Page 115 of A Dream for Daphne

Last week was almost as boring as the first week she lived with Aster and hadn’t started working yet.

At least on Monday, she convinced everyone to let her start rather than waiting until today, which was the full two weeks.

“Can I ask you something?”

They’d stay in the kitchen for now. The kids’ bedrooms were upstairs, but they always napped in one of the spare rooms downstairs. One had two cribs in it for the babies; another had two toddler beds in it.

The house was massive and was barely used in most sections.

“Sure,” Julie said.

“You commented on me being worried I’d get fired. Why?”

She hadn’t said that to Julie even though she had that fear early on.

Poppy and Reese assured her that would never happen. They paid her full salary during this time on top of it. They were even covering any medical expenses she had outside her insurance.

She’d argued over that and they laughed and reminded her it was workers’ compensation again.

Nothing she could do about it.

At least everyone stopped hovering over her.

Well, not Abe.

She’d finally sent him back to his house last week when the work was done at the McGill Estate.

She knew he wanted to stay, but she could handle it on her own just fine.

She wasn’t in much pain and she was used to doing things with her right arm anyway.

It’s not like he needed to wait on her hand and foot. He’d been working long hours during the day anyway.

She was starting to think he only wanted to be in her bed at night.

It’s not like they did anything in it and she was frustrated over that too.

Maybe if she was getting some action in the sheets, it would tire her out too. But he was acting like he was going to hurt her or something.

“I overheard Poppy and Rose talking about it last week.”

She’d never told them she was worried she’d get fired. Just that she was concerned about the job because the kids needed her.

Abe was the only one that she’d used that word to.

“I’m not sure why they’d say that,” she said.

She knew Julie liked to gossip. This just fed right into it.

“I guess Abe talked to Reese the day of the accident or something and said that you were worried about it. I find that sweet that he was looking out for you. Sounds like things are going well there?”

She kept her best poker face over hearing that bit of information.

How dare he do that? Talk about embarrassing.

She didn’t need someone to watch out for her. She could handle her career on her own.

“They are,” she said. “Working out perfectly.” One of the kids made a noise on the monitor and she stood up. “I’ll go check. Someone might just have lost a blanket and it’s cool in there with the air conditioning on.”

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