“Well, you couldn’t. You have responsibilities here.” She nodded down at Davey. “But my nest is empty, and except for helping out with the Healing Heroes cottage, I’m free to pick up and go anytime.” Something flashed across her face and then was gone.
Maybe some of her enthusiasm could be bravado. Maybe she was traveling alone because she didn’t have anyone to go with.
For just a minute, that wide world of adventure beckoned. He’d never even left the country.
But no. His job was to be safe and keep his son safe, not go globe-trotting.
“So you’re staying in the cottage?” Trey asked, and Paul realized the man was still observing him in the guise of making conversation. Probably deciding whether to call child protective services.
Paul couldn’t blame him. What had happened tonight hadn’t just scared Amber; it had scared Paul as well, badly. It made him wonder whether he was, in fact, fit to parent a child.
Paul couldn’t let something like that happen again. And he also couldn’t jump up and pull his weapon every time someone knocked on the door.
He looked directly at Trey. “I had a nightmare, and that’s what scared Davey. I’m getting counseling for PTSD and I’m to do volunteer work here in town. That’s the deal with the cottage. My old boss set me up for it.” He hated revealing even that much, but his symptoms were too obvious to ignore. He couldn’t act like he didn’t know he had a problem. He cleared his throat. “I’m thinking maybe I should give up my weapon for now.” He pulled it out, slowly, and laid it on the table.
Trey had tensed, but as soon as Paul’s hands were away from the gun, he nodded and scraped the last of the eggs off his plate. “I can hold on to it if you’d like.”
Paul didn’t like it, not one bit. But he couldn’t risk carrying when he was so obviously out of control. “Thanks.”
“Think you’re okay to take care of him now?” Trey asked, nodding down at Davey.
Paul rubbed a hand over his face. “I have to be. I’m all he’s got.” His own words made him straighten his spine. He had to buck up because he could lose everything. Worse, Davey could.
He needed help, and he had to get it here, or else.
CHAPTER TWO
LIGHTHOUSE LIT WAS a comforting place, like any bookstore. Mary Rhoades, its owner and manager, tried to take in that comfort Thursday evening as she knelt beside a box of new dog-related books and fought back tears.
The lengthening shadows outside reminded her it would soon be time to close. She could indulge in her emotions after she was alone.
“I told you I’d make that display!” Julie, her best employee, came over and took the book featuring dogs in costumes out of her hands. “Though I still don’t understand why you even need to have a display about pets just three weeks after losing Baby. We’ve got great-looking fall displays. Leave it at that.”
The mention of her ancient, beloved Maltipoo tightened Mary’s throat, but she swallowed her emotions. “Pet books sell like hotcakes. People will love them.”
She stood, gripping the edge of the display table for support, her knees complaining. She needed to get back to her exercise class. When you were nearly seventy, aches and pains were inevitable, but exercise did help.
“I’ll finish this,” Julie said in a mother hen tone. “You unpack the self-help books. And take a couple of them home to read, while you’re at it.”
“Who’s the boss here, anyway?” Mary complained mildly, but she did as Julie said and went over to start unloading the box Julie had been working on. Julie, a fiftysomething redhead, was way more of a friend than an employee, and had every right to call Mary on her mistakes, like mooning over books full of cute dog photos.
Mary knew that her grief over Baby was complicated. A counselor had once told her that every loss she had would bring back the biggest loss of her life, especially if Mary didn’t resolve her grief about that. Which, she supposed, she hadn’t; she tried not to think about it.
What Mary really needed to do was to start a new charity project. Helping others, that was the only thing that filled the empty places inside her. She’d been thinking of an expansion to the Healing Heroes program. Maybe now was the time to stop thinking and start doing.
The bells on the shop door jingled, and Mary glanced over as a familiar man strutted in. Completely bald and roughly Mary’s age, Kirk James wore a sport coat, pressed jeans and dress shoes. He looked like a man on a mission.
Mary ducked behind the shelf.
“Hi, beautiful,” Kirk said to Julie. “Is Mary around?”
Mary caught Julie’s eye and shook her head, making a zipping motion over her lips.
“She’s right over there, and she’s feeling blue,” Julie said without a moment’s pause, the traitor. “Maybe you can cheer her up.”
“Great idea.” Kirk came over and smiled his charming smile. “What do you think, babe? Take a spin with a younger man?”
She snorted. Kirk was only a couple of years younger than she was, but he was quite the ladies’ man, at least in his own mind. “I’ll pass today, but thanks. Maybe I can interest you in a self-improvement book, though?” She held up a religious text, The New Purity and Why It Works. “This one seems like it could do you some good.”
He squinted at the title and frowned. “You know I’m not much of a reader.”
“And you’re in a bookstore because...”
“Because I was hoping you’d join me for a drink down at the Gusty Gull,” he said. “There’s a band tonight.”
She raised an eyebrow as she continued shelving books. “There’s that Olson kid playing his harmonica and guitar. Which takes some talent, but it’s not exactly a
