I doubt he’d approve of me.” She blinked, adding quickly, “I mean, who would?”
“I would. I do.” The words spilled out, past the long list of safety regulations she was breaking and his professional standards. He wasn’t here looking for her phone number. With all the balls he was juggling—Dad’s health, launching the fire department, caring for Hannah while trying to find her real dad—he had no energy to put himself out there, no time for the slow ramp that led to friendship or perhaps something else. It was just...she had a way of making his gaze linger.
Mandy’s gaze slid to the bushes, and the color in her cheeks deepened. She hadn’t expected his endorsement, and given his intensity inside, he couldn’t blame her.
“What’s the word?” Dad called from inside the post office.
Thankfully, Dad couldn’t see them from where he sat because Ben would never hear the end of it if Dad witnessed how near he stood to Mandy, how long he’d been staring at her, the near foolish tilt to his grin.
“It’s as expected,” Ben called back gruffly, feeling just the opposite. He took a step back. Straightened. Cleared his throat. “The fire panel is offline.” Offline. It was where he needed to store his unexpected fascination with Mandy.
* * *
THAT NIGHT, MANDY was too tired to cook.
She was too tired to wash dishes.
Good thing it was Olivia’s day to do both.
Mandy dropped her purse and shoes in the middle of the living room floor and collapsed into a recliner. She stared at the black screen of the small TV, too tired to get back up and look for the remote. Although perhaps not too tired to indulge in a brief fantasy where a hunky fireman retrieved it for her.
And, despite the hunky fireman of her dreams bearing some resemblance to Ben, her hunky fireman didn’t lecture. He just smiled and looked hunky, as Ben had when they’d talked about her feeding Riley cat food. For a few minutes, she’d felt as if they were as comfortable with each other as a pair of well-worn sneakers. And a moment later, she’d felt as if she’d been caught wearing those sneakers on prom night when everyone else was in new sparkly heels.
“I’m home,” she called out for Olivia’s benefit, spotting the remote across the room next to Grandma’s sewing basket.
“I heard.” Olivia drifted in, blowing on her painted fingernails. Except for her manicure, everything about Olivia was minimal—light makeup, bare feet, lemon-colored spaghetti-strap blouse and those dreadful short-shorts. “Look what I did. It’s an American flag.” She angled her hand so Mandy could see. There were red-and-white stripes on some fingernails and white glittery stars on blue backgrounds on her thumbs.
“Very nice.” It was hard to deny her sister had talent when it came to nails, but, “How long did that take you?”
“All day.” Olivia flopped onto the blue plaid couch. It said something to their cleaning skills that no dust billowed.
“I thought we agreed that you’d apply for work today,” Mandy said carefully. That was the trick with teenagers. You had to walk on tiptoe when what you really wanted to do was screech about laziness and lost opportunities and, therefore, break some eggs. That’s what Mandy called the loss of control over her emotions. And losing control meant a pile of eggshells.
Olivia’s innocent brown eyes turned Mandy’s way. “I couldn’t go out without doing my nails.”
Eggshells. Eggshells.
“You realize you have one more day to find a job and then you’re coming to work for me.” Mandy could use her help. Anticipating that need when she’d landed the job, she’d made Olivia take the postal employee test. “I don’t like the idea of you being home alone.” What she would have preferred to have said was Olivia needed to earn her own nail polish money. But that would have been unnecessarily mean.
Olivia admired her nails, as relaxed as Mandy was uptight. “I looked online and there were no job listings.”
“Hence the obvious need to do your nails.” Unable to filter a brief spurt of sarcasm, Mandy drew a deep breath and tried again. “A town as small as Harmony Valley won’t have jobs posted online.”
“We might just as well have moved to the north pole.” Olivia flopped back against the couch, resorting to her best defense—drama. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s no mall or movie theater. What if there’s an emergency? What if I get sick?” She was winding up like a pitcher about to throw a third strike. “What if—”
“We’ve been over this.” Mandy was afraid her smile was slipping. “The nearest hospital is thirty minutes away. Plenty of time to seek care.”
Olivia changed tactics as swiftly as a guppy changed course in a fishbowl. “I didn’t want to move here.”
“Harmony Valley isn’t so bad.” Mandy stared longingly at the remote, wondering how much longer her sister’s energy for an argument would last.
“Mandy.” Olivia said her name as if Mandy was the one being unreasonable. “I meant I didn’t want to move here.” She patted the couch cushion with the heel of her hand, careful of her patriotic nails.
Mandy’s battered patience felt as brittle and treacherous as a thin layer of ice on a blind curve. “I told you. We have bills.” From Olivia’s follow-up medical care, the extras her insurance hadn’t covered. “And we need two months’ rent saved to get a house.” The town had only a few apartments available, and those were mostly studios above the old shops on Main Street.
The size of a place was a moot point. They didn’t have the cash. End of story.
“We’re squatting, Mandy,” Olivia said in a judgy tone, sitting up. “Are postal workers supposed to break the law?”
“No one is supposed to break the law,” Mandy said as stiffly as Ben had given his safety lecture earlier. “I’m the trustee of Grandpa’s estate. I pay the bills that keep the lights on in this house. We can stay here temporarily.” She should have stopped there. She didn’t. “Mom won’t mind.”
Hey, lightning didn’t strike.
Olivia’s chin jutted at the mention of their wanderlusting mother. “If you wouldn’t argue with Mom, she’d come by and see us.”
Mandy refrained from asking where Mom had been during Olivia’s bout with cancer. She refrained from raising her voice or rolling her eyes or giving in to the urge to cry. She’d become quite good at soldiering on, so she swallowed annoyance, gulped back uncertainty and washed it all down with despair, dredging up her most chipper voice. “Do you remember how Grandma and Grandpa danced in the kitchen on New Year’s Eve?” Remembering the good times was often the only thing that held Mandy and her smile together.
“No.” Olivia sniffed and slid her thumbnail along her cuticle. “I don’t remember stuff like that. I’ve got chemo brain.”
Or she just didn’t want to admit she remembered. Someday Mandy was going to find a memory her sister recalled. And then they’d sit together reminiscing. “Did you remember to cook dinner?” she asked, knowing the answer because the house
