“Did you talk to your boss?” Aunt Betty asked.
“Yep.” Logan’s deep-voiced reply was followed by something else she couldn’t quite catch.
Erin took a couple of steps down the hall.
Aunt Betty spoke again. “And the building stuff?”
“The date is on the calendar.” There was a pause. “What about your meeting with Mrs. Reynolds?”
“It was good. It will take a few weeks for them to get all the paperwork ready, but she doesn’t think there will be any issue with the deed.”
The deed? So she’d been right when she suspected the reason for Mrs. Reynold’s visit. Not wanting to miss a word, Erin took another step down the hall so she didn’t have to strain so much to hear.
“And Erin still doesn’t know?”
“Everything is happening so quickly. I don’t want to overwhelm her.”
Erin was close enough she could hear the resigned sigh that came from Logan. “Yeah, but she’s going to find out eventually.”
Find out what? Erin took another step closer, but this time her foot hit a squeaky floorboard. She stopped in her tracks and heat flooded her face. There was no way to pretend she wasn’t there and hadn’t been snooping. She took a deep breath before she rounded the corner into the kitchen, just in time to see Logan hastily fold a piece of paper and shove it in his pocket. He didn’t meet her eyes.
No one said anything about Erin’s spying.
Erin bit her bottom lip as she looked at them. “Hey.”
“Hello, sweetie.” Aunt Betty walked over to her with her arms wide open for an embrace. She squeezed Erin tight. “How did the job search go?”
Erin stepped back and out of her arms. “It was ... okay. I didn’t get any offers, but there were a couple of potential leads.” If Erin didn’t mind working nights and weekends.
Aunt Betty smiled at her. “Don’t give up too easily. You never know what possibilities are just around the corner.”
Logan stiffened beside her.
Was that guilt he felt knowing Erin’s possibilities were numbered?
“Where are the kids?”
“Samantha is upstairs reading a book to Parker.”
Erin just about fell back from shock. Samantha was reading to Parker? Erin had been praying for a shift in their relationship—one that didn’t involve so much teasing back and forth. She was also happy because it would give her a chance to get started on dinner.
Erin started pulling pots and pans from the cabinets.
“What are you doing?” Aunt Betty asked.
Erin’s hands stilled on a cabinet door. “Making dinner.” She was still allowed to do that, wasn’t she? She turned to see Aunt Betty and Logan both watching her. What was going on?
Logan cleared his throat. “Would you like to go to dinner ... with me?”
Like a date?
There were so many reasons to say no—he wasleaving, she was losing the house, she worried what people would think—but she didn’t want to say no.
She wanted to say yes.
She was immediately hit with a wave of guilt. How could she even think about dating when she was still working through the loss of her late husband? She’d promised to love Jake until death do they part, and while she’d loved him until his dying breath, it still felt wrong to look at another man romantically—even if that man was leaving and nothing could actually happen.
She didn’t know what to do. In a panic, she looked at Aunt Betty, who was smiling at her encouragingly. She gave her the smallest of nods. Erin was still reeling at everything she’d just overheard, but she knew Aunt Betty wanted good things for her.
