Page 18 of A Dream for Daphne

“You got it,” Raine said. “Now let’s sit and talk about you and your new life here. How is everything going? Poppy has to be the best boss. Ivy loves her. Ivy loves all the sisters, but I know she’s got a bit of a closer bond with Poppy.”

“Poppy is wonderful. I can’t say enough good things about their treatment of me. I feel so guilty that they are giving me so much and I don’t want them to think I’m taking advantage of it.”

“I don’t think they feel that way,” Aster said.

“I know. Reese said he’s so thankful that Holly gets all her energy out and is sleeping well now. He just couldn’t do it whilehe was working and the last nanny had her hands full with two toddlers and kind of kept them inside more.”

Not that she was saying anything bad about that. Everyone had their own style when it came to kids.

She’d always had to watch so many at once, but she learned to have eyes on every part of her body because the more engaged you kept a child the faster the time flew and everyone did better.

“And you get to pick and choose what you do with the kids now too,” Raine said. “How is it with Tatum?”

“He’s such a good baby,” she said. “He’s doing a lot of eating and sleeping, but he likes being outside and is entertained by his sister. It’s working in my favor.”

“You’ve got this handled easily,” Aster said.

“I never worried about that,” she said.

About the only confidence she had in her life was her ability to work hard.

“Just that you’re bored?” Raine asked.

“Kind of. It’s horrible to say that, isn’t it? I need to start going out and doing things. A hobby or something. I’m not a gym person, but I could try that. I like to walk and can walk the grounds, but I don’t want them to think I’m creepy doing that.”

Aster laughed. “I doubt they’d think that.”

“I’m close to the water—they’ve said I can go up and swim off their dock. I was thinking about it sometime.”

“Do it,” Aster said. “Or come here and do it while I’m living here. We are going to start looking for a house. I want one on the water or close to it. Not sure the inventory.”

“I figured you’d only rent for so long.”

Her brother had millions in the bank from his reward money, but very few knew about that.

“I’m just waiting for the right time to look,” he said.

“I’m glad that it’s all falling into place for you both.”

She gave her brother a hug and Raine another.

“It will for you too,” Raine said. “Seems to me like it’s already starting.”

“Sure,” she said. “We’ll go with that.”

7

EMBARRASSED OVER MY ACTIONS

Come hell or high water Abe was making contact with Daphne today.

He just had to figure out how to make that happen when nothing seemed to be going his way for the past two days.

But by the end of the day on Tuesday, Abe was the last one at the McGill site with Mac. He’d been running around most of yesterday and today checking on jobs and giving quotes, fielding questions and calls.

Yep, he was right. This job was going to put him in demand even more.

He just had to decide how much he wanted his business to grow. Taking risks had never been high on his list of to-dos, but maybe it was time for a change.

---