Page 27 of Three Little Wishes

“Are you sure? I don’t want Mr. Lowell to make trouble for you. It might be better if one of us plays intermediary.”

“I have a lawyer friend who can be pretty persuasive. I’ll have him call Mr. Lowell. I just need a few extra days.”

“Does this lawyer friend have a name?” her mom asked.

“Noah,” Willow mumbled. Then, plastering a wide smile on her face, she shooed them out the door. “Now off you go. I’ll see you at six.”

Her mother shook her head. “No. You have enough on your plate. You’re off the schedule until you settle into your new place.”

Willow opened her mouth to argue. She couldn’t afford to lose the money. Her mom patted her cheek. “Don’t argue with your mother. And don’t think you can keep this lawyer friend of yours a secret.”

No secret was safe around her mom, grandmother, and aunt, unless it was one of their own. “I’m not. He’s just a friend,” she said as she ushered them onto the walkway. “I love you guys, and I really do appreciate your rushing over here to help me out.”

“We love you too, even though you can be a pain in ourculi,bella,” her grandmother said.

“Don’t listen to her. You’ve never been a pain in ourculi. You’re our darling girl,” Bruno said.

Willow flung her arms around him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I love you best.”

Her grandmother rolled her eyes. “This one,” she said, jerking a thumb at Willow. “She’s been wrapping men around her baby finger since she could talk. And you,” her grandmother lifted her chin at Bruno. “Are you forgetting the time she snuck half the teenagers of Sunshine Bay into the restaurant after we were closed and had a party, or the time she packed up all the boxed and canned goods we had in the kitchen andgave it to the food pantry without telling us, or the time she took in two stray dogs and hid…”

Willow took a page out of Cami’s book and covered her ears, humming loudly as she closed the front door. Then she leaned her back against it, dropped her hands to her sides, and looked around the house. Overwhelmed, she slid down the door and sat on the floor while the tears she could no longer hold back rolled down her cheeks.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when the door began opening, sliding her butt across the floor. “Willow?”

“Hey, I told you not to rush.” She kept her back to Noah as she got up off the floor, scrubbing her hands over her face to get rid of the evidence that she’d been crying. She turned with what she hoped looked like a bright and happy smile on her face.

His eyes narrowed on her while he carried two boxes inside. “I didn’t rush. I dropped you off over an hour ago.”

She briefly closed her eyes at the knowledge that she’d been sitting there feeling sorry for herself for that long. “Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.” She glanced around, pointing to a clear space near the couch. “You can just drop them there, thanks. I’ll organize them later.”

“Are you going to tell me why your family was moving you out and why you’ve been crying?”

“I haven’t been crying. It’s just dusty in here.”

He put down the boxes and then came back to her, took her by the hand, moved the boxes over with his foot, and led her to the couch. “Sit.”

She didn’t have the bandwidth to argue and did as he said. He sat beside her, resting his arm along the back of the couch. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

Chapter Ten

You were right,” Willow admitted to Noah. “I don’t have a lease. I had a verbal agreement with my landlord. He dropped by yesterday after we’d left.” She waved her arm around the room. “Saw that it was a disaster and decided he wants me out by tonight, not two weeks from now. Instead of calling me, he called my family, and because I’m going behind their back, I’d turned off my phone so I didn’t have to outright lie about where I was if they called, and my mom couldn’t reach me. So they did what they always do. Clean up my mess.” She blew out a soggy breath and then realized what she’d done.

The last thing she needed was Noah thinking he couldn’t depend on her. How would he ever trust her ideas for Channel 5 if he thought she was a flake?

“Okay, that didn’t come out right. It’s not like I make a mess of my life every other week. I’m honestly very dependable. You can ask Don and my coworkers at Channel 5,” she said. “Today was the first full day I’ve taken off since I started working there. I never call in sick. Last winter, I did the weather, outside I might add, with a temperature of a hundred and two. I’d never let my coworkers down. Ever.”

“You don’t have to convince me, Willow. I believe you. But I don’t like to think of you going to work when you’re sick.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” She made a face. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this because it makes me look irresponsible, but I’m in debt and live paycheck to paycheck. I can’t afford to lose a shift at either Channel 5 or the restaurant. But no lie, it’s not my fault.” She tilted her head from side to side. “It’s partially my fault. I like to have fun and party, or at least I used to, so I didn’t have much of a rainy-day fund when things went sideways with the house flip.”

“Your business with Megan?”

Willow nodded. “There’s good money to be made in house flipping. I’d bought my first home the year before and wanted to have extra money set aside in case… Well, I wasn’t a fan of appearing on air in a bikini, and Don and I had a few arguments about it so I was worried—”

She knew she should’ve kept her mouth shut when Noah got that stone-cold expression on his face but she didn’t want him to think she’d thought about quitting her job and needed the extra money in case she did. She’d actually thought Don might fire her, and then she’d need the money. But she didn’t want to tell Noahthat.

“Excuse me. Don made you wear abikinito do the weather?”

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