do whatever amount of studying it takes to get out of there next year with a degree.”
“You don’t understand,” Kelsey said.
“Of course I do, sweetie. We all hit bumps in the road from time to time. We can’t let them throw us off course.”
“Mom, this isn’t that kind of bump in the road. I’m pregnant,” Kelsey blurted.
If Hannah hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have fainted dead away and probably cracked open her skull when she hit the floor. Apparently things could get worse. And now she knew how.
Chapter 2
Hannah had a splitting headache by the time she finally made her way downstairs to the kitchen in the morning. She’d replayed the conversation with Kelsey in her head over and over for the rest of the night, but not even her best editing skills could change the fact that her daughter was going to have a baby.
Grandma Jenny looked up as she entered the kitchen. “I thought you were going to sleep the day away,” she commented, then took a closer look. “You don’t look so good. Are you sick?”
Sick at heart, Hannah thought, but she kept it to herself. There’d be time enough to tell her grandmother what was going on after Kelsey arrived in the next day or two, as soon as she could get a flight from California. Hannah had made her promise not to make any big decisions or do anything drastic until they had more time to talk things through.
“I didn’t sleep much,” she told her grandmother. “A cup of coffee should perk me up, though.”
“Good. Then we can get started with that list. I’ve got some help lined up, so we need to get ourselves organized.”
The pounding in Hannah’s head took on a more urgent beat. “As soon as I’ve returned a few calls from my boss,” she promised, searching in a cupboard until she found a bottle of aspirin. She popped two of them. “He left a bunch of messages for me yesterday and I didn’t get them until it was too late to call back last night.”
A frown settled on Grandma Jenny’s face. “Why’s he bothering you? I thought you were quitting that job.”
“No, Gran, I didn’t quit,” Hannah explained patiently. “I’m just on vacation for a couple of weeks.”
“Well, you should give it up for good. This is where you belong. You’d be your own boss here.”
No, Hannah thought, she’d be answering to her grandmother, and as annoying as Dave Harrow could be from time to time, he was easier to deal with than Gran.
“Let’s not go there right now, okay?” Hannah pleaded. “I’m here for a couple of weeks and that’s it.”
Her grandmother waved off the explanation as if it were of no consequence. “But you’re still down here on your own time, am I right? Your boss shouldn’t be taking advantage of you like this. Anyone who works as hard as you do deserves to have a vacation that’s really a vacation. A boss who appreciates you would know that.”
“He’s not really taking advantage of me, Gran. I left without much notice. There are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up. Look, the call shouldn’t take long. You start on that list of renovations and we’ll go over it when I come back inside. I can get better cell phone reception on the porch.”
“Well, you’d best hurry. Some of the things we’re going to need aren’t available on the island. We’ll need to catch the eleven o’clock ferry if we expect to go to the mainland today.”
Hannah grimaced. That was yet another reason not to live in Seaview. It was too inconvenient. If they missed the eleven o’clock ferry, there wouldn’t be another one until four-thirty, too late to head over to the mainland to shop. In all there were only four ferries daily, these two, plus one that left at 6:00 a.m., mostly for people who worked on the mainland, and a final one at eight, which catered mostly to those who’d taken a day trip to Seaview Key, stayed for dinner and then wanted to head back.
“I’ll hurry,” she promised.
She took her cell phone and coffee out to the porch, choosing a comfortable wicker chair at the far end where the sun had created a pool of warmth on the chilly morning. She took a long sip of coffee, then turned her face up to the sun, wishing she didn’t have to make the call. It wasn’t going to go well. Dave hadn’t been happy about her asking for this unplanned vacation, especially after all the months when her schedule had been totally unpredictable because of her chemo treatments.
Reluctantly, she dialed the direct line to his office. “Hey, Melinda, it’s Hannah. Dave was trying to reach me yesterday, but I was traveling and had my phone off. Is he available now?”
“Yes,” his secretary said, then lowered her voice. “But I should tell you he’s on the warpath. Even though you briefed Carl before you left about the deadlines for the Parker account, he blew the very first one and Dave caught the fallout. Ron Parker was furious.”
Hannah muttered a few choice words. Carl Mason was useless, but Dave kept giving him second chances. He’d insisted that Hannah turn her accounts over to him while she was away. It was his fault that things had gone wrong, but she was going to have to bail them all out.
“Look, don’t put me through now. I’m going to call Ron and see if I can smooth things over. Then I’ll call back to speak to Dave.”
“Sure, hon,” Melinda said, but before they could sever the connection Hannah heard Dave in the background.
“Is that Hannah? Put her through right this minute,” he commanded.
“Sorry,” Melinda murmured.
“Not your fault.” She waited for Dave to pick up, then tried to do a preemptive strike. “Melinda filled me in on the problems with the Parker account. I was about to call Ron myself.”
“There wouldn’t be a problem with that account if you’d been handling it yourself,” he grumbled.
Hannah barely resisted the urge to correct him and say there wouldn’t have been a problem if Dave had assigned someone competent to fill in for her. She’d have been wasting her breath.
“Ron’s not going to be pacified with a phone call,” he told her. “You need to get back up here and do your job.”
“You know I can’t do that. There’s a family crisis and I need to handle it.”
“You’ve had a lot of crises lately,” Dave said. “Maybe this job isn’t as important to you as it once was.”
Hannah gasped at his insensitivity. “Do you honestly think I chose to have breast cancer just so I could inconvenience you? Do you think I wanted my mom to die or my grandmother to have difficulty coping with that, so I could take more time off?”
He backed down at once. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. I know you’ve been through hell, but you’re the best person on this team. When you’re out of the office, it has an impact.”
“Nice save,” she said dryly. “Look, it’s only for a couple of weeks. I gave Carl notes on every single thing that needs to
