so Tori would have a roof over her head until at least summer. But co-op members voted to lease the space starting next month and, unfortunately, a jobless Tori couldn’t afford the apartment.
“Any employment nibbles, Tori?” With sympathetic eyes, Benton stood in the open doorway.
“A few.” None, unfortunately, looked half as promising as what Sawyer Banks had proposed yesterday afternoon, which happened to include an apartment at the Selbys’ place.
But the thought of being Sawyer’s undercover operative still left a bad taste in her mouth. Although she’d prayed about it nonstop, she still didn’t have an answer. She’d told him, though, that she’d give him a response within twenty-four hours.
Two hours to go.
“Lizzie and I can let you stay at our place for a while.” Benton gave her a reassuring smile. “Things would be tight with five kids under our roof, but we could manage.”
“Thanks, but I have reason to hope things will come together soon.”
“I know you don’t want to go back to Jerome, even though it’s much more of a thriving arts community than Hunter Ridge.”
“No.” Not back to where Grandma had passed away two years ago and where Heath Davidson, her former fiancé, still resided. As the old saying went, the town wasn’t big enough for the both of them. After the breakup last fall, she’d given up the rental house she’d shared with her grandma Eriksen, ready to shake off the past.
“It will work out.” She feigned a confident smile. “But I’d better let you get back to work.”
Snugging her coat collar, she started past the cluster of businesses running along the snowplowed blacktopped road, flurries frolicking in the air around her. It hadn’t taken long to adapt to the cooler high-elevation town with its towering ponderosa pines and frequent winter snowfalls. Whenever feasible, she ran errands on foot, not bothering with negotiating snow-packed roads in her blue Kia compact.
The crisp, pine-scented mountain air energized her as she made her way down the street, but as she approached Bealer’s Ice Cream Emporium her steps slowed. She’d seen an ad in the weekly paper that Pete Bealer was looking for a Saturday manager starting in May. That came too late to boost her finances enough to swing the co-op apartment, but maybe if she could line up several part-time jobs, she could afford a room somewhere.
When Pastor Garrett McCrae married Jodi Thorpe, he’d be moving out of the space he rented in the home of church members. But that wouldn’t be available until the first weekend in May, assuming they’d be willing to rent to her, too. In two weeks she could be living out of her car unless she applied for and got the childcare position.
But despite Sunshine’s encouragement when they’d talked last night, wouldn’t she feel like a dirty rotten sneak prying into the relationship some unsuspecting couple had with their grandsons? Sawyer seemed sincere enough, though, when insisting he had no intention of snatching the kids from them. In fact, Sunshine laughed when Tori had confessed that suspicion to her.
Sawyer Banks? she’d said, her eyes wide with disbelief. You think he’d willingly take little kids into his freewheeling bachelor life? Get real.
If only she had more options.
It is what it is, sweetheart. She could almost hear Grandma Eriksen’s chuckle. How many times had Gran reminded her that half the turmoil she put herself through revolved around pushing against reality and resisting a situation in which she wished she hadn’t found herself? Wasting time bemoaning rather than buckling down and digging out? If only Grandma were still here to talk to...
Great. There she went again. Denying reality.
With rekindled determination, she stepped inside the old-fashioned ice cream parlor, where she was brought up short by an earsplitting wail.
“I want my mommy!” a child gasped in what she guessed to be the middle of a crying jag.
A slightly familiar-looking man seated in a high-backed booth glanced at her apologetically. Then with renewed resolve, he refocused on the youngster she couldn’t see seated across from him.
“If you want me to take you home without ice cream, I can do that.” The gray-haired man’s voice remained low. Kind, but firm.
The child wailed again, louder, reinforcing that he wanted his mommy.
“We both know that’s impossible. Now sit up and act like the big boy that you are.”
“Mommy!”
The man glanced uncomfortably in the direction of Emporium owner Pete Bealer, who looked on with a pained expression. The couple he was serving shook their heads in commiseration. That was all it took to bring the older man to his feet as he pulled on his coat. Then he held out his hand to the unseen child.
“Come along, then.”
“Nooooo!”
The man finally leaned in to gently drag the resisting child out of the booth and set him on his feet. The boy, still turned away from her, stared down at the floor, his shoulders shaking with sobs. Poor little guy.
“Now settle down,” the older man admonished. “You know big boys don’t cry.”
A knee-buckling chill raced through Tori.
Stop it. Stop it right now, Victoria. You know big girls don’t cry.
If a bolt of lightning had crashed at her feet, it couldn’t have startled her more than the intrusion of her father’s voice as she mentally hurtled back in time.
I’m very disappointed in you, young lady.
Prying her away from him, her father had concluded his condemning statement with a rough shake, displeasure written on his youthful face. He had been leaving them. Leaving Mommy. Leaving her. And he was angry because she’d clung to him and cried as he headed to the door.
“Now stop it, Cubby.” The man’s voice jerked her back to the present.
Cubby?
Stunned, she looked to where the man she assumed to be the boy’s grandfather had gotten the sobbing child into his coat and lifted the boy into his arms. Gave him a hug.
The blond boy met her gaze with a plaintive, tear-stained face and bluer-than-blue eyes.
Eyes like his twin’s?
Like those of his older half brother?
Shaken, she offered him an encouraging smile, then watched as grandfather and grandson exited the ice cream shop.
“Miss?” the shop’s owner called out. “Sit anywhere you’d like, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Um, no, thanks. I’ve changed my mind about...ice cream.”
She waved a distracted farewell, then stepped outside where snow now descended in earnest.
She had her answer.
It would only take a quick minute to phone the Selbys and express her interest in the caregiver position. Then if given the go-ahead to apply, tomorrow she’d submit a résumé and solicit letters of recommendation.
Pulling up her hood against the buffeting wind, Tori headed in the direction of her apartment, the broken-hearted sobs of a little boy—and a little girl—still echoing in her ears.
“Welcome, Tori.” Ray Selby smiled as he opened the front door to the imposing two-story stone house at seven o’clock on a Thursday morning. Incredibly, it was only a week after she’d interviewed and been offered the job.
“You know, though,” he added drily as he motioned her inside the shadowed entryway, “you could use that key Therese gave you. You don’t