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“On…”
“Another decision I’m trying to make.” She finished removing her scarf and let it fall on the bed behind her. “Jack offered me a job tonight—well, he offered to give me my old job back now that he and Glenda are splitting up. And he said he’d pay me twice as much as I’m making now.”
“Jack to the rescue, huh?”
He didn’t seem as pleased with this information as he was about her plan to move away from Hard Luck. “You don’t think I can trust him?”
“Only you would know that.”
“He needs someone and hiring me means he won’t have to mess with training a newbie.”
“But will he keep you on if you’re not receptive to getting back together?”
“I don’t think he wants me back. He’s the one who asked for the divorce. I would’ve hung on, but he’d had enough.”
“Of…”
“The fighting, the constant upheaval, the tug-of-war between him and my father.”
“So how do you feel now? Would you want to reconcile?”
She didn’t even have to consider that question; she already knew the answer. “No.”
He sat down beside her. “But you would be willing to work for him.”
“Possibly.”
“How would your father react? Wouldn’t you have to quit your job at the church?”
“Yes, and if that makes him mad enough, I might also have to get my own place, at which point I’m not sure I will have gained anything.”
“You’d gain your freedom.”
Everyone else always made breaking away from her father sound so simple. But Carl was all she had as far as family. It was tough not to care a great deal about that relationship.
Besides, she felt a duty to him as his daughter. He was a good man despite his difficult personality. “It may seem that way when you first look at it. But for how long? I’d be relying on a job provided by my ex-husband. What if he meets someone else and I lose my job to his new wife?”
“Then you’ll find another job.”
“In this town?”
“After all the work you’ve done for the festival, you know most of the business owners in the area. I bet there are a lot of people who’d hire you. Anyway, you only need to work for Jack for four years. Hopefully, he won’t find another woman that fast.”
“You never know,” she grumbled. “He married Glenda immediately after our divorce.”
“No doubt she’d already let him know she was right there, ready and willing to take your place.”
“Yeah.” She dropped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Some friend.”
“Reaching for anything is a risk, Patience. But nothing good ever happens without risk. Do what makes you happiest.”
She turned her head to meet his gaze and couldn’t help remembering how wonderful it’d felt to sleep in his arms last night. They hadn’t had sex, hadn’t even made out. But just being held, especially by him, had been so impactful. Those precious hours seemed to have changed everything in her world. They’d shoved her into a certain wakefulness, created a need she’d been able to ignore until now. It was almost as if she’d been plodding steadily along in life and suddenly been hit by a bolt of lightning. “Are you happy?” she asked.
He didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “I am now, I think. As I get older, I seem to find more peace—when my old demons don’t raise their heads.”
“What happens when they do?”
“I withdraw further inside myself, I guess.”
