Her hands still rested on the computer bag, and Mitch waited until she moved them away. No need for another awkward physical contact toward his potential employee, because he was thinking about hiring her...and dealing with this whatever-it-was. If God had sent this lady as an answer to Mitch’s prayers, then God would also help him control this unusual response to her presence. The bottom line was that he needed help. And he wanted to be able to leave this place when Dee and Emmie needed him. “I’ll call your references tonight. If everything checks out, you could start tomorrow,” he said. “Would tomorrow be too soon? Like I said, I really do need some help.” A major understatement.
“Tomorrow would be great.”
“Dee, you ready to go? I need to get home and get some work done.” And put a little space between himself and his potential employee, for now.
She clamored up from the floor. “Just work? Or can we play some, too?”
“We’ll play something,” he assured her, hoping that Emmie’s tummy would stay settled and that he could somehow take care of her, play a game or two with Dee and also get all of today’s policies updated before midnight. He really did need some help.
They left the office, and he began putting Emmie in her car seat while Dee stood nearby waiting for her turn.
“Miss Kate,” Dee said, and the lady stopped walking toward her car.
“Yes?”
“You can help me get in my seat.”
Mitch had started buckling Emmie, but his hands fumbled over the fastener. He looked up in time to see the lady smile at his little girl and change direction to walk toward his car.
“I’d love to help you,” she said, her voice filled with so much compassion that Mitch thought she seemed on the verge of tears. He focused on her eyes, blinking more than normal and definitely fighting whatever emotion Dee’s request had evoked.
Mitch was fighting one himself, because other than their family members, Dee didn’t typically ask for help from anyone but her daddy. He kept his attention on securing Emmie, now snoring softly, into her seat, but looked up to lock gazes with Kate. Her dark, unruly hair framed her petite face as she focused on buckling Dee in and then gave his daughter a smile.
“How’s that?” she asked.
Dee examined the buckle on her car seat and nodded. “You did good.”
Kate’s face practically glowed at Dee’s praise. “Thanks.” Then she looked up, caught Mitch staring, and they both quickly got out of the close space and shut their respective car doors.
“I’ll call you after I’ve spoken with your references,” he said, attempting to sound as professional as possible given whatever had just passed between them.
It’d been eighteen months since he’d felt anything remotely near to this. Maybe it was because she was someone new, someone who wasn’t from Claremont and didn’t know him as the young widower in town, as Jana’s husband, or as Dee and Emmie’s dad. Those were the references to him nowadays, and rarely did he simply feel like Mitch. But he didn’t want to give up his new monikers because giving them up meant letting go of Jana.
Wasn’t happening.
“Can you tell me something before you go?” Kate asked.
Mitch paused, his hand on the door handle. “Sure.”
“I’m going to stay at the town’s bed-and-breakfast until I find a place to rent. Can you give me some easy directions to—” she pulled a small slip of paper from her pocket “—111 Maple Street?”
Mitch nodded. “It’s easy to find, only three miles away, but it’d be even easier for me to show you, since I live across the street from the B and B. You can follow me.”
Another one of those mesmerizing smiles blindsided him again. “Thanks!”
Mitch climbed in the car, buckled up and then checked the rearview mirror to see Emmie still sleeping and Dee looking directly at him in the mirror.
“I like Miss Kate,” she said.
“I do, too,” he admitted. Which was good. He would need to like his employee, as long as he made sure to control the extent of that “like.”
Dee peered out the window and waved to Kate before Mitch put the car in Reverse and backed up. “She’s like Snow White,” she said.
Mitch thought of Dee’s favorite story and of the lady who seemed out of her element and took care of everyone she met. And maybe that was why God had plopped Kate Wydell in his world. He needed to simply thank Him and accept the fact that he might finally have someone to relieve the workload at the office. “Maybe,” he said, “she is.”
Chapter Three
Annette Tingle walked ahead of Kate toward the last room on the second floor of the bed-and-breakfast. “I know you said you wanted a small room, but this is the only one that we have available for an extended stay.”
“I’ll be looking for a house to rent,” Kate said, “but I’m assuming I won’t be able to move in until the first of the month.”
“That’s probably true,” the lady agreed. “Hard to believe it’s nearly June already. The year is flying by, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Kate said. Life, in fact, had flown over the past year and a half.
“Well, this is your room.” Annette opened the door to a spacious bedroom complete with a canopied four-poster bed. A simple old-fashioned coverlet topped the mattress with embroidered pillows in shades of blue and rose adding a subdued hint of color. An enormous bay window with a window seat upholstered in the same shades overlooked Maple Street and consequently offered a direct view to the antebellum home across the street, the one where she’d watched Mitch pull in a short while ago.
Unable to stop herself, she walked to the big window, peered at his home and wondered how he and the girls were doing.
“Your bathroom is connected through this doorway,” Mrs. Tingle said from behind her, “and you have extra linens in your closet if you need them at night. We’ll charge you the regular room rate, even though this is master-sized, since that’s what you’d have preferred.”
“Thank you,” Kate said, still focusing on the house across the street.
“And you said you’re moving to Claremont?” Mrs. Tingle asked, causing Kate to reluctantly turn away from the window. She’d so enjoyed her time with Mitch’s little girls. Maybe that was an indication that she could be a good mother, which was the entire reason she was here. “Are you here for a job, or family?” the woman continued.
Kate swallowed. Family would be the most correct answer, a little girl who was the same age as Dee Gillespie and whom Kate had abandoned nearly four years ago. But she wasn’t ready to divulge that colossal secret. She focused on answering the woman’s question instead of breaking down in tears. “I’ve applied for a job at Gillespie Insurance Agency as an office manager.”
Mrs. Tingle clasped her hands together. “Well, that’s wonderful. I’m so glad Mitch is getting some help. He’s been trying to find someone for quite a while now, but it’s a small town, you know. Not a lot of people with the kind of experience he needed. I told him that someone would turn up, though, and here you are.” She smiled so broadly she practically beamed.
“Yes, here I am,” Kate said, her voice raspy with emotion. Would Mitch still be so happy about her presence when he realized that Kate was the one who had hurt his friend?
“That young man stays so busy with