“What about you?” she asked, eager to shift the focus away from herself. “Is one of those kids yours?”
A shadow passed over Heather’s face, but she pressed on a smile. “No kids. I work as a bookkeeper at an accounting firm nearby. Nothing exciting, but it pays the bills.” Heather’s hair blew in the breeze, and she tucked a strand behind her ear. “I come here when I need a break from the monotony. Something about kids laughing—it just makes everything better, you know?”
Delaney did know. Children’s laughter had always been a balm to her soul. Even on her worst days, the children she cared for brought her joy. “It’s like a reset button.”
They were chatting about nothing important when Charlotte stepped off the mulched play area and wandered toward the woods.
“Looks like I need to run.” Delaney stood, never taking her eyes off Charlotte.
“What do you say we meet up here again? Maybe Thursday midmorning? Give us both someone to talk to besides four-year-olds and stuffy bosses.”
The prospect of having a friend—even a casual one—made Delaney’s heart lighten. She was moving toward her charge but said, “I’d like that.”
“Great! See you then!”
Delaney ran toward the little escapee, pleased with herself.
She had a job, a place to live, and now a new friend. Not only was she living away from home, she was practically thriving.
She thought of the check her father had given her, still uncashed in her purse.
Maybe, for the first time in her life, she could actually make him proud.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The glass-walled office felt more like a cage than a sanctuary as Noah stared out at the Driftwood town square two stories below, searching for a glimpse of Charlotte and her nanny through the canopy of autumn oaks.
They probably weren’t there anymore, since Charlotte had dance class in half an hour, but he searched anyway, as eager to catch a glimpse of Miss Wright as he was of Charlotte.
The admission knotted his gut. Just what he needed, an attraction to the too-young, too-naive nanny to add to all his other problems.
“You hear what I said?” Richard asked behind him.
Noah needed to be present here, now. He turned to face his office and the man on the far side of his desk.
Twenty-plus years his senior, Richard was tall and broad with gray hair thinning at the crown. He’d been Dad’s lawyer and dearest friend, and in the years since Dad’s death, he’d become more than a mentor. He was the closest thing to a father figure Noah had.
Unfortunately, Richard had brought bad news today.
The Tidewater merger, the one Noah had worked for months to orchestrate, the one he’d thought the night before was all but sewn up, was in even more jeopardy than it’d been before.
“Lowell’s all for this new company,” Noah guessed.
Richard shifted in the leather visitor’s chair. “I can’t say for sure, seeing as how I haven’t talked to anyone on the board about it, but that’s a good bet.”
“What do you know about this rival company?”
“It’s Hayes Industries, run by Frederick?—”
“Hayes. I’ve met him.” Noah sank into his chair, a holdover from when MidAtlantic Analytics had belonged to his father. He’d replaced a lot of the furniture, but there was something about sitting in Dad’s chair that grounded him.
Sometimes.
But today, the creaking leather made him feel like he was in someone else’s seat, living someone else’s life. Exhaustion pressed behind his eyes—not the good kind that came from honest work, but the bone-deep weariness of fighting battles on too many fronts. Battles that weren’t meant to be his.
Raising a child who belonged to his brother.
Building a business that belonged to his dad.
