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The hope in my chest flickered out. I knew going out to see her would be a mistake. I’d just figure something out.
Rami caught my hand. “But she didn’t have to. She isn’t happy back home. But…I had an idea.”
I frowned. “Taking care of her child isn’t something we can just work around.”
“Well, we kinda can. Handily, you just fired your highest paid employee. You just need to give that money to Emma. She can afford daycare and her baby is past the three-month mark. All of us moms are back to work by then. We’ll just make it a more flexible schedule.”
She rushed on. “And I think Penny wants to do more entertainment things. Emma could train her to be her helper. That way we’d actually have a backup. And—” She poked me in the chest to shut me up. “Wait. The summer is almost over, so we’d have time to train people and she’d have plenty of time to take care of bean.”
“What if she doesn’t want to come back to Crescent Cove?”
Or to me.
We hadn’t nearly had enough time to figure out if there even was an us. I couldn’t ask her to come back with me just to work for me. It wasn’t fair to her or to me.
Even if I did ache for her every damn night. How could I ache for something I’d really never had?
But I’d had plenty of dreams, both at night and otherwise. She’d made me hope for so much in just a short time. And I was normally one of the least fanciful men in the world.
She was special. My heart had known it even when my brain refused to get on board.
“But maybe you need to try to ask her to,” Esther said quietly. “Maybe she needs to know how much we all want her here to make her decision. Do you really want it to be a what if for the rest of your life?”
“I still have that meeting today.”
“No, you don’t.” Rami grinned. “We rescheduled it to Sunday.” She shrugged. “It was his family dinner weekend anyway. Win-win for everyone.” She took out her phone and typed quickly before my own phone buzzed. “That’s Emma’s address in Clintondale,” she announced.
This time, they both wrapped me up in a chaotic hug. “Go get our girl.”
“This is crazy.” But my mind was already whirling. Iwantedto go get her. I wanted her back. “I can’t leave the restaurant—”
“You can and you will. We’ll be fine.” Rami pushed me down the hallway to the back door where my car was always parked. “We have your number if we need you, but we won’t.”
“But—”
“Nope. No excuses.” Esther joined in the pushing. “Go woo our girl. We’re counting on you to get this done. Don’t come back without her.”
I laughed for the first time in more days than I could count. “I need to finish the reports for payroll.”
“You can do that from your laptop. I know it might be dusty in your house—probably like the rest of your house—but you have one.” Rami shook her head. “No more excuses.”
I didn’t want to own up to that one. My house looked just like my damn office at this point.
I paused at the door, leaning against it. My chest was tight from my way too fast breaths. My head was whirling. “You’re both getting raises.”
As they laughed, I ran out to my truck.
Now I just needed to convince Emma to take a chance on me.
Onus.
TWENTY-FIVE
“Mom, we’ll be fine.”
“I know, but you haven’t been home alone since you…”
“Crashed back into your life?” I laughed. “I did it for the first three weeks with only Sparky coming in to help. And that was only occasionally.”
