Page 104 of Stay this Christmas
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason.” None I wanted to share, anyway.
“Are you sure it’s not because they’re working you too much over at the Village?”
I tried to play it cool, but I’d apparently lost all ability to hide my emotions. “You think so?”
She scoffed. “I don’t know what you girls think of me. Eden pretending she’s hiding her pregnancy, and you thinking I can’t see you’re working yourself to the bone. Baby, it’s okay to make time for yourself, too. You don’t have to put so much into your job that you don’t have anything left for you.”
She might have ripped off Sam’s speech from last night. “I’m not working myself to the bone.”
The defense came on autopilot, like the way I’d been living the last few years. An automatic answer I hadn’t fully thought through. Kind of like my argument with Sam last night. Easier to defend old habits than take a long, hard look at them.
She ran a hand along my hair, brushing it over my shoulder. “Baby, you’re working yourself down to dust. I don’t understand why you think you have to.”
Her gentleness loosened something inside me, working past all my defenses straight to my tender center. “I’m afraid if I speak up, I could lose my job.”
“Baby, if speaking up is all it would take, maybe it’s not the job you thought it was.”
I let out a tremulous laugh. “I can’t risk my job.”
“Why not?”
Her cavalier attitude made me get right to the point. “I’ve worked too hard to get here. And…I don’t want to disappoint you and Dad.”
“Oh, Harper.” She laid a hand on my shoulder, working her Mom magic until tears sprang to my eyes. “You can’t ever do that. We’re proud of you no matter what you do. This job, some other job, something else entirely. We just love you, head to toe.”
“But—” I turned to make sure Eliza wasn’t anywhere near the kitchen. “You pushed Eliza so hard with her soap business because you thought she might fail. Wouldn’t you think the same thing of me if I left my job? Or worse—was let go?”
She shot me a quelling look. “I know the women I raised. Eliza needed a push now and then, though I admit, she’s pulled her job together, and we’re proud of her. You, on the other hand, never needed a push. You did enough pushing all on your own.”
Maybe. I’d known what I wanted and went after it. But…maybe I’d been a little overzealous with my efforts. Obviously I had, considering I’d had to force myself to do a handful of things I enjoyed this month. Sam had been right, which somehow both ticked me off and really, really comforted me.
He did know me better than I wanted to admit. The good and the bad.
“What’s the worst that happens if you tell your director you’re doing too much at the Village?”
“I could lose my job.” Fear bloomed to life in my stomach, spreading out tentacles like a giant, unemployed octopus.
She didn’t look one bit disappointed or surprised by the answer. “And then?”
“I’d have to find another one.”
“Mm hmm. And do you think your three years being the sole PT at a retirement community serving almost a hundred clients would help you get a new job?”
Well…yes. I’d built this job from the ground up, put in incredible patient hours, and would have glowing recommendations. I didn’t know who else was hiring, but I could probably get another job as a PT pretty quickly if it came down to it.
“But I don’t want a different job. I want this one, just with normal hours.”
“So ask for that. You’ve already realized the worst-case scenario isn’t all that bad.”
Maybe. I could talk to Olivia, spell it all out for her. Explain her grand ideas to make Fiesta Village more marketable were running me into the ground, and that I needed normal working hours again. And if she didn’t like it…well, I could find something else.
I didn’t love that last option, but it was still true. I had excellent credentials. And if all else failed, I could always threaten to apply at the new retirement community. That might get my point across to Olivia better than anything else.
“Now. Tell me what’s going on with Sam.”
My face flushed to life with heat. “How do you know about that?”
