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* * *
The next day, even though she wanted to pull the covers over her head and cry, Susan forced herself to climb out of bed early. She’d committed to spend her Saturday morning helping at the church’s food pantry, and honestly, even that might not have gotten her out of bed, but she knew her best friend, Daisy, was going to be there.
“Come on,” Daisy said when Susan dragged herself down the steps and into the church basement, “we’re doing produce. Hey, did you really get fired last night?”
Embarrassment heated Susan’s face as she followed her friend to an out-of-the-way corner where bins of spinach and lettuce donated by local farmers stood ready to be divided into smaller bunches. “Yeah. How’d you hear?”
“That sweet little Tawny Thompson spread it all over town, how you rescued her from some creepy businessman. What were you thinking?”
“He practically had his hand up her skirt! What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, tell the manager? Honestly, I would’ve done the same thing, but I’m not in your position. You needed that job!”
“I know.” Susan blew out a sigh as she studied the wooden crates of leafy greens. Her hopes of funding the summer respite her mom needed so desperately had flown out the window last night. “Waitressing at a nice restaurant like Chez La Ferme is definitely the best money I can make, but I get so mad at guys like that. I thought Max would back me up, not fire me.”
“Can you even send your brother to camp now?”
“Probably not. I shouldn’t have told him he could go, but when I landed this waitressing job and found out it could be full-time as soon as school lets out for the summer, I thought I had the fee easy. I had a payment plan, everything. Now...” She focused on lettuce bunches so Daisy wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. And to top it off, I might have to move home for the summer.” Even saying it made her heart sink. She loved Rescue River and had all kinds of plans for her summer here.
“Why? You’re always talking about how you and your mom...”
“Don’t get along? Yeah.” She sighed, wishing it wasn’t so, wishing she had a storybook family like so many of the Midwestern ones she saw around her these days. “I love Mom, but she and I are like oil and water. If I go back, honestly, it’ll stress her out more. I just want—wanted—her to have a summer to garden and antique shop with her friends, maybe even go on a few dates, without worrying about Donny.”
An older couple wandered over. “You guys okay? Need any help?”
“We’ve got it.” Daisy waved them away and carried a load of bagged lettuce to a sorting table. “So you had a good plan. But you couldn’t help what happened.”
“I could have been more...refined about it.” A couple of tears overflowed, and Susan took off her plastic gloves to dig in her pocket for a tissue. “When am I ever going to learn to control my temper?” She blew her nose.
Daisy put an arm around her. “When you turn into a whole different person. You know, God made you the way you are, and He has a plan for you. Something will work out.” She paused. “Why would you move back home, anyway? What’s wrong with your room at Lacey’s?”
“Lacey’s got renovation fever.” Susan pulled on a fresh pair of plastic gloves. “Remember, she gave me my room cheap because she knew I’d have to move when she started fixing up the place. So now her brother—you know Buck, right? Well, he’s dried out and ready to help, and summer’s the best time for them to get going.” She gauged the right amount of lettuce for a family of four, put it in a plastic bag and twist-tied it. “And I don’t have money for a deposit on a new place. I’ll need to save up.”
“You can stay with me. You know that.”
“You’re sweet.” Susan side-hugged her friend. “And you live in a tiny place with two dogs and a cat. You have exactly zero room, except in that big heart of yours.”
Daisy pried open another crate, this one full of kale leaves. “We just have to pray about it.”
“Well, pray fast, because Lacey asked if I could be out next week. And even if I can land a job at another restaurant in Rescue River—which I doubt, with the non-recommendation Max is giving me—I won’t be making anything like the tips I could bring in at Chez Le Ferme.” She sighed as she dumped out the last of the kale leaves and stowed the wooden crate under the table. “I’m such an idiot.”
“I’ve got it!” Daisy snapped her fingers, a smile lighting her plump face. “I know exactly what you can do for the summer!”
“What?” Susan eyed her friend dubiously and then went back to bagging kale. Daisy was wonderful, but she tended to get overexcited when she had a new idea.
“You know my brother Sam, right? He was at the Easter service at church, and at Troy and Angelica’s wedding.”
“I remember. In fact, he was at the restaurant last night. He...actually said he could get me my job back, but I turned him down.” Susan felt her face flush as she thought of their conversation. She’d still been heated about the encounter with that jerk of a businessman, and she hadn’t had her guard up around Daisy’s brother, as she had the previous couple of times they’d met. She had the distinct feeling she’d been rude to him, but truthfully, he’d disconcerted her with his dominant-guy effort to make all her problems go away.
He was a handsome man, no doubt of that. Tall and broad-shouldered, an all-American quarterback type with a square jaw and close-cropped dark hair.
But he was one of those super traditional guys, she could just tell. In fact, he reminded her of her father, who thought women belonged in the home, not the workplace. Dad had wanted his wife to stay home, and Mom had, and look where it had gotten her. To make matters worse, her father had expected Susan to do the same, sending her to college only for her MRS degree, which she obviously hadn’t gotten. Which she had no interest in getting, not now, not ever. She was a career woman with a distinct calling to teach kids, especially those with special needs. Susan wasn’t one of those people who heard clear instructions from God every week or two, but in the case of her life’s work, she’d gotten the message loud and clear.
Daisy waved her hand impatiently. “You don’t want that job back. I have a better idea. Did I tell you how Sam hired a college girl to take care of Mindy over the summer?”
“What?” Susan pulled herself back to the present, rubbed the back of her plastic-gloved hand over her forehead and tried to focus on what Daisy was saying.
“Sam texted me this morning, all frantic. That girl he hired to be Mindy’s summer nanny just let him know late last night that she can’t do it. She got some internship in DC or something. Now Sam’s hunting for someone to take her place. You’d be perfect!”
Susan laughed in disbelief. “I’d be a disaster! I’m a terrible cook, and...what do nannies even do, anyway?” She had some impression of them as paid housewives, and that was the last thing she wanted to be.
“You’re great with kids! You’re a teacher. Do you know Mindy?”
Susan nodded. “Cute kid, but sort of notorious for playground fights. I’ve bailed her out a few times.”
“She can be a bit of a terror. Losing her mom was hard, and then Sam hasn’t been able to keep a babysitter or nanny...”
“And why would that be?” Susan knew the answer without even asking. You could tell from spending two minutes with Sam that he was a demanding guy.
“He works a lot of hours and he expects a lot. Not so much around the house, he has a cleaning service, but he’s very particular about how Mindy is taken care of. And then with Mindy being temperamental and, um, spirited, it’s not been easy for the people Sam has hired. But you’d be absolutely perfect!”
“Daisy, think.” Susan raised a brow at her friend. “I just got fired for being too mouthy and for not putting up with baloney from chauvinistic guys. And you think this would be perfect how?”
Daisy looked crestfallen for a minute, and then her face brightened. “The thing is, deep inside, Sam would rather have someone who stands up to him than someone who’s a marshmallow. Just look how well he gets along with me!”
Susan chuckled and lifted another crate to the table. “You’re his little sister. He has to put up with you.”
“Sam’s nuts about me because I don’t let him get away with his caveman attitude. You wouldn’t, either. But that’s not the point.”
“Okay, what’s the point?” Susan couldn’t help feeling a tiny flicker of hope about this whole idea—it would be so incredible to be able to send Donny to camp, not to disappoint him and her mother yet again—but she tamped it down. There was no way this would work from either end, hers or Sam’s.
“The point is,” Daisy said excitedly, “you’re certified in special education. That’s absolutely amazing! There’s no way Sam could say you don’t know what you’re doing!”
“Uh-huh.” Susan felt that flicker again.
“He’ll pay a lot. And the thing is, you can live in! You’ll have the summer to save up for a deposit on a new place.”
Susan drew in a breath as the image of her mother and autistic brother flickered again in her mind. “But Daisy,” she said gently, “Sam doesn’t like me. When we talked last night, I could tell.”
One of the food pantry workers came over. “Everything okay here, ladies?”
“Oh, sure, of course! We just got to talking! Sorry!”
For a few minutes, they focused on their produce, efficiently filling bags with kale and then more leaf lettuce, pushing a cartload of bundles over to the distribution tables, coming back to bag up sugar snap peas and radishes someone had dumped in a heap on their table.
Working with the produce felt soothing to Susan. She’d grown up urban and gotten most of her vegetables at the store, but she remembered occasional Saturday trips to the farmers market with her mother, Donny in tow.
Her mother had tried so hard to please her dad, who, with his Japanese ancestry, liked eggplant and cucumbers and napa cabbage. She and her mom had watched cooking videos together, and her mom had studied cookbooks and learned to be a fabulous Japanese chef. Susan’s mouth watered just thinking about daikon salad and salt-pickled cabbage and broccoli stir-fry.
But had it worked? Had her dad been happy? Not really. He’d always had some kind of criticism, and her mother would sneak off and cry and try to do better, and it was never good enough. And as she and Donny had grown up, they hadn’t been enough either, and Susan knew her mother had blamed herself. Having given birth to a rebellious daughter and a son with autism, she felt she’d failed as a woman.
Her mom’s perpetual guilt had ended up making Susan feel guilty, too, and as a hormonal teenager, she’d taken those bad feelings out on her mother. And then Dad had left them, and the sense of failure had been complete.
Susan shook off the uncomfortable reminder of her own inadequacy and looked around. Where was Daisy?
Just then, her friend stood up from rummaging in her purse, cell phone in hand. “I’m calling Sam and telling him to give you an interview.”
“No!” Panic overwhelmed Susan. “Don’t do it!” She dropped the bundle of broccoli she was holding and headed toward Daisy. There was no way she could interview with a man who reminded her so much of her father.
“You can’t stop me!” Daisy teased, and then, probably seeing the alarm on Susan’s face, put her phone behind her and held out a hand. “Honey, God works in mysterious ways, but I am totally sensing this is a God thing. Just let me do it. Just do an interview and see what he says, see how you guys get along.”
Susan felt her life escaping from her control. “I don’t—”
“You don’t have to take the job. Just do the interview.”
“But what if—”
“Please? I’m your friend. I have no vested interest in how this turns out. Well, except for keeping you in town.”
“I...” Susan felt her will to resist fading. There was a lot that was good about the whole idea, right? And so what if it was uncomfortable for her? If her mom and Donny could be happy, she’d be doing her duty, just as her dad had asked her to do before he’d left. You have to take care of them, Suzie, her dad had said in his heavily accented English.
“I’m setting something up for this afternoon. If not sooner.” Daisy turned back to the phone and Susan felt a sense of doom settling over her.
* * *
That afternoon, Susan climbed out of her car in front of Sam’s modern-day mansion on the edge of Rescue River, grabbed her portfolio, and headed up the sidewalk, all the while arguing with God. “Daisy says You’ll make a way where there is no way, but what if I don’t like Your way? And I can say for sure that Sam Hinton isn’t going to like my way, so this is a waste of time I could be—”
The double front doors swung open. She caught a glimpse of a high-ceilinged entryway, a mahogany table full of framed photos and a spectacular, sparkling chandelier, but it was Sam Hinton who commanded her attention. He stood watching her approach, wearing a sleeves-rolled-up white dress shirt and jeans, arms crossed, legs apart.
Talk about a man and his castle. And those arms! Was he a bodybuilder in his spare time or what?
“Thanks for coming.” He extended one massive hand to her.
She reached out and shook it, ignoring the slight breathlessness she felt. This was Sam, Daisy’s super-traditional businessman of a brother, not America’s next male model. “No problem. Daisy thought it would be a good idea.”
“Yes. She had me squeeze you in, but you should know that I’m interviewing several other candidates today.”
“No problem.” Was God going to let her off this easy?
“It seems like a lot of people are interested in the job, probably because I’m paying well for a summer position.” He ushered her in.
“How well?”
He threw a figure over his shoulder as he led her into an oak-lined office in the front of the house, and Susan’s jaw dropped.
Twice as much as she’d ever hoped to make waitressing. She could send Donny to camp and her mom to the spa. Maybe even pay for another graduate course.
Okay, God—and Daisy—You were right. It’s the perfect job for me.
He gestured her into the seat in front of his broad oak desk, and Susan felt a pang of nostalgia. Her dad had done the exact same thing when he wanted to talk to her about some infraction of his rules. Only his desk had just been an old door on a couple of sawhorses in the basement. How he would have loved a home office like this one.
“I don’t know if you’ve met Mindy, but she has some...limitations.” His jaw jutted out as if he was daring her to make a comment.
“If you think of them that way.” The words were out before she could weigh the wisdom of saying them, and she shouldn’t have, but come on! The child was missing a hand, not a heart or a set of lungs.
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “I think I know my child better than you do. Have you even met Mindy?”
Rats, rats, rats. Would she ever learn to shut her big mouth? “I teach at Mindy’s school, so I’ve been the recess and lunchroom monitor during her kindergarten year. I know about her hand. But of course, you know her better, you’re her father.”
Sam was eyeing her with a level glare.
“We have a sign up at school that reads, ‘Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.’ I think it’s Richard Bach. I just meant...it’s an automatic response.” Stop talking, Susan. God might have a nice plan for her, but she was perfectly capable of ruining nice plans. She’d done it all her life. She fumbled in her portfolio. “Here’s my résumé.”
He took it, glanced over it. Then looked more closely. “You’ve done coursework on physical disabilities? Graduate coursework?”
“Yeah. I’m working on my master’s in special ed. Bit by bit.”
“Why not go back full-time? At least summers? Why are you looking to work instead?”
“Quite frankly, I have a mother and brother to help support.” Hello, Mr. Rich Guy, everyone’s not rolling in money like you are.
“Doesn’t the district pay for your extra schooling?”
“Six credits per year, which is two classes. I’ve used mine up.”
He was studying her closely, as if she was a bug pinned on the wall. Or as if she was a woman he was interested in, but she was absolutely certain that couldn’t be. “I see.” He nodded. “Well, I’m not sure this would be the job for you anyway. I go out in the evenings pretty often.”
“Really?” She opened her mouth to say more and then clamped it closed. Shut up, you want this job.
“I know, being young and adventurous, you must go out a lot yourself.”
“Don’t make assumptions. That’s not what I was thinking.” She looked away from him, annoyed.
“What were you thinking?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Try me.”
“I was thinking: you work super long hours, right? And you go out in the evenings. So...when do you spend time with your daughter?”
* * *
Sam stared at Susan as her question hung in the air between them. “When do I...? Look. If you’ve already decided I’m a terrible parent, this isn’t going to work.”
