Barefoot Season. Сьюзен Мэллери

       The motions were easy, for which she was grateful. Scattered didn’t begin to describe how she felt. Terrified was probably closer.

       Fired. She couldn’t be fired. This was home. She’d lived here for nearly ten years. She’d put her heart and soul into this place. She loved it. That had to count, right? Possession was nine-tenths of the law. Would gathering clichés help? Something had to. Michelle couldn’t simply walk back in and fire her.

       Only she could.

       Fighting tears, Carly ducked back into the butler’s pantry. The marble countertop was cool against her fingers. Marble she’d chosen, along with the cabinets, even the tables and chairs in the expanded restaurant.

       She’d promised, Carly thought, hanging her head as her eyes burned. Brenda had promised that she would give Carly a share of the inn. Two percent a year until she owned half and they were equal partners. By rights Carly should now own nearly twenty percent of it. Only the inn hadn’t been Brenda’s to give.

       All those years ago when Michelle had claimed her daddy had left the inn to her, Carly had assumed her friend was just saying what kids say. “This will be mine.” Because Michelle lived there and worked there. But Michelle had been telling the truth and Brenda had lied and Carly had nowhere else to go.

       She wiped her face and forced a smile before returning to her customers.

       It was nearly seven-thirty by the time she escaped back to the owner’s suite of the inn—the rooms where she and her daughter had lived since Gabby’s birth. Rooms she’d made her own, rooms with memories.

       Gabby was watching TV, but looked up and smiled when Carly entered. Brittany, her regular babysitter, quickly set down her iPhone. Gabby scrambled off the sofa and rushed to her.

       “Mom.”

       She didn’t say anything else, just hung on.

       Carly hugged her back, knowing that like nearly every other mother on the planet, she would do anything for her child. Including protecting her from the truth—that they might be evicted from their home.

       “How was your evening?” she asked, smoothing Gabby’s blond hair off her face and staring into her blue eyes.

       “Good. I beat Brittany on two puzzles on Wheel of Fortune.”

       The teenager grinned. “See. All that spelling homework is helping.”

       Gabby wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather do math.”

       “Dinner was great,” Brittany said, coming to her feet. “Thanks.”

       Carly had delivered the chicken Marsala pasta for them at five-thirty. She worked in the restaurant two nights a week, but at least was able to bring home dinner during her shift.

       “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

       “We did,” Gabby said.

       Brittany had already shrugged into her coat.

       “Meeting Michael?” Carly asked, standing before walking the teen to the door.

       The teenager smiled. “Yes. We’re going bowling with friends.”

       “I should hear on the summer camp in the next couple of weeks,” Carly said, catching her daughter’s soft snort. Gabby wasn’t a fan of summer camp, mostly because it involved getting outside and doing things like hiking and kayaking. Her daughter preferred to read or play on her computer.

       “My summer classes are from eight to twelve.” Brittany pulled her long, red braid out from her jacket. “So afternoons are good.” She hesitated, then lowered her voice. “That was her? Michelle?”

       Carly nodded.

       “She’s nothing like I expected. I didn’t think she would be scary. Not that she did anything. It’s just, I don’t know…”

       Carly’s first instinct was to defend, which only went to prove one never outgrew being an idiot.

       “She’s not so bad,” she said by way of compromise. Which was pretty big of her, considering she’d been fired.

       “Okay. Have a good night.”

       Brittany left and Carly settled on the sofa. Her daughter curled up next to her, her head on Carly’s shoulder.

       “I don’t like her,” Gabby whispered. “Does she have to stay?”

       Carly wanted to say she didn’t like Michelle, either, but knew that would be a mistake. Doing the right thing was a pain in the ass, she thought, stroking her daughter’s hair.

       “Let’s see how it goes before we make any judgments,” she said lightly, ignoring a sense of impending doom.

       “You always do that, Mom,” Gabby said with a sigh. “Look at both sides. Sometimes don’t you want to just be mad?”

       “More than you’d think.”

       The reality was Michelle needed her. At least in the short term. Someone had to run the inn and, with Brenda gone, that left Carly. Michelle would need time to recover, to remember what it was like to work here. The firing had been impulsive. Words, not intentions.

       It was like whistling in the dark, she thought, pulling her daughter close. Or not believing in ghosts, evidence be damned.

      * * *

       An hour and a half later, Carly kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Sleep well,” she murmured. “I love you.”

       “I love you, too, Mom.”

       The words were spoken in a sleepy tone. Gabby’s eyes were already drifting closed. Even though her daughter had stopped asking for a good-night story years ago, she still liked being tucked in. She was nine, would be ten in the fall. How much longer until she started thinking of her mother as more of an annoyance than a friend?

       Carly couldn’t remember the age when she’d found everything her parents did either foolish or embarrassing. At seventeen, she’d been desperate to be free of them. Funny how it had taken her mother running off for her to realize how much she needed her around. But it had been too late to say that, to find out the rest of what she needed to grow to be a woman.

       She kissed Gabby again, silently promising never to abandon her child, no matter what, then stood. A night-light guided her along the familiar steps. For all Gabby’s claims of growing independence, her daughter still preferred the soft glow while she slept.

       At the doorway, Carly paused and looked back at the now-sleeping child, then at her room. She’d made the curtains herself and put up the shelves. Paint was cheap and she haunted the Blackberry Island Thrift Store for bargains, like the cheerful quilt still in its store plastic wrap. She kept a big jar at the bottom of her closet and put all her loose change into it. That was the fund for her daughter’s birthday and Christmas. Despite the lack of money, they’d made it.

       All that would change if she got fired. She wouldn’t just lose her job; she would lose her home.

       For a moment, she stood in the half darkness and remembered when this room had belonged to Michelle. Most weekends they spent their nights together, usually here, because it was better. Safer. When they’d been Gabby’s age, they’d made daisy chains to wear and offer to guests. They’d run down to the beach and thrown rocks into the Sound. Michelle would wade into the cold water, but Carly kept to the shore. She’d always been afraid of the water. She had no explanation, no early trauma. The phobia simply existed. Unfortunately, she’d passed it on to her daughter.

       On her good days, she told herself she’d more than made up for that with love and caring and a stable home life. Their world was orderly and predictable. They were happy. No matter what it took, Carly had to make sure that didn’t change.

      * * *

       The motel room could have been on any one of a thousand roadsides. The bed was small and hard,