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He chewed at his lower lip. “You got the deposit?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ain’t a big town, if you’re lookin’ for work. You got a job?”
“Blackberry Hill Memorial Hospital. I’m the new director of nursing. The interim director, I should say,” Abby added carefully.
He appeared mollified at that. “Grace’s job.”
“Exactly. Last month I leased one of the Hawthorne Apartments near the hospital but—”
“Fire, first floor.” He folded his arms across his thin chest and gave her a long, skeptical look. “They checked you out before letting you sign?”
“They did,” Abby assured him. “Credit check, work history. Everything.”
He thought for a while, searching her face. “I suppose you can have the room, long as you understand the rules and pay on time.”
Suppressing the impulse to kiss his whiskery cheek, she quickly read the contract and signed her name, then wrote a check for two months’ rent. “You won’t regret this. I promise.”
He appeared to regret it within minutes—glaring at her from his front window as she lugged her suitcase and several boxes up the sidewalk and around to the stairs. He thumped on his ceiling with—she suspected—a broom handle when one of the boxes slipped from her grasp and hit the floor.
Her new landlord appeared to have a major personality disorder. The apartment was cramped and dark. Yet she wouldn’t inconvenience Grace and she’d just bought herself time to find a better place. How hard could that be?
TWO WEEKS LATER she knew. Finding a better place wasn’t hard. It was impossible. And working in an idyllic north woods town certainly didn’t give her tranquility. Not when she was overseeing the nursing staff of a hospital that had been on the brink of closure less than a year ago.
She’d talked to Grace for hours on her first evening in town. The older woman had even stopped in at the hospital the next morning before she and Warren flew south. She’d run a tight ship and had left her office in perfect order, but every day brought new challenges given the tight budget and shortage of nurses.
“Bad day, professor?” Erin Reynolds, the hospital administrator, smiled sympathetically as she watched Abby pore over the nurses’ work schedule on her desk.
“Interesting.” Abby grinned back at her.
After graduating together with bachelor’s degrees in nursing, they’d gone their separate ways—Erin had eventually gone back to school for a degree in hospital administration, while Abby had chosen graduate school and a career in teaching at the college level.
They’d kept in touch through Christmas cards and occasional e-mails, though, and Erin had been the one to let Abby know about this temporary position.
“I just need a magic wand and a few more nurses,” Abby continued. “Marcia’s home with strep throat. Carl’s on vacation until Monday. Gwen agreed to pull a double shift today, but I’m trying to avoid that, because she works tomorrow, too.”
Erin came farther in and wearily rested both hands on the back of a chair. Five months pregnant, she was as lovely as ever with her short, glossy dark hair and delicate features, if somewhat drawn and pale. “Any luck with the ad?”
“A half dozen calls and several applications.”
“Good.” Erin stifled a yawn. “I’ve asked Madge to run it in the Green Bay and Milwaukee papers this weekend, too.”
Erin was just two years older than Abby, and they’d hit it off from the first time they’d met. Now, Abby looked at her old friend with growing concern.
The hospital was in the midst of renovation and expansion efforts that hadn’t been going smoothly. With the three children Erin had adopted before marrying Dr. Reynolds last winter, her job and her pregnancy, she looked ready to drop in her tracks.
Dr. Jill Edwards, on the other hand, was due the month after Erin, but she barely showed yet and seemed to have boundless energy. Though without other children to contend with, she probably got much more rest.
“So, is it true you and Connor have never had any weekend time alone?” Abby asked. Erin and Connor had flown to the Bahamas in late January for a beachside wedding with all three children as attendants. “Not even on your wedding trip?”
“We had adjoining rooms. And—” she grinned as she patted her stomach “—we occasionally locked the door between those rooms.”
“Not quite the same,” Abby said. “I’m thinking you need some absolute peace and quiet. This weekend.”
Erin snorted. “I don’t think that’ll happen. Our sitter is off on her senior high class trip this week. Connor’s on call this weekend and he’s also covering Jill’s practice while she’s out of town. He’ll probably end up sleeping at the hospital, so it’ll be just me, the kids, and my round-the-clock morning sickness. I can’t believe the nausea has continued past the first trimester.”
“So this could be a weekend to pamper yourself. Maybe I could take the kids—”
“You?” Erin’s eyes were round. “Are you feeling okay?”
“How hard could it be?” She’d gone out for pizza a couple times with the Reynolds crew, and she’d also been to a few of the boys’ baseball games. The three kids all seemed, well, manageable enough for an afternoon.
“This is so sweet of you. A whole weekend to myself just sounds like heaven.”
Abby had meant to volunteer for a few hours, but she couldn’t resist Erin’s gratitude. “Whatever I might’ve said about lacking maternal instincts, I could do it. I’m a nurse, after all. We’re nurturing types.” Was she? Her ex-fiancé, Jared, sure hadn’t thought so. “And heaven knows, I owe you,” she added. “Coming up here is the perfect opportunity for some practical experience before I start teaching again.”
Abby ignored a sudden vision of her landlord Hubert’s reaction to all of this. “You could sleep in. Relax.”
“As much as I’d love it, I’m afraid the kids are really energetic. I swear, sometimes they could wear out the patience of a saint.”
The children had been adopted shortly before Erin’s first husband left her for another woman. All three had come from troubled backgrounds, but Erin had already done wonders with them. Surely she was exaggerating.
“And I’m not exaggerating,” Erin added dryly. “No matter what I tell them, they’ll push the limit with anyone new—that’s why Haley is still our one and only babysitter. The others refuse to come back.”
“If I can handle this hospital job, I can handle three kids. And if things get really wild, you’re only a phone call away,” Abby added firmly.
“Well…” Erin hesitated for a moment, then dissolved into laughter. “Deal. Though I’ll understand completely, if you decide to give them back early.”
“Not a chance. The boys, Lily and I are going to have a great time.”
WHAT EXACTLY, did one do with three kids under the age of eleven to make sure they had a “great time”?
Connor dropped them off after supper on Friday. Abby took them to a movie, for pizza, then finally to the video store on Main Street.
There, eleven-year-old Drew had argued for renting some sort of video game for the Xbox he’d brought along. Eight-year-old Tyler had begged for a different game, one Drew said was dumb. And ten-year-old Lily had shyly asked for an old Harry Potter movie she’d seen at least a million times, according to Tyler.
Abby’s plans for holding a vote fizzled when the boys stood toe-to-toe and both proclaimed it was their turn to choose. Abby ended up renting all three and praying for peace.
Now, back at the stairway to her small upstairs apartment, Abby held a finger to her lips. “My landlord is elderly and needs his sleep. We have to be very quiet, okay?”
Lily nodded and tiptoed up. Tyler stumbled on the third step and yelped as his knee struck the edge of the riser. Drew, distracted by a motorcycle coming down the street, bumbled into him and said a few words he must have learned in inner city Chicago during his earlier days. The video he’d been carrying bounced down the stairs to the grass.
Sure enough, the lights in Hubert’s first-floor bedroom blazed on a second later and he appeared at his window to peer out into the dark.
“Just me, Mr. Bickham. Sorry,” Abby called.
Shooing the kids ahead of her, she held a finger to her lips again and gave them a conspiratorial smile. “He’s got very, very good ears,” she whispered. “Let’s pretend we’re secret agents and see how quiet we can be.”
Upstairs, the kids seemed surprised by the efficiency’s small living area, dominated by a threadbare couch and single chair. The tiny kitchenette in one corner. The queen-size bed she’d angled into another corner, and had covered with her jewel-toned quilt and shams in an effort to make the place more homey.
“This is real pretty,” Lily murmured. “But there’s no place for us to sleep.”
“That’s why Connor dropped off your sleeping bags and duffels this morning. I figure you can each camp in a different corner. You’re welcome to make tents out of chairs and my extra blankets.”
Tyler grinned. “Cool.”
“I’m over by the TV, and I get it first,” Drew announced. He pawed through one of the duffels and pulled out a black plastic box with cords and controllers dangling from it like an electronic octopus. In seconds he was behind the small TV, figuring out the connections.
“That’s not fair,” Tyler complained. “We didn’t even draw for it.”
Draw for it? Abby realized she should have managed the first TV rights equitably. “How about giving Drew an hour, then you and Lily can draw straws for who goes next?”
Lily, who’d settled on the couch with a Harry Potter hardcover book that weighed almost as much as she did, shot Abby a look of gratitude, then dropped her gaze to the open book in her lap.
Tyler stuck out his lower lip. “Drew’s always first, just ’cause he’s bigger. And if Lily wins, that’s not fair, ’cause her dumb movie lasts forever.”
Reminded of her one—and only—disastrous babysitting job as a teen, Abby smiled. “Then how about helping me bake some cookies while you wait? You could be the one to decorate them before they go in the oven.”
The television blared to life—a cacophony of gunshots and screams that nearly shook the rafters before Drew found the volume button on the remote.
Startled, Lily jerked and her heavy book slid to the floor.
“Jeez, Drew. Wake up the dead, will you?” Tyler snapped.
And from downstairs they heard muffled curses…then the thud! thud! thud! of Hubert’s broom handle beneath them.
Abby managed a reassuring smile as she motioned with her hands for quiet. They were good, normal kids. They couldn’t help making noise. But this whole idea had obviously been a mistake.
She already knew she’d be hearing from Hubert in the morning…and the news wouldn’t be good.
CHAPTER TWO
DELAYING HER INEVITABLE confrontation with Hubert, Abby bustled around her little kitchen, cleaning up after feeding the kids her favorite malted-milk waffles, scrambled eggs with cheese and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
They’d all been restless last night and had finally dozed off at the end of Lily’s movie, but for some inexplicable reason they were all awake by six…their occasional arguments or bursts of laughter bringing energy and excitement to the apartment and making her laugh.
But Hubert would be waiting for the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. And then he’d be on his front porch when she came around the house, ready to complain about her latest Noise Infraction. Hubert, she thought grimly as she dried the final piece of silverware, needed a life.
“Now, we’ve got two choices,” she said as she wiped the last of the crumbs off the counter. “It’s beautiful outside, seventy degrees and sunny. We could stay here and watch old movies…or go out to the lake and feed the ducks the rest of these waffles.”
“Ducks?” Drew rolled his eyes. “We’re not little kids.”
“So then, how about feeding the ducks and then going on a hike?” Belatedly, Abby remembered Lily’s weak left leg, from a club foot that hadn’t been properly treated when she was in foster care. She thought up a fast excuse to avoid a long walk. “I’m too tired to walk very far, but we could follow Sapphire Lake and watch the Jet Skis and sailboats for a while.”
Tyler and Drew exchanged bored looks that revealed just how exciting that sounded. Then Drew gave Tyler’s shoulder a playful shove. Tyler bent to tackle him at the waist and they hit the floor, wrestling like a pile of puppies until Abby managed to call a halt.
“Monopoly? Scrabble?” Abby searched her memory for anything she’d liked at their ages, but without siblings or close friends, she’d spent most of her childhood between the pages of good books. “Cards?”
Drew dove in for a sneak attack on Tyler and they crashed against the sofa. It screeched against the hardwood floor.
“Stop!” she ordered. “Now.”
Chastened, they fell apart, breathing hard—and then Tyler punched Drew in the ribs and they were at it again.
“Grab your shoes. We’re leaving.” She thought fast. “I could use your advice, really. Do you guys know anything about pets?”
That got their attention.
“Why?” Tyler asked, dodging another feint by Drew.
Hubert’s broom handle began pounding an all too familiar rebuke.
“I, um, think I’ll be moving very soon.” Maybe sooner than I planned. “And I was thinking about checking out the animals at the shelter. Would you like to go there and help me look? We’ll need to hurry, though. I think they close at eleven on Saturdays.”
“Awesome!” Drew spun away and pulled his Nikes from the pile of shoes the kids had left at the door. “A big dog would be really cool. Like, a guard dog, or something.”
“Something cuddly,” Lily ventured, her eyes downcast. “With big brown eyes and lots of white fur.”
“Maybe a hedgehog.” Tyler grabbed his own shoes and jammed his feet into them. “You could even keep it in your pocket when you were at work.”
The image made Abby laugh out loud. “Interesting idea, sport. Now tell me how you’d get it out of your pocket!”
Given an interesting activity, the boys seemed to have forgotten their wrestling techniques. Abby breathed a sigh of relief. After an hour at the shelter and an hour or so at the lake, they could stop at that little malt shop in town for lunch.
With luck, she could find something else to entertain them until three, and then she could give them all back.
If she lasted that long.
How on earth did mothers survive day after day after day?
THE KIDS BOUNDED out of Abby’s car when she pulled to a stop at the animal shelter. She rested her palms at the top of the steering wheel and dropped her head against them for a moment, still reeling after Hubert’s announcement from his porch.
That’s it. Your phone jangles day and night. You come and go twenty-four hours a day and create a ruckus. Be out of here when your month’s rent is up July eighth. If you find another place sooner, I’ll gladly refund the difference.
He’d stalked back into his house but, Hubert-like, didn’t slam the door. He closed it quietly…with the finality of a judge passing sentence on a habitual felon.
She’d tried explaining the late-night calls from the hospital staff. The times she’d had to go back to the hospital for emergencies or to cover for a nurse who’d called in sick. The fact that the kids were just a one-time deal.
But to Hubert the explanations hadn’t mattered.
If she hadn’t been so aware of the stares of several neighbors watching from their porch swings and the curiosity of the three kids, she might have found it almost funny.
At a sharp rap on her car window she looked up to find three eager young faces plastered to the glass.
“Come on!” Drew urged. “They won’t let kids in there without an adult!”
Hurry, Tyler mouthed, as if she couldn’t hear through the door.
