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“There’s nothing to be done by arguing with that man,”Heather said sensibly. “You’re in a small town where the next nearest shop isover an hour away, and you would have to start this process all over again. Ifyou need a ride to your new job… Oh, there’s no job, is there?”
Slowly she nodded, frustration forming tears in her eyes. “Inever stay in any one place this long. Never.”
Heather reached for her hand. “I’m going to help you. I haveto go home for a couple of days, but I’ll be back on Saturday, and I’ll havethought through a plan by then. I think I might know a place where you can go,but I have to make some arrangements first.”
She felt like her damn life was ending and Heather wasthrowing her a life raft. “Why would you help me like this?”
“Because once I needed a place to go, too.” Heather squeezedher hand. “Also, the town I live in is kind of known for being welcoming toanyone who needs to find some bliss. Let’s do this. Let’s move you into mymotel room and check you out of yours so even if someone found out your name,it will look like you’ve left. You can stay there or with Josh and Grim.”
“I’m supposed to go to Austin with them this weekend.There’s a club there,” she said, her mind whirling. Should she believe thiswoman? Or was she making a terrible mistake? She’d handed over almost all ofher cash. She would get tips from her shift this afternoon, but it wouldn’t beenough to get her out of Willow Fork.
Panic threatened to overtake her, but Heather was rightthere, telling her to breathe.
“Go with them. Let me work some things from my side,”Heather said.
They started to walk toward the town square with its shopsand restaurants, where people were out walking dogs and kids played on theswings in the park. It was all so normal. Normal people living normal lives.They wouldn’t be happy every moment. They would suffer tragedies, get sick fromtime to time, but they had the potential to be content.
She would never find that if she didn’t take a risk.
“I didn’t divorce him.”
Heather stopped. “I know. You ran for your life, andwhatever you had to do to get away is fine with me, but we’re going to have totalk about it someday. Not now. When you’re ready to tell me the whole story,I’ll be ready to listen.”
Nic felt tears caress her cheeks.
A buzzing sound broke up the quiet moment, and Heathersighed as she pulled her cell out. “I’m sorry. I have to take this. It’s myson.”
Nic nodded. “Go on. I’ll wait here and then we can go to thestore if you like. Although you might find they’re friendlier if I’m not withyou.”
Heather’s nose wrinkled. “Hush with that. I’ll be rightback.” She slid her finger across the screen. “Hey, sweetie. What’s going on?”
She began to talk to her son and Nic found a bench. She satdown and watched the world flow around her, wondering if there was a place forher in it.
* * * *
Josh looked out over the office space on the secondfloor of the building where the Barnes-Fleetwood Collective’s administrativework was done. His fathers had purchased the building on Main Street yearsbefore and changed the former mixed-use office center into an ultramodernspace. Not that one could tell from the outside. His mother had taken over theWillow Fork Historical Society when he was a kid in what the town liked to callthe Coup of the Century. It wasn’t really a coup. It was a case of the societyneeded money and his mother had it.
Sometimes he wondered if his dad thought they’d made thewrong play. He’d been unwilling to give the society a dime if his wife wasn’tthe chairman of the board. His mom had turned right around and denied all thechanges his dad wanted to make to the façade of the building.
That had probably been one hell of a spanking.
He groaned. He shouldn’t have even thought that.
“Hey, Josh. I set the reports on your desk, confirmed yourreservations for the club this weekend, and pulled the employment files youasked for. Are we finally firing Alyssa?” His assistant stood in the doorway, amug of coffee in her hand. Sandy was more of an office manager, and she neverlet him forget the fact that she’d changed his diapers when he was a baby.
He wondered what it was like for people who lived in citieswhere not every citizen remembered how you used to accidently pee on them as asmall infant.
And the coffee was for her, not him. He’d been told in thebeginning that he should get his own.
Now his parents were another story. Sandy would trip overher own feet to make sure Abigail Barnes-Fleetwood had her coffee exactly howshe wanted it and made sure there was always Coke in the fridge because that’swhat the dads preferred.
“I’m reviewing a couple of things,” he replied, turning fromthe window and moving back to the big desk that his father had occupied untilhe’d decided Josh was up to the task of running the business portion ofBarnes-Fleetwood.
The day he and Olivia had taken over, Jack Barnes hadsaluted his kids and run out of the office after declaring himself a free man.
Sandy’s brow rose, and she adjusted her comfortablecardigan. She’d been with the company for over twenty years, and sometimes Joshthought the only reason his dad didn’t watch them like a hawk was he knew Sandywould step in if anything went wrong. “Josh, everyone knows what she did toyour new girlfriend.”
“That doesn’t mean I have a business reason to fire her, andmy uncle will have my hide if I put the business in legal jeopardy.” He sankdown into the big chair. Olivia hadn’t wanted the larger office, claiming itwas too cold in here and the view from hers was better.
