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Chapter Five
“Mama!” Charlie screamed from his room. “Mama!”
Cate was in the shower, so Derek dropped his breakfast toast on the plate and ran upstairs.
“Buddy,” he said, coming in the door. “What’s wrong?”
Charlie, in tears, pointed to the hamster cage on the floor in the corner of his room. The cage door was open, and there didn’t appear to be a hamster inside.
Derek quickly shut the bedroom door behind him.
“It’s okay, Charlie.” Derek crouched and put his hands on the little boy’s shoulders. “We’ll find Taco. He was in your room when you went to bed last night, right?”
He sniffed and nodded.
“Okay, then the first place we search is around your room.” Derek put on his calm parenting voice and got down on his hands and knees to check under the bed. Charlie upended his clothes hamper then Derek sifted through the toy box.
“Uncle Derek,” Charlie said, picking up some stuffed animals in his closet, “what’s the hots?”
“What? Who said that to you?” Derek pushed story books around the wooden shelf.
“Mama said you gave a ticket to someone because she gave you the hots.” Charlie crawled over to where he was kneeling and put his tiny hand on Derek’s forehead. “Is the hots like when I got a fever?”
“Oh.” Sometimes Cate shared a bit too much with the kid. “All you need to know is that the hots isn’t like a fever. And I gave the person a ticket because they weren’t driving safely.” Derek ruffled Charlie’s hair.
He put his arms around Derek’s neck. “I love you Uncle Derek.”
“Thanks buddy,” he said, his heart melting over this wonderful little person. “I love you too.”
A loud shriek came from the direction of the bathroom next to Charlie’s room followed by Cate shouting, “Oh Taco!”
Derek and Charlie looked at each other and erupted into giggles. Cate stormed in, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, and deposited Taco back into his cage.
“Next time, I’ll bring him in the shower with me. It would help with the smell.” She slammed the door on her way back out. Charlie ran to inspect Taco’s condition, and Derek sat back and thought about how lucky he was to have Cate and Charlie so close. Truly, he didn’t need anything else in life to be happy.
~ * ~
Kylie called the number from the help wanted poster that morning. The café owner, Sandy Harrington, wanted to meet right away, and it sounded like she needed help pronto. Perfect timing. A new job would mean money and a chance to prove to Brad she was responsible.
Checking the time, she still had an hour before she had to meet Sandy.
“Hey Cap, wanna go for a walk?”
The pug ambled over to the back door and flopped onto the floor under his waiting leash.
They went for a couple of laps around the football field, the muddy running track sucking in the heels of her boots with every step. A few other folks were playing fetch with their dogs at the same time, but Captain wasn’t into any kind of socializing. She threw a few sticks for Cap too, but he lost interest on the fourth throw, so they gave up and went back to the house.
Kylie changed into something job interview worthy: navy blue skinny trousers and a blouse with a cashmere cardigan. Her boots were muddy from the field, so she dug through the duffel bags in her overstuffed closet and found a pair of nude pumps.
Harrington’s Bookstore Café stood proudly at a three-way intersection in the middle of the village. On one side of the intersection was the gas station/convenience store/ice cream shop/video rental store/arcade. On the second side of the intersection was the post office. On the third side was Harrington’s.
The building itself was shaped like a triangle, facing two of the diverging streets. It was a two-story building from the 1800s, but with a cheery new paint job on the outside stucco and baby blue shutters adorning the many tall windows that faced the streets.
When Kylie was a child, the store had been Harrington’s Hardware and Outfitters, but when Sandy got her hands on it, she reinvented it as Harrington’s Bookstore Café.
It was adorable and quaint and not like the cafes she was used to visiting in the city.
As she strolled down the broken sidewalk, Kylie got excited. A bookstore café would be such a cozy kind of place to work.
