A couple of minutes later, she stood there stunned.
There were ten children in the yard with her, and eleven stuffed Coyotes. Had he done this on purpose? Had he taken a moment to count the heads in the yard to make sure no one was without? What kind of man did that? And if he did, had he made sure that she got to take one home with her? Was that why there was one extra?
Hesitating, she looked over her shoulder toward the road where he’d left, and wished that their conversation had gone much, much differently.
CHAPTER 11
NETTIE
Lookingup at the clock mounted high on the pastel-painted daycare wall, Nettie felt her shoulders slump. The numbers glared back at her—5:58.
Two whole minutes before freedom.
Of course, that was the exact moment her cell phone began to vibrate against her thigh, buzzing insistently like a gnat she couldn’t swat away. She grimaced.
Nope. Not tonight.
Clickingignorewith her thumb, she shoved the phone deep into her scrub pocket and forced a polite smile for the frazzled parents who finally showed up—nearly twenty minutes late—to collect their toddler.
It had beenthatkind of day.
Today, she’d been blessed with ‘The Biter’…
Every daycare worker had one sooner or later, but this little boy had been particularly ambitious. Three kids in her group now bore little half-moon imprints, and Nettie had spent half her shift offering apologies, writing incident reports, and pretending she wasn’t seconds away from screaming. Then the director had cornered her with that ever-so-gentle tone of,‘What’s going on in your classroom, Nettie? Why didn’t you notice? What were you doing?’
What could she say?
That she was too busy daydreaming about a man she hadn’t been able to get out of her head for more than a decade? That the ghost of Tate Cassidy had been strolling around her brain rent-free, distracting her with a smile she relished in her dreams?
She pressed her lips together. No. That wouldn’t fly.
But itwastrue.
Last night had been the cruelest kind of dream. Tate, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek. Tate, his eyes soft, teasing, about to kiss her. Her body had leaned toward him in that sleepy half-world, her heart stuttering with anticipation. Then, as dreams had a way of doing, the scene shifted. She was younger again, vulnerable, and he was pushing her away—telling her to grow up, to do something with her life.
The sting of rejection hit all over again, just as fresh, just as sharp as it had been back then. She’d woken up with her chest tight, torn between aching longing and raw humiliation—no wonder she didn’t have the mental reserves to wrangle a classroom full of toddlers.
And now, her phone was buzzing…again.
With a heavy sigh, Nettie yanked it out of her pocket as she pushed through the daycare’s glass doors into the muggy evening air. If she didn’t answer, she knew the calls would keep coming. She glanced at the glowing screen and, resigned, thumbed it on.
“Don’t hang up!” Gina’s voice shrieked in her ear before she could even say hello. “I know it’s not six, but it’s almost that, and oh my gosh, I need your help.”
Nettie pinched the bridge of her nose. How did anyone stay mad at Gina? Her best friend was chaos wrapped in glitter, andeven when she was being ridiculous, it was impossible not to care or wonder what was the matter.
“What’s wrong? What do you need?” Nettie asked, clocking out a moment later and sliding into her car, dropping her bag on the passenger seat.
“I decided to get my hair permed and highlighted like Shannon’s and…”
“You need a hat? A wig?” Nettie cut in dryly.
“What? Nooo…”
“That’s a lot of chemicals at once.”
“People do it all the time—but you are distracting me.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
