Page 20 of Almost Home
“My partner is visiting soon to check things out. He’s moving here from Bragg as well, but he’s got a few more months to go before retirement. I have an admin. I’ll be bringing on security personnel.”
“Any luck finding people yet?” Mom asked.
“I have a few people in mind. One guy I worked with who’ll be moving this summer.”
She nodded, her bright blue eyes and silvering blond hair a mirror of Wyatt more than me or War.
“Do you have clients and such yet? Is that what you call them in your business?” Warrick asked.
“One or two thus far.”
Calla spoke up. She wasn’t shy, but I got the feeling she didn’t like me much. Maybe because I’d missed their wedding, for which she had every right to dislike me. Her nail polish was perfectly painted to match the top she wore, but it couldn’t hide the roughened fingertips of her left hand. I’d felt them during an awkward handshake greeting earlier. I could see Wyatt liking that—the shine of the polish paired with the strength and skill those fingers had built over years in her music career.
“Is it like alarm systems or body guarding or other stuff?”
Of all the people at the table, she was undoubtedly most well-acquainted with needing security. “It’ll run the gamut. Eventually, we’ll offer self-defense and other courses to fill in the gaps.”
“Honey, how will you do these current people’s work with just you?”
I held in the smile at Mom’s endearment. “I’ll be doing any outfitting or body work until I can fill out a roster, but I need clients for that.”
Everyone nodded and Wyatt mumbled, “Makes sense.”
I figured the conversation would move on to something else, but Calla spoke up again. “And Sarah? It’s going well with her as your admin?”
Mom straightened in her seat. “Sarah? Sarah James?”
All eyes on me, my pulse spiked at the repetition of her name. At the thought of her. At Calla’s pointed inquiry. At the intrusion of her yet again. “All good.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That simple, huh?”
Wyatt put an arm around her and pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her temple like it might calm her. The edge in her voice rang clear, and I knew without a doubt Sarah, or someone, had explained our history to Calla.
I nodded. “That simple.” Because it was.
And it wasn’t. But I wasn’t about to tell this newlywed and newly pregnant woman I was all kinds of mixed up over having her friend, my ex, in my space. No one would know that but me. What good would it do to explain to them how irrationally wound up just knowing she lived here in Silverton made me, let alone that she now worked in my business as my only other employee? How could I explain that I’d come home forthem? Yes, for me, too, but also for them.
And Sarah’s mere existence in the space nearly railroaded everything. Logically, she couldn’t be blamed for moving back here, though I hated the irony that brought us both in town at the same time.
But the strategic part of me that had planned what came next these last years hadn’t planned on Sarah. I hadn’t factored her in, and that meant I’d arrived unprepared. By the time I’d found out, things had already been set into motion.
Calla’s dark gaze wouldn’t intimidate me, but she made a valiant effort. Sadie interrupted the stare down Calla was giving me, her sweet tone pulling my attention.
“She seemed excited about the job when we talked yesterday. She wouldn’t give us any details, but she said it was all interesting. It’s a big improvement on the last few temp jobs she’s had.”
A hundred questions ran through my mind, none of which I’d voice. Why had she been going through temp jobs? I hadn’t figured out why she came back to Silverton at all, much less to be here without a job to speak of. Why had she come back, then?
I couldn’t ask them that, nor would I ask Sarah. If she was happy at my place, great. Fine. She seemed capable and she’d always been smart. She could stay until Diane got back, and I’d keep my distance and make sure I focused on the family, just like I was doing now. She could stay and do the job. Even if it made keeping my mind on the work a bit more difficult.
“Good.”
Sadie smiled, evidently approving of my pleasure at her friend’s happiness at work. She reached for her water and the small, faded burn streaks on her wrists caught my eye and reminded me of her hidden skill and strength. Anyone who’d been burned by an industrial oven and kept going had some steel in her.
“I’d like to come see your office sometime,” Mom said.
I heard the yearning in it—the need to be close to me and know about my life. A sound that used to grate on me so badly, I had to grit my teeth through our conversations in the first few years after I’d left. Her love for me, her insistence on caring and checking in, had pulled at me, chafing against all those places that longed for home.
But now? It was a relief to welcome it in. To accept it, and even if I felt I didn’t deserve it, to know she did love me despite my absence. This was why I’d come back. “Anytime. I have some work out of the office first of the week but otherwise, come whenever.”
