She wished she could quit, she thought as she cleared a table, trying not to take her anger out on the hapless dishes. She wished she could walk away from Cedar Ridge. Leave it and everything it represented behind her.
But she needed the job to pay for her house renovations. She was going to finish what she had started, and she knew she couldn’t leave town with her father’s debt hanging over her head.
She shot a glance over at the Walsh table just as she caught Morgan looking at her. She flushed and spun away carrying the dirty dishes back to the kitchen. Adana had finally shown up and she was flirting with Sepp, who didn’t seem to be in any rush to get the Walshes’ orders done.
“My last order ready yet?” she asked.
“It’s ready when it’s ready” was all he said. “Scared I’m going to make you look bad in front of your old boyfriend?”
She knew not to say anything more. Sepp was the most passive-aggressive person she knew and the more she pushed him, the worse he would get.
A few more customers came in and Adana took their orders. Finally Sepp was done with Boyce and Morgan and Nathan’s food.
“Service is getting kind of slow around here,” Boyce said as she set their food on the table.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, knowing she couldn’t shift the blame.
“I’d say Sepp needs to hire more waitresses but I know he already has enough,” Boyce continued.
Again, she could only nod as she put Nathan’s burger and fries in front of him.
“Is there anything else I can get you? More coffee? Chocolate milk?”
She looked over at Nathan, who was staring at her. “Grandpa Boyce says that there’s not too many people who can train horses here and that you can. Are you sure you can’t?”
Were they still on that topic?
Tabitha’s resolve wavered as the boy’s eyes pleaded silently with her.
“Miss Rennie has other things she’s busy with,” Morgan said, looking at Nathan, his voice gentle. But she heard a warning in the words.
Stay away from my son.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said, giving him a look of regret. “Working here and at the clinic and fixing up my house keeps me very busy.”
Then she walked away. She couldn’t get involved though she felt very sorry for the little boy. She only knew snippets of the boy’s story. His mother spent most of her time chasing her rodeo dreams and dragged him along. He didn’t seem connected to Morgan, which made her wonder what had happened between Morgan and his wife.
Not that it mattered to her. Morgan was part of her past. She had her own plans for the future. And they didn’t include sticking around a town that was such a source of pain and humiliation to her.
She couldn’t afford any distractions and Morgan and his son were a huge one.
* * *
“Will you be okay?” Morgan knelt in front of Nathan on the floor of the school’s hallway, handing him the backpack he had painstakingly packed this morning. Young kids ran past them, calling out to each other, their voices echoing in the busy hallway, bumping them in their rush to get to their own classes.
Yesterday morning he and Nathan had visited the school to see about enrolling him for the last few weeks of Grade Two. Though he still had his concerns, he had to think of what the counselor had told them after Gillian’s death. That it was important that Morgan and Nathan find their new normal as soon as possible.
Thankfully Nathan hadn’t objected to going to school, and if Morgan was honest with himself, it gave both of them a break from each other. Taking care of a seven-year-old was way out of his comfort zone. Especially a sullen young boy who rejected any advances Morgan made to him.
“This is a good school,” Morgan said, injecting a bright note of enthusiasm in his voice. “I used to go here when I was a kid.”
Nathan took the backpack without looking at Morgan, saying nothing.
Morgan reached out to lay his hand on his son’s shoulder but Nathan pulled away, then walked into the schoolroom and went directly to his designated locker.
“You can come in with him, if you like,” the perky young woman encouraged with a bright smile. “I know it’s his first day here.”
Just then Morgan caught Nathan looking at him, eyes wide, shaking his head a vehement “No.”
Really? He couldn’t even do this for his son?
He wished it didn’t hurt so much.
“I think I’ll stay here to see him settle in,” Morgan said.
“Of course.” He could tell the teacher was puzzled, but he was fairly sure she dealt with a variety of parents, so he tried not to take Nathan’s clear-cut rejection to heart.
He watched a few more moments as Nathan trudged to his desk, then sat down, holding his pencil case that they had bought yesterday, looking down.
Morgan’s heart broke at the sight but he felt stuck. Nathan didn’t want to spend time with him, and Morgan wanted to get started at the vet clinic as soon as possible.
Wednesday, at the Brand and Grill, was the last time he’d seen Nathan act with any kind of animation when he was talking to Tabitha. Which made him nervous, especially because ever since then, the only thing Nathan would actually talk with him about was training his mother’s horse so he could ride it.
And getting Tabitha to do it.
There was no way he could allow that. He didn’t think he could be around Tabitha that much and, more important for his son, he didn’t want him to build a connection to someone who was leaving soon.
As he drove to the clinic he found himself praying. Again. Something he’d been doing a lot lately.
Gillian’s death, gaining custody of Nathan, moving back here had all taken a toll on him. Never mind working with his ex-girlfriend, whom he would be seeing again in a few minutes.
Help me to stay focused on what I need to, he prayed. I need to be emotionally available for Nathan and protect him.
As for his own heart, he could take care of that. The grief he had felt after Tabitha broke up with him had morphed into fury, which had settled into a dull resignation. Then Gillian came into his life and things took an entirely different twist.
His heart would be okay, he told himself. It had to be.
He checked his watch, once again thankful that Dr. Waters kept such strange hours. 9:30 seemed late to open a vet clinic but he wasn’t complaining. It meant he could bring Nathan to school and still arrive on time at work. And maybe cover the occasional emergency that came up before opening hours.
He turned the corner to the vet clinic and saw Tabitha’s truck parked out front.
When Dr. Waters gave him the key to the clinic yesterday, he had planned to come early. Though Dr. Waters had assured him that Tabitha, Cass and Jenny mostly manned the front desk and took care of dispensing, Morgan preferred to know where everything was himself.
He had also planned to establish his territory, so to speak, before Tabitha came in. Make the clinic his.
And now here she was already.
He sighed, sent up another prayer and headed to the back door. It was locked, so he used the key Dr. Waters had given him. He stepped inside the large open room where they worked on horses and cows. It smelled like disinfectant, and though the metal dividers for the various pens were rusted, he could see they were clean.
The rubber floor matting was also hosed down, water still trickling into the floor drain.
His