“Yes.” Scarlett cleared her throat. “It will be. I have an extra, um, meeting right after school and Cora doesn’t need to sit around waiting for me. Can you pick her up?”
“Sure,” Trina agreed immediately. “She can have dinner with us and we’ll watch a movie. She loves the live-action Beauty and the Beast.”
Scarlett smiled to herself. “True.” Cora loved the movie almost as much as she loved Trina, her husband Rhett, and their baby Marcus. “Thank you. I’ll owe you one.”
“Hey,” Trina’s voice dropped to a murmur. “Do you need her to sleep over?”
“No, of course not.” Scarlett’s cheeks went hot once more.
“Mm-hm.” Way too much emphasis in those two syllables. “If that changes, let me know.”
Scarlett was so glad this wasn’t a video call. Her face was flaming. “You heard about the bakery.”
“Sort of. No real details. Willow spotted Connie talking with the guy who spoke to you last night. Heard you slayed that open mic, by the way. Congrats.”
The notorious small-town grapevine strikes again. Admittedly, she gleefully enjoyed it, when it wasn’t aimed at her. “Thanks. As for the guy,” she took a breath, “his name is Cooper.” Cora would likely mention it over dinner anyway. She loved making new friends. “I’ll tell you the whole story later,” Scarlett promised.
“Can’t wait.”
Scarlett could wait. Would’ve preferred if none of this had ever come to pass. At all. She’d said goodbye to Cooper years ago. Had worked through her grief over a love lost and found some closure even before their daughter came into the world.
If being pregnant had changed her outlook and career plan, becoming a mother shifted things exponentially. How was she going to explain all that logic and reasoning sufficiently? After all this time, her decision to exclude him didn’t feel as cut and dried.
Because things had worked out for all three of them.
He had the dream job he’d been after. She had a beautiful little girl to raise. So what if her career took a turn? She loved her job, the home she’d built, and the grit and dedication to keep it all going on her own.
When the dismissal bell rang, Scarlett walked out to meet Cora in front of the school office as if it was any other school day. She crouched down to be heard over the swell of voices swirling around them. “I have a surprise for you.”
Cora bounded on her toes. “Tell me!”
“You’re going to hang out with Ms. Trina tonight.”
“And the baby?”
Scarlett grinned. “And the baby. So you don’t mind?” Guilt was creeping in around the edges of her mind for the back-to-back babysitting.
“Will I sleep over?”
“Not tonight.”
Cora pouted. “Mr. Rhett says I’m good with him.”
“I know it,” Scarlett assured her. “It sounds like a movie and pizza night to me.”
That perked up her daughter. “Okay.”
“Here comes the car now,” Scarlett pointed to the familiar courtesy car working its way through the pickup line. “I’ll take your backpack, okay?”
“Don’t look inside,” Cora ordered.
“Why not?” Was she inadvertently rewarding her daughter after a day of misbehaving?
“It’s a surprise!” Cora giggled. “You have to wait for me to give it to you.”
“Oh. All right.”
Cora checked on the car’s progress. “You promise?”
