessarily more income.”
“Mom, Hunter just did his best to discourage me. Come on. I need positive input. And Toni’s is having a sale. If you’ll watch the girls for me in the mornings between 4:30 and 7:00, when you’ll to take them to daycare, I’ll buy you an outfit.”
She heard her mother gasp. “Four...?”
“And a jacket,” she added quickly. “Just until I can hire someone for those hours. And a pair of shoes.”
Her mother was silent.
“And a car!” Sandy continued with theatrical extravagance. “Mom, I realize it’s a lot to ask...”
“Okay, Okay,” her mother said finally. “You’re lucky I’m an insomniac. I’ll do it. But it better be some car.”
CHAPTER FIVE
LORETTA SEPARATED PAPER plates while Sandy placed squares of cake on them. Bobbie added scoops of vanilla ice cream and Stella delivered to the crowd of little children gathered around two picnic tables in Sandy’s backyard. The yard sounded like Times Square on New Year’s Eve!
Bobbie scooped heroically from the two-gallon tub. “Who’d have thought such a big noise could come out of such little children?”
Sandy glanced up in surprise. “I don’t even notice noise anymore. The girls are always giggling or shrieking. My head rings continually.” She turned toward Stella, who stood in the yard near one of the tables and held up two fingers. “Okay, guys. Two more, then maybe we can have coffee and a piece of cake.”
Grateful for the rare sunny day in the coastal Oregon spring, Sandy smiled at the sight of her daughter and her daycare and neighborhood guests wearing their jackets and the plastic superhero capes she’d provided. She had fashioned the capes out of tarps she’d cut to shape, Bobbie had painted familiar superhero symbols on them, and all they’d had to do was convince the children to turn the capes around to the front when they sat down to eat.
Dylan, Bobbie’s eleven-year-old nephew by marriage who was helping keep order by tossing balls and leading races around the yard, frowned at Sandy. “Now those superhero capes are just bibs,” he accused.
Sandy whispered back, “Yes, but no one’s noticed yet, so please keep it to yourself.”
“Hmm. Trickery. Sweeet!” Dylan was clever and observant, and surprisingly patient with the younger children, unlike Sheamus, who found them childish from his lofty eight-year-old perspective.
The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it.” Dylan ran off while Sandy went out into the yard to investigate a sudden scream that rang out above the din. By the time Sandy reached a boy and girl throwing punches while rolling over each other in the grass, Stella was pulling them apart.
“What happened?” Sandy asked, drawing the boy toward her and dabbing what looked like a smear of blood on his forehead. Mercifully, it was only frosting.
Towheaded and freckled, Danny Hankins jabbed a finger at the sturdy girl with blunt-cut dark hair who was fuming. “She kissed me!” he shouted in disgust.
Stella bit back a laugh. Sandy, relieved nothing worse had happened, tried to sound reasonable. “But a kiss is a nice thing. Why would you punch her?”
“Because when I wouldn’t kiss her, too, she punched me! I was just offending myself.”
“Defending yourself. Molly.” Sandy leaned over the little girl, whose eyes betrayed hurt under the anger. Considering her own situation, Sandy felt a certain sympathy for her. “It isn’t nice to hit. And you can’t make somebody kiss you. They have to want to.”
“Well. You do understand that.” A taunting male voice made Sandy straighten. She looked up into Hunter’s smile. He wore jeans and a dark blue T-shirt with the Raleigh & Raleigh emblem on the pocket.
“Hello, Hunter.”
