Page 33 of Windward Hearts

“I am actually pretty free of deep, dark secrets,” she said. “Once, when I was eight, I accidentally shoplifted a packet of fruit leather when it got stuck in a pocket of my bag and didn’t notice at checkout. I went back in and cried I was so sorry, even though it cost about a quarter. Which I did pay. So.” She scrunched her nose. She did that a lot. Jared found it terribly charming. “Not exactly the best person for deep and dark.”

“Okay, one, that story is incredible,” he said. “And two, the actual favor is about whether you would be willing to work for the restaurant while you’re in Magnolia Shore, so as your prospective employer, your history of extreme honesty is very promising.”

She blinked. “Wait, you want me to work here?”

She sounded pleased, but he wanted to make sure that he didn’t get ahead of himself.

“Would you be willing to do it?” he asked carefully. “You would be doing me a huge favor.”

Her grin was enormous.

“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “Yeah, I would love that. Wow. Thanks.”

“Oh my gosh, no,” he said, holding out his hands in protest. “Thank you. You saved our bacon tonight.”

“And since bacon was in some of the food, this was literal,” she quipped. “But seriously, I was happy to do it. It felt… really good, getting back in the groove.”

They discussed a few more details, and Jared promised to get Hope more information about scheduling after he checked with the rest of the staff. He had a few people who wanted more hours, and a few who wanted to move their current shifts around, and Hope said she was happy to fill in whatever gaps arose after he looked that over.

He sent her home after that, her cut of the night’s tips in her pocket and a spare Riverstone Kitchen shirt slung over her shoulder. He made himself head back to the kitchen after watching her go, musing that, while it would indeed be a relief to have a backup waitress, that the real reason for his sudden happiness was the promise of getting to see much more of the wonderful Hope Landers.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Cadence was not at all confident that she was doing the right thing. As she drove to Isabelle’s school in the middle of the day, she almost turned around twice and cancelled the meeting she had arranged with Izzy’s teacher. After all, if her daughter’s struggles were social, she knew that having her mother show up and make it obvious to the entire class that something was afoot wouldn’t help at all.

And it wasn’t that she didn’t respect her friends’ opinions on the matter. In most cases, she agreed that sometimes you just had to give kids time and space to figure things out.

But her ‘mom senses’ were tingling. Some instinct was telling her that she needed to act, rather than wait to see how everything played out.

Still. She was feeling rather anxious about it. Her fingers tapped restlessly on the steering wheel as she parked in the visitors’ lot.

The school secretary was a middle-aged woman who seemed to remember the names of every child and parent who had ever come through the front doors of the school.

“Mrs. Meadows,” she greeted warmly, her glasses perched on the end of her nose, the beaded chain that stopped them from getting lost looped loosely around her neck. She had a quintessential school secretary sort of look in a way that felt extremely soothing to Cadence. It reminded her of a simpler time, when she was a kid and could trust the adults around her to solve her problems on her behalf.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Fitzgerald,” Cadence greeted the older woman. “I’m here to observe Izzy’s class. I spoke with her teacher about making an appointment…”

Mrs. Fitzgerald was clicking through her computer with confident, competent movements.

“Ah, yup,” she said after a few seconds. “I see that here. Yeah, Mr. Hartley is expecting you. Do you know where to find the classroom?”

“I do,” Cadence confirmed with a smile. “Thank you.”

“Of course!” the woman answered cheerfully. “Have a great day.”

Cadence crossed her fingers. She really hoped that today would be great, that she would finally get some answers about what was going on with her daughter.

She was only part of the way down the hallway that contained the second and third grade classrooms when someone called her name.

“Cadence, hi!”

She turned around to see the school nurse, Mary, approaching her. Cadence and Mary had become friendly when they were both volunteering at one of the beach cleanups that Tyler regularly conducted on the weekends. This one had been designed to get more kids involved in eco-conservation, and so the school nurse had come out to be part of the chaperone group. The children had ultimately proven entirely rapt by Tyler’s explanation, and so the rest of the adults had been free to hang about in the shade of a quickly erected tent. The two women had hit it off.

“Hey, Mary, how are you?” Cadence asked. She could tell that the smile that was flitting across her face was weak at best, although not because she was sorry to see her friend.

But Mary, a trained nurse who had a decade’s experience telling both when children were sick and trying to hide it and healthy and trying to fake it, caught the worry in Cadence’s eyes immediately.

“Oh, no,” she said, frowning. “What’s wrong?”