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Chapter 2
Matt Landry staredat the woman in front of him, the two little girls tucked in on either side of her, and the disabled car sitting along the road behind her.
It looked like they had been going through their clothes. Odd. Unless they were planning on taking their clothes and walking to town?
The road was deserted, but it wasn’tthatdeserted. Someone would be along to help them, and if they called, Caleb’s Towing would be happy to come get them.
Unless she didn’t have any money.
Or, he supposed, it was possible that she didn’t have a phone. Although in today’s day and age, that was rather unusual.
Michigan was almost all flat and cell service was almost universal, so that couldn’t be the problem.
Still, he didn’t want to put her off by asking her a bunch of questions, like he was interrogating her. So, he tried to think of the most pertinent question. The one that would determine what he did.
“Are you broken down or just out of gas?” he asked, unable to figure out how to politely say,are you completely out of money?
“Out of gas. I should have gotten some back in Blueberry Beach—”
“But we didn’t have any money, and we can’t even afford to buy anything to eat.” The smaller of the two girls piped up when the woman hesitated.
“I’m sorry.” The woman’s cheeks turned pink as she took his outstretched hand. “I’m Jubilee, and these are my daughters Scarlett and Penelope. I suppose you should know our names before you know our financial situation.”
She was obviously embarrassed.
“Names are nice, but knowing you don’t have any money is even more helpful,” he said, trying to sound like that was just completely normal information to hand over to a total stranger.
It made him cringe mentally, but he also wanted to smile. Penelope, the girl who had spoken, was very much like his twelve-year-old daughter, Nora. She was rather outspoken as well. Not that he got to spend a lot of time with her. Usually just summers and a few weeks over the holidays. School was going to be out next week, and she’d be with him for a solid three months.
Jubilee looked at her daughter like she wanted to tell her to not say anything else, but it was too late.
“There aren’t any hotels in Strawberry Sands, so if you’re not here to visit anyone,” and he assumed they weren’t, otherwise Jubilee would have been calling them already, “I figured I’d take you guys to my mom’s place.”
There. That was the best way he could figure to say that if she couldn’t afford a place to stay, his mom would love to take her in.
“Oh, we couldn’t put her out like that.”
Of course, that was what she had to say, but Jubilee looked like she sincerely didn’t want to put anyone out. She must be at least thirty, but she had an innocence about her that made him want to protect her.
“I know people say you’re not putting them out, but I truly mean it. My mom loves company, and she’ll just be all over you and your girls. You’ll make her day, I promise.”
That was the truth. His mom loved taking people in, and Jubilee and her girls were just the kind of people that his mom enjoyed helping. He almost felt like a good Samaritan by bringing the two of them together. Although, he couldn’t take credit for Jubilee’s car running out of gas.
“Are you sure?” Jubilee asked, biting her lip.
Something about her made him feel a curl of something he hadn’t felt for a long time.
He’d messed up when he was a kid, done something stupid, and embarrassed his family. Not that it wasn’t something that a million other people had done, but it was a mistake that he would live with for the rest of his life.
