Dreaming of Home. Glynna Kaye

dad?”

      Joe swung around to face her with a still-snickering Davy over his shoulder. “Joe.”

      “Right. Joe. About your headache—”

      “Gone. Must have been that earring.” Grin broadening, he winked. “But thanks for asking.”

      Flirt. Bet the little woman at home has to keep a short leash on you.

      “Sure. But I mean…the aspirin?”

      She pointed, and he glanced down at the box still clutched in his fingers. With an apologetic shake of his head, he tossed the aspirin through the open door in a high arc. She caught it with both hands.

      “Thanks for keeping me honest, Miss Meg. Wouldn’t want to get arrested in the old hometown.” He bestowed another wink. “At least not right off the bat.”

      He turned away, his footsteps echoing a hollow cadence on the wooden porch.

      “Dad, can we have pirate food tonight?” Davy’s plaintive voice carried back to Meg.

      “What? Fish sticks? Again?”

      “So you met Canyon Springs’ hometown hunk and hero rolled into one.” Sharon Dixon, the shop’s owner, maneuvered her considerable weight and a metal walker over the threshold. Her auburn hair now lacking the tell-tale gray it sported earlier in the day, the fifty-five-year-old glanced in a mirror hanging inside the door and brushed at her bangs.

      A former heavy smoker, her voice came in rasping fragments. “Saw him come out the door as I was leaving the Cut-n-Curl. Quite the looker. Cute kid, too. But don’t get any ideas. Joe’ll tire of this place. Faster than you can bat your big baby blues at him.”

      Catching a whiff of generously lacquered-on hairspray, Meg laid a stack of T-shirts on the shelf she’d been stocking, grateful it had been a slow afternoon and the shop was devoid of customers at the moment. Why did people always assume that because she was single, she “got ideas” anytime an attractive man crossed her path? She’d hardly given the eye-catching pirate a second thought—or had she? Okay, maybe a second. Or third.

      “Don’t worry, Sharon.” She turned away to straighten a sunglasses display. “Men in general—and married men in particular—hold little interest for me.”

      “Joe’s not married. Widower.”

      Meg cringed and gave the display rack a slow spin. No wonder Davy looked confused when she referred to his mother. Or why his father immediately toted him far, far away from the blundering Sunday school assistant.

      Usually, she took precautions with parental references at school. No one came from an intact mom-pop-and-two-point-five-kids home anymore. She could blame her change in meds or the distraction of Joe Diaz’s dazzling smile all she wanted, but it was her own insensitive mess-up. She’d apologize at the first opportunity.

      She stooped to pick up an empty T-shirt box.

      “I’m surprised he’s still on the market,” the older woman continued as she made her way slowly across the room, sneakers peeping from beneath turquoise velour sweatpants. “Good lookin’ guy like that, you know? Too bad my Kara’s not in town anymore. She had a crush on him when she was in junior high. Probably still does. She tell you about that?”

      Kara was Meg’s best friend from college and one of the reasons she’d arrived in the somewhat remote Canyon Springs in the first place. Ironically, Kara sounded the bugle to charge into the world at the very moment Meg called retreat.

      “She never mentioned him.” No doubt she’d remember her friend talking about a man whose smile could take your breath away and send your heart kicking into overdrive.

      “Then she still has a crush on him,” her mother concluded with a nod, “even though he hasn’t been around these parts since high school. Took off for college, then the Navy. But just as well she’s not here. He won’t be for long either.”

      “I don’t know about that.” Meg stripped the seam tape from the cardboard box in her hands, wadded it and tossed it in a nearby trash can. “It sounded like he plans to stay awhile. He’s applying for a teaching job.”

      “Around here? In his dreams. Look at how long you’ve waited.”

      Meg dropped the box to the floor and flattened it with her foot. “A science teaching job.”

      Sharon’s eyes widened and she clasped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no.”

      “Oh, yes.” Meg gave the box another stomp. “Ben Cameron, his old principal, has apparently told him he’s just the man for the job.”

      “Can he do that? Doesn’t the board or somebody have to approve it?”

      Meg shrugged. “Davy’s dad—Joe—thinks God’s opening a window.”

      Sharon scoffed. “Pooh. I have it from a good source—Joe’s dad—that Joe hasn’t graced a church door since his wife died. What’s he know about God opening any windows?”

      “You don’t always have to be sitting in the front row pew for God to hear you,” Meg said. “Or for you to hear from God. And for some people, church is the hardest place to go when they’ve suffered the loss of a loved one.”

      Sharon scoffed again and eyed Meg. “I hope you told Joe you have a prior claim to the job. Need it more than he does.”

      Her heart lurched. “Of course I didn’t.”

      Sharon eased the walker closer. “Doll, you can’t let him come in and roll right over you. As I recall, that boy’s used to calling the shots and getting his own way. This will be no different if you don’t take a stand.”

      “I’m not going to make a play for the sympathy vote.” Meg’s lips tightened. She’d decided that right from the beginning and she wasn’t backing down now. The job was either God’s will or it wasn’t. Manipulation on her part wasn’t going to play a role in the outcome.

      Sharon’s expression softened as she laid a hand on Meg’s arm. “So what are you going to do?”

      “Not much I can do, Sharon.” She swallowed as she placed the flattened box on the checkout counter. “Or that I intend to do.”

      “As the saying goes, you can’t expect God to steer a parked car. March yourself down to the school and talk some sense into that principal.” Sharon’s brows slanted into a dangerous-looking V. “Or I will. He’s a blustery old bag of wind, but he doesn’t intimidate me.”

      Meg’s cold fingers clenched at her sides. She’d thought Sharon could be trusted not to say anything about her situation. “Please don’t.”

      “Ben knows better than to think Sailor Boy will anchor himself to dry land long enough to fill a teaching slot for more than a semester.” She held up a couple of fingers. “Two at the most.”

      Meg’s lips trembled. “Maybe Ben doesn’t think I’m long-term either.”

      Her subdued tone echoed with an ominous ring as her mind flew to her friend Penny, now lying in a Phoenix hospital bed. No, life didn’t always turn out the way you’d dreamed it would.

      “Oh, honey.” Sharon’s round, determined face crumpled as she leaned in for a gentle bear hug over the top of her walker. “He knows nothing about that, and I’m not going to say a word. I don’t agree with your thinking, but I promised, didn’t I? So I don’t want to hear you talking like that.”

      Meg mustered a shaky half smile as the woman released her. “Nevertheless, you have to admit the RV does scream temporary resident.”

      “Don’t you worry. You’re going to get that job and buy yourself that nice little house you have your eye on.” Sharon reached out to clasp Meg’s hand, her voice more gruff than usual. “You’re going to have a bright future. Right here if you want it. And don’t you dare