Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Delaney Wright pressed her face deeper into the pillow, willing herself back into the dream. She’d been home in Shadow Cove, where her bedroom smelled like sea salt and her mother’s lavender sachets. Reality smelled like stale tobacco and unwashed bodies.
A harsh cough from one of the beds across the room shattered the last wisp of her peace.
Delaney pushed herself upright on the thin mattress, springs creaking as the familiar weight of dread settled on her.
Sunlight filtered through the dirty windows, casting dappled shadows across the worn linoleum.
A few days in this place and already she could feel it trying to claim her—the despair that clung to the peeling wallpaper, the resignation that echoed in every conversation.
But today would be different.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet touching the cold floor, and checked the time.
Then checked it again.
She hadn’t slept past six thirty since she’d moved in here. But it was an hour after that. Why hadn’t her alarm gone off?
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was that she had forty-five minutes before she had to leave for her interview, forty-five minutes to transform herself from a down-on-her-luck shelter resident into someone worthy of caring for a precious child. Someone who deserved a chance.
Delaney pulled her robe around her shoulders and hurried down the hall. The night before, she’d pressed her outfit and hung it in the laundry room, since the closet in the bedroom she shared with two other residents was too packed with stuff to hang anything.
She hadn’t brought a lot with her when she’d left Maine, but she’d thought to pack clothes suitable for an interview—a navy blazer, matching slacks, and a cream blouse.
They made her look professional and competent, like someone who belonged in the stately homes that lined Driftwood’s old-money neighborhoods.
She reached the laundry room and stopped cold in the doorway.
Her slacks were on the hanger, but her blazer and blouse lay on the floor in a heap, wrinkled beyond recognition. The acrid smell of cigarette smoke hung thick in the small room despite the no-smoking sign plastered on the wall.
Two women sat on folding chairs near the open window, sharing a cigarette between them, blowing the smoke outside. As if that worked.
“Sorry,” one of them said, glancing at her crumpled clothes. “They were like that when we got here.”
Delaney’s throat was too tight to respond. She bent to retrieve them, her hands trembling as she shook out the blazer. Aside from the wrinkles, it was unharmed.
The cream blouse bore a brown stain across the front—coffee, maybe, or something worse. The careful plans she’d made, the confidence she’d tried to build up since she’d gotten the call from the agency about the position, crumbled like the cigarette ash flicked onto the floor.
She wanted to scream. Wanted to demand an explanation, to insist her housemates show some basic respect. But the words would do no good. If she didn’t get the job, she’d have to come back here, have to keep living with these people.
Lord, please give me favor.
“You okay, honey?” The second woman’s voice carried a note of genuine concern, though she made no move to put out her cigarette.
Delaney didn’t trust her voice. Of course she wasn’t okay. She was a thousand miles from home with exactly forty-seven dollars in her wallet and clothes that now looked like she’d pulled them from a donation bin.
But she didn’t say any of that. Instead, she swiveled and hurried back to her room.
One of her roommates was still sleeping, so she quietly spread the blazer across her narrow bed and tried to smooth the worst of the wrinkles with her palms. Maybe she could press them out.
She held up the blouse near the window, hoping the stain might look better in natural light. It didn’t. The dark splotch fell right across the front.
She took the blouse to the bathroom and tried to scrub the stain out. No luck. Now it was stained and wet.
Back in the bedroom, she dug through her clothes, trying hard not to look at her purse, sitting on the cardboard box that served as her nightstand. The check from her father was practically pulsing inside. Ten thousand dollars. “Come home when you run out of money.”
Cashing that check would prove she couldn’t handle life on her own. Cashing that check would mean defeat.
Delaney found nothing in her bureau that would work with the suit. She covered her face with her hands and whispered, “Lord, I know You have a plan. I know You brought me to Driftwood. What do I do now?”
“Tell me you ain’t praying again. Don’ you know God don’ care about people like us?”
She lowered her hands to see that her sleeping roommate was awake after all. And watching her.
“He does care.” She hated how her voice trembled. If Delaney knew nothing else, she knew God cared. “You should try asking for His help.”
“That what you did that landed you here in this Taj Mahal?”
At least Delaney wasn’t sleeping in her car anymore. This place might not be fancy, but it was an answer to prayer. She’d grown up in luxury. In the last few months, she’d learned to appreciate a bed where she could stretch out her long legs and a shower where she could clean herself up in private.
“Today’s the day, right? The interview?” Linda’s voice was gravelly from years of smoking.
“Yeah, the nanny position.”
“You got a shot?”
“I have experience. I’ve worked as a nanny since I graduated from high school.” Except for a few months at a desk job in Boston, months Delaney had tried to scrape from her memory.
That brought a hard laugh. “High school. What was that, five minutes ago?”
Almost a decade, but she didn’t say that.
Linda propped herself up on one elbow. “You try washing out that stain?”
She must’ve been awake longer than Delaney realized. “It’s not budging. I bet a good dry cleaner could get it out.” But not in time.
“What size are you? Four? Six?”
Delaney’s pulse quickened. “What I am is flexible. You have an idea?”
“I might.” She swung her legs over the side of her bed, pulled a battered suitcase out from underneath, and opened it on the floor, where she rummaged through it.
Delaney hadn’t expected kindness from Linda, who’d made it clear what she thought of her faith.
“Here.” Linda pulled out a white button-down shirt. “I had a waitressing gig with a catering company. Job didn’t last, but I got to keep the shirt. It’s nothing fancy, but it don’ have no stains.”
The shirt was cheap polyester, but that made it wrinkle-free. It was a little dingy, the collar crumpled, and it was at least a size too big. But it would work.
“Linda, I—thank you.” The words were thick with gratitude.
“Geez, with the tears.” But Linda’s gruff tone had softened a fraction. “You seem like a decent kid. Someone’s gotta look out for you.”
Delaney was trying very hard to look out for herself, but so far all she’d done was prove she couldn’t manage.
She clutched the shirt to her chest, feeling something loosen in her throat. God worked through unlikely angels sometimes. “I’ll wash it and get it back to you as soon as I can.”
“You better. You never know when my ship’s gonna come in. That’s the fanciest blouse I own.” Linda settled back onto her pillow. “Now go on. I need a few more hours of beauty sleep.” She yawned and rolled over.
Ten minutes later, Delaney stood before the cracked mirror in her room, adjusting the collar that didn’t want to sit right. The shirt bunched up where she’d tucked it in. But the white looked crisp against the navy blazer. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work.
Surely, the cigarette smell would lessen during her walk across town. All she needed was a little time in the cool sea breeze.
She’d pulled her dark-blond hair into a bun and applied her makeup, going for a natural look.
Professional and competent. Someone who could be trusted with a child.
The walk through Driftwood helped settle Delaney’s nerves. The October morning was crisp, and the salt-tinged air reminded her of home. Leaves crunched beneath her sensible flats as she made her way from the shelter’s rundown neighborhood toward the historic district where the grand houses stood.
In Maine, the coastline jigged and jagged in rocky cliffs. It was smoother here in Virginia, more gentle.
She found the address on Magnolia Street—a three-story Victorian painted sage green with white trim.
Wraparound porches adorned both levels, and climbing roses, though past their summer bloom, still clung to the latticework.
The property was protected by a thick hedge.
She could imagine happy children playing in the yard, stability and love behind leaded-glass windows.
Delaney stopped at the foot of the porch steps, tucking in the front of Linda’s borrowed shirt one more time. This could be the chance to prove to her family that she wasn’t incompetent, that she could make it on her own.
“Lord, please let her like me.”
Delaney climbed the steps. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the doorbell, and it chimed somewhere deep inside the house.
Footsteps approached—heavy, purposeful strides across what sounded like hardwood floors.
The door swung open, and Delaney found herself looking not at a woman but at a man. A man whose appearance made her forget every word she’d practiced on her way.
He was taller than she was by at least four inches and had blond hair that looked like he’d been running his fingers through it.
His pale-blue dress shirt was wrinkled, the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms dusted with dark hair.
But it was his eyes that stopped her—the gray of the sky an instant before dawn.
She’d expected a woman, a harried mother. She had not expected this.
She smiled and stuck out her hand. “You must be Mr. Aylett.” She forced confidence into her voice. “I’m Delaney Wright. The agency sent me.” When he didn’t respond—or react—she added, “For the nanny position?”
He didn’t shake her hand, his gaze taking her in. His expression shifted from curiously polite to worried to…angry? His jaw tightened. “I’m sorry. This isn’t going to work.”
Her arm fell to the side, her hopes plummeting much further. “I don’t understand. Has the position been filled?”
“My apologies.” With no more explanation, he slammed the door.
Delaney stared at it.
Had that really just happened? She’d barely gotten three sentences out before he’d dismissed her completely.
Heat flooded her cheeks as she replayed the moment. The way his eyes had swept over her, taking in her carefully applied makeup, her slightly wrinkled jacket, and Linda’s too-big shirt. Had the stale cigarette stench followed her?
Whatever the reason, he’d taken one look and found her lacking.
She raised her hand to knock again, then let it fall. What would she say? That she didn’t usually stink like cigarettes? That she had nicer clothes back home? That she’d grown up in a bigger house than this one and she belonged here, even if she didn’t look the part?
Those facts didn’t qualify her for the job, and anyway, he already knew her qualifications. The agency must have sent them along.
It wasn’t her experience. It was…her.
She simply wasn’t good enough.
The walk back to the sidewalk felt endless, each footfall echoing her humiliation. She’d known she might not get the job, but she hadn’t considered that she might not even make it through the front door.
She turned to look again at the beautiful Victorian that she’d believed, for a few glorious seconds, could be her home. A live-in position that might solve all her problems.
A curtain twitched in an upstairs window, and a child peered down at her. The curtain fell back into place before Delaney was able to get a good look.
By the time she made it to the corner, tears streamed down her face, hot and angry and filled with frustration and shame.
Now what was she going to do?