Close to Home. Deborah Raney

kidding? Did you have any idea this was coming?”

      “Not a clue.”

      “So what’s the game plan.”

      “I haven’t got one. I think . . . I’m still in shock. Nice of them to lay me off on a Thursday, so I have a nice long weekend to freak out about it. I guess I’ll go stomp the streets starting Monday. Or go to McDonald’s and fill out an application.”

      “Not funny. And you won’t have any trouble getting another job. A good one.”

      But Drew heard the lack of conviction in his brother’s voice. The job market was tight, and Drew’s degree in American history wasn’t exactly something that employers were standing in line for.

      He cleared his throat, hesitant to ask. “Um . . . You guys don’t have anything open at Troyfield do you?” His brother was pretty high up in the food chain at Troyfield & Sons. Dallas made good money. Not that Drew was looking for a handout or anything, but maybe his brother knew of an opening.

      “We’re kind of in a hiring freeze ourselves right now. Especially in the sales office—”

      “Hey, I’m not married to sales. I’ll do whatever.”

      “I’ll put out some feelers and see what I can come up with.” Dallas was quiet for just a moment too long. “Hey, if you need a loan or—”

      “No. I’m good. Thanks, bro. They gave me a little severance pay. Not a fortune, but I’ll be okay for a while. And the 401K comes with me.” He and Dallas had just had a conversation about how their retirement funds had tanked with the stock market over the last few months.

      His brother sighed into the phone. “I don’t have any doubt God’s got your back.”

      “I know. It’ll be fine.” He wished he felt as confident as his voice came out sounding.

      “It will. Danae and I will be praying. That is if you don’t mind me telling her about the layoff,” he added quickly.

      “No, of course not.” Drew shrugged off the comment, as if Dallas could see him. “It’s no big secret or anything. No doubt the Missourian will have a blurb about the layoffs on the business page. No biggie.”

      He clicked off the phone. But it was sort of a big deal. He felt like a failure. Why had he been one of the ones they’d chosen for the cut? He was a good employee. Maybe not the best or brightest, but he came to work on time, put in his hours, and worked hard while he was there.

      He knew it was probably easier to let a single guy go than a family man. He didn’t begrudge them that. But a man still had to support himself. If Troyfield was hiring, he would do whatever they asked him to. He didn’t know beans about manufacturing air filters, but then his brother hadn’t either, when he started there. And who knew? Maybe he’d eventually work himself into a high-paying position the way Dallas had.

      He sighed. Who was he fooling? He’d never had the business sense his brother had. He’d be lucky to get that job slinging hamburgers.

      * * *

      Bree studied her reflection in the mirror, remembering for some silly reason how critical she’d been of her looks before she met Tim. But from the day they met, he’d changed that. He’d loved her squeaky-clean, “wholesome” image. Even loved her stick-straight not-quite-blonde-not-quite-brown hair. He’d made her feel self-confident and interesting, and he’d made her quit wishing she was beautiful and be perfectly satisfied with “cute.”

      Until this afternoon. This afternoon she wished she looked more like a woman and less like somebody’s high school babysitter. She knew she would be grateful for her adolescent appearance someday—like when she was turning forty—but right now, it was no fun to constantly be mistaken for a teenager. Maybe if she cut her hair? She held it up off her shoulders, trying to decide if it made her look older than sixteen.

      She’d tried wearing lipstick, but it only detracted from her best feature—according to Tim—her aqua blue eyes. She frowned at herself in the mirror. The V that appeared between her eyes definitely aged her. Maybe she’d just walk around with a perpetual frown.

      Why do you care how you look, Whitman? This is not a date, remember?

      She’d thought having breakfast with Aaron Thursday morning would have made her less nervous about tonight, but if anything it made it worse. They’d had a great time together at the pancake house. But by the time they left, laughing and . . . flirting—there was no other word for it—it had felt very much like a date.

      So what did that make tonight? Sighing, she went to the hall closet for her sandals.

      Tim would have laughed at her keeping half her wardrobe in the coat closet, including twenty pairs of shoes. With Tim’s insurance and the pension she would receive the rest of her life—or until she married again—she could afford to buy a bigger house. One with a decent closet in the master bedroom. But she liked this house. And leaving it would feel like a betrayal somehow.

      She and Tim had bought the little house shortly after they got married. He was already stationed in San Diego by then, but wanted her to be settled in Cape, near his family, before he was shipped out to Afghanistan.

      Bree glanced through the wide, arched openings that created a bowling alley view from the living room through the dining room to the open kitchen. She tried to view the house through objective eyes. They’d had such great plans for the house, but except for painting over the Pepto-Bismol pink master bedroom, and tearing out the shag carpeting in the hallway, Tim hadn’t gotten to see any of their plans come to life.

      A year after Tim’s death, she was still in the house, but for a long time, she’d refused to change anything. Moving so much as a throw pillow felt like a betrayal of her husband. But then one night, shortly after the two-year anniversary of his death, she’d ruthlessly rearranged every bit of furniture in the little house. She would have moved the bed into the living room if it would have been at all practical. Anything to change everything about the way the house had been when she’d shared it with Timothy.

      And when she’d finished, long after midnight, she felt a sense of freedom. She’d crossed over some imaginary line that night and it had felt like a move in the right direction. But now, here she was almost three years later, and had she really made any progress at all?

      Admiring the space now, she thought the white-painted kitchen cabinets and open shelving, the bright tile backsplash, and the colorful curtain panels on the large windows said she’d come a long way. Her little house was nothing fancy, but she had a knack for decorating and she’d made this place her own, made it a haven against her grief and pain.

      The winter before the Chicory Inn opened, Grant and Link had helped her tear out the rest of the carpeting and refinish the original hardwood floors. She loved the way the old-fashioned played against the modern. Tim’s brother had told her later that doing those floors was a labor of love. “For Tim, I mean,” he’d stuttered, fearing she’d misunderstand. But Link had always been like a brother to her, and even though he later confessed that Audrey had encouraged him to ask Bree out on a date, she and Link had both been a little repulsed by the idea. “I told Mom it’d be like dating my sister,” he’d confided, all inhibitions pushed aside by then.

      “It would,” she’d agreed. “But just so you know, I have the best ‘brother’ a girl could ever ask for.” She still felt that way about Link. And about Tim’s sisters. They were her family. They just were.

      Ten minutes later, she parked as close as she could to the theater’s entrance so she wouldn’t be a sweaty mess by the time she got inside. Aaron was waiting just inside the door. He smiled and waved when he spotted her and held up two tickets. Over breakfast Thursday, they’d decided on a romantic comedy. The romance part gave her pause, but it beat the World War II drama that was the only other option amidst a slew of R-rated movies playing. Unless they wanted to watch a Disney cartoon.

      She wove through the matinee crowd, fishing her wallet out of her purse as she