Susie looked at Connor hesitantly before turning back to her mom and saying, “I wanted to give you the letter last night, but Sally wouldn’t let me. She said we ought to wait until this morning. ’Cause otherwise you would just worry about it all night long. And we didn’t want you to worry, Mommy.”
They had been doing enough of that already, Kristy noted, not sure whether to be unhappy with her daughters for keeping something from her, or proud that they had tried—in their own convoluted, eight-year-old way—to protect her from suffering any more grief. The only thing she knew for sure was that this had to be dealt with—now.
“Did you two get in trouble?”
They exchanged worried glances and shrugged in tandem. “We didn’t do anything,” Sally said, rubbing the toe of one patent leather dress shoe across the path. “Which is why it is so unfair that you have to go in and have a conference about us.”
“Well, something must have happened to prompt this,” Kristy said, frowning and glancing back at the letter. Otherwise the school counselor wouldn’t have requested that Kristy make arrangements to meet with her privately as soon as possible.
The girls shrugged again, looking as mystified and out of sorts as Kristy felt.
“This looks like a bad time,” Connor said.
Kristy glanced up at him. She had been so wrapped up in what was going on with the girls she had almost forgotten he was there. “Actually, yes, it is,” she said, deciding she had enough on her hands trying to deal with her twins’ current calamity without wrestling with her feelings about him, too. Glad that Connor seemed to understand and be okay with that, she rushed back inside, where she spotted Harry Bowles in the lobby. “I’m ready to get to work,” he announced.
Kristy wasn’t surprised to see the British butler looking as handsome and tidy as ever. What did shock her was that he was dressed in a formal-looking suit and tie. Which was not what she needed from him this morning.
Belatedly, Kristy realized she should have gone over that with Harry when she hired him. But it, too, would have to wait until later. “Harry, do you have some old clothes?” she asked.
Harry peered at her peculiarly. “Old clothes?”
“Like what I’m wearing,” Kristy said, pointing to her clean but paint-stained blue chambray work shirt and loose-fitting shorts.
“Uh, no, actually, I don’t have anything like that,” Harry said. And he didn’t look particularly eager to get some, either.
“Well, can you find something to wear that won’t be a great loss if it gets ruined?” Kristy asked. Able to see the myriad questions in Harry’s keen eyes, she promised, “I’ll explain later. I’ve got to run the girls to school. They’ve missed their bus.”
“Very well, madam. I’ll do my best,” Harry agreed cooperatively.
He strode cheerfully out to his luxury sports car parked in the employee lot at the end of the driveway. Connor was still standing there, talking to the twins about flying kites on the beach. “Okay, girls, let’s go!” Kristy said, opening up her minivan. She slung her purse into the front seat and opened the back for the twins.
The girls climbed in, Sally being careful not to muss up her pretty dress and matching crinoline, while Susie hopped in like the complete tomboy she had gradually morphed into since her father’s death.
Harry turned to Connor. “Do you know where I might find some ‘old clothes’ similar to what Ms. Neumeyer is wearing?” she heard him ask.
Connor directed him down the beach to a discount store, and Harry got in his sport coupe and drove away as Kristy put on her sunglasses and seat belt. “We’re going to be late,” Susie said.
“No, we’re not,” Kristy stated. Confident she had plenty of time to get the girls to school before the bell, she slid her key into the ignition, turned it and got…absolutely nothing. Kristy stared at the steering column and the driver panel, and tried again.
Nothing. No groan from the motor, no spark as the ignition tried to catch. Just silence.
“Oh, no!” Susie moaned from the back seat.
“The van won’t start!” Sally sounded panicked, too.
“Problem?” Connor appeared at Kristy’s window.
Kristy scowled, already calculating how long it would take to get a cab out here. The answer: way too long. “My van won’t start.”
“Want me to have a look under the hood?” Connor asked.
The girls grew even more agitated.
“There’s no time for that,” Kristy said, getting out. She had so much to do today. She really didn’t need this. “I’ve got to get the girls to school.” And she had very few options, unless she wanted them to miss half an hour or more of their school day. She looked at him, hating the position she was in, but—for her kids’ sake—not too proud to ask. “Can you take us?”
“Sure. You’ll have to direct me.”
“No problem.”
They piled into Connor’s Mercedes, and Kristy directed Connor to the elementary school. Unfortunately, there was a traffic snarl at two of the intersections, and by the time they reached the school, the bell had already rung and the grounds were deserted.
“Now I don’t want to go at all,” Sally grumbled from the back seat.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll go in with you and explain what happened at the office,” Kristy said.
“Do you want me to go inside with you or wait in the car?” Connor asked, willing to do whatever was best.
“You can just wait here if you don’t mind. It should take me only a minute to sign them in,” Kristy promised.
“EVERYTHING OKAY?” Connor asked Kristy when she finally emerged from the school some twenty minutes later and climbed into the car beside him. It didn’t look as if things were okay, he thought. In fact, she looked pretty upset.
“No.” Kristy lowered her glance and pressed her fingertips to her forehead.
Connor turned to her, no longer sure if this was merely a business encounter or a love affair about to happen. He only knew for certain that kissing her last night had stirred something deep inside him that he thought had been exhausted long ago. And though he wasn’t sure if passion like that was good for anything except messing up the best laid plans, he still wanted to experience it again.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked, as he started his car and guided it back onto the road. Right now she seemed to need a friend, and even if it interfered with what he was trying to accomplish workwise, he wanted to be there for her.
Kristy sighed and, with the flat of one hand, pushed her silky, dark brown hair away from her face. “I ran into the school counselor as I was checking the girls in at the office.”
“And…?” Connor asked as he turned onto Folly Beach Road.
“She asked me to step into her office, since I was there.” Kristy drew a deep breath and turned to face him. “She told me the girls have been talking about their dad a lot to their classmates and teachers. Susie acts as if Lance is there with her every day after school and commented to that end to her music, art and physical ed teachers. And Sally’s been telling the other kids that her dad is away, but he’ll be coming back real soon.”
Not good, given the fact that—according to the information Skip and Connor had gleaned, anyway—Kristy’s husband had died nearly two years before. “Do the other kids know Lance died?”
“Well, the twins’ teachers hadn’t mentioned it. But that all happened long before the twins moved here or started in this school six weeks ago. Now the third grade teaching team is wondering what to do, which is