Penny hurried toward them. “Charlie! Come here.” Diana’s bouncy, lovable dog ignored her. She reached into her pocket. “Here, boy. I’ve got a treat.”
Charlie looked at Penny and licked his lips. With no extra coaxing, he ran back, wolfing down the dried chicken thins in one gulp.
Wyatt’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Thanks.”
Penny attached Charlie’s leash to his collar. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry about the doggy drool.”
He looked down at his jeans and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Charlie’s happy.”
“He’s always happy when he sees someone he knows. Did you get plenty of painting done today?”
“Not as much as I wanted. After I saw you, I had a meeting with Pastor John.”
“About the art project?”
Wyatt’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve heard about what we’re doing?”
“Mom told us. She has a way of discovering what’s happening in the community.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Wyatt’s blue eyes focused on her. “It looks as though we’re both going in the same direction. Do you want company?”
“I thought…” Penny’s voice petered out. She didn’t want to sound rude, but she thought she was the last person he would want to spend time with.
“If you’d prefer to walk on your own—”
“No, it isn’t that.” She took a deep breath. “I’d enjoy your company. It looks as though Charlie would, too.” The dog in question was sitting on his bottom staring adoringly at Wyatt.
“I’m surprised he isn’t barking. He usually does plenty of that when he sees me.”
“Charlie only does that when he wants your attention. He’ll be better behaved after he’s had a walk.”
Wyatt gestured toward the trail. “We’d better keep moving, then. Apart from sanding the side tables, what have you been doing today?”
Penny slid her cell phone into her pocket. There would be plenty of time later to worry about the email. For now, Wyatt and Charlie were a welcome distraction. “I’ve been sorting through some furniture and boxes in the attic.”
“That must have been difficult.”
“It was hard seeing the things my grandparents had carefully packed away. Diana found an old scrapbook with all the pictures we’d drawn for them. They’d even kept the painted handprints we made before we started school.” Thinking about the pictures brought tears to her eyes. “Time goes by so quickly. When you’re young, you think you’ll never be twenty. And, before you know it, you’re thirty-five.”
“And then you’re forty and sixty doesn’t sound far away.”
Penny sighed. “That makes me feel worse.”
“It’s part of life. Growing old is a privilege.”
The words were spoken so softly that she nearly missed them. “I never thought of it that way.”
Wyatt stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. “You seemed upset before Charlie saw me. Is everything else all right?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve had plenty of days like that. Is there anything I can do?”
Charlie stopped to sniff a long tuft of grass. Penny waited beside him, not sure whether to tell Wyatt about what had happened at work.
“I’m a good listener.”
She looked into his serious blue eyes and sighed. Pulling out her cell phone, she showed him the message. “I really wanted the promotion. I’ve been working alongside the person who’s doing the job for months. Our latest project is ahead of schedule and under budget.” The more she thought about it, the more worried she became. “Why wouldn’t they ask me to manage our team? I have everything they need, including a good relationship with some of the biggest property investors in Seattle.”
“Sometimes people make decisions that don’t seem logical.”
Her hand tightened around Charlie’s leash. “I spoke to the manager who was doing the recruiting last month. He said I had everything they were looking for in a candidate. Why didn’t he tell me what they’d done when he called me?”
“Perhaps he wasn’t the person who made the decision and he felt embarrassed?”
Penny looked down at Charlie. She was probably overreacting, but the sting of disappointment was still raw. “Or it could be something else. I asked him if I could work from Sapphire Bay for a week or two each month. That might have changed his mind.”
“Can your job be done from here?”
“I live in Seattle, but work on projects along the West Coast. I could easily do half of my time from here.”
“Was it important you work from Sapphire Bay?”
Penny nodded and followed Charlie along the trail.
“It might help to talk about it.”
“It’s a long story.”
Wyatt smiled and her heart pounded. “It doesn’t look as though Charlie’s in a hurry to go home.”
She hadn’t spoken to anyone besides her sisters and parents about the clause in her grandma’s will. And even then, she’d kept her deepest fears to herself. “Are you sure you want to know? It would be a lot quieter if my sisters and I weren’t living in Grandma’s house.”
“But not as much fun. The muffins someone leaves at my front door makes all the noise worthwhile.”
Penny cheeks burned. “We thought it might make you a little less grumpy when Charlie comes to visit.”
With a cheeky grin, Wyatt leaned toward her. “It’s working. Why do you want to stay?”
And with a worried frown, she told him why she was here, why she wanted to live here, and why it might not happen.
As Wyatt listened to Penny, his frown deepened. “They can’t do that.”
“They might not call it firing, but Barclays could restructure the team and not need me.”
“If they did, they’d be crazy. Apart from anything else, it takes months to bring a new person up to speed with what’s happening in an organization.”
Penny shook her head. “They’ll say the staff at work have transferable skills, that another person won’t take long to fill the gaps.”
“Even though you didn’t get the promotion, you still have a job. Has your boss told you if you can work from Sapphire Bay?”
“Not yet.”
“What will you do if he doesn’t want you to work from here?”
“I don’t know. I have a lovely home in Seattle, a wonderful group of friends, and a job I love. But this,”—she looked
