A Spot of Grace (Spotted Cottage #6)

Chapter 1

One

Annie stood knee-deep in the waters of Westcott Bay, fifty degree water pressing against her waders.

With an eight o’clock drop off, it didn’t leave much time for work, especially on a day she was in the field—like today. She’d nearly finished gathering the oysters to test for the Vibrio parahaemolyticus bacteria, but another half hour would get her everything she needed…

It wasn’t worth being late, though. Annie stopped, casting her eyes toward the shoreline and wiping her hand on the inside of her jacket.

Fall on San Juan Island was beautiful, like every other season. Evergreens rose to the sky, standing out against the gray drizzle, and swathes of red- and yellow-leafed trees dotted the landscape.

When she and Roy had moved here during her pregnancy, he said it was the most beautiful place on earth. He used to say she was the most beautiful woman on earth.

Not beautiful enough, apparently, to keep him from becoming her ex-husband.

Annie waded out of the sea, the damp air chilling her skin, and walked back to the lab outpost.

Inside, she stripped off her waders and changed into the clothes she’d worn into work that day.

Annie paused to look at herself in the mirror.

Her hair was wet, strands clinging to her forehead, but otherwise there were no signs she’d been at work.

Scientist Annie was gone, replaced by Mom Annie.

Her grey shirt was at least five years old, pilling at the seams, and her jeans pinched at the sides.

These were pre-pregnancy jeans, and despite the twins being nearly two-and-a-half years old, she refused to buy new ones. It was a matter of practicality. Jeans were expensive, and she’d have to go to the mainland to try on new styles. There was no time for such luxuries.

Plus, she had her pride. She’d fit into these jeans again without her love handles spilling over… one day.

She said a quick goodbye to her coworkers, then made the short drive to daycare and rushed inside.

Her dear friend Jacob had done pickups for a while, but when he and his girlfriend Mia got the chance to work in Vancouver, Annie insisted he take it.

“They don’t need me in Vancouver,” he’d said. “I’m needed here.”

“You’re appreciated here,” Annie said, “But I’m not going to hold you back. I’m fine!”

And she’d meant it. They had an amazing opportunity and were newly in love. Annie loved having him back on the island – they’d been close friends since high school – but she could handle things on her own.

Plus, Annie’s mom Clara was planning to retire and become her new helper. How much help did she need?

“Unfortunately,” Annie told him, grinning, “you’ve been made redundant.”

Jacob laughed. “I can’t compete with such an experienced candidate.”

“You really can’t.”

At first, it all went swimmingly. Her mom loved spending time with the kids, and after Annie had to sell her portion of the house in the divorce, she had moved into her mom’s small two-bedroom house with the kids.

She told herself it was only temporary, until she could get back on her feet. Her mom insisted it was better that way. Cozier. And for a while, it seemed true.

Then her mom fell while hiking and broke her hip, and Annie was back to the reality of drowning in laundry, dishes, and night wake-ups, while also trying to advocate for her mom.

“Hi!” Annie said, spotting the daycare teacher as she walked into the room. “How are you?”

She gave a small smile. “Doing well. How are you?”

“Good! Did Leon’s speech therapist come in today?”

“Yes,” she said softly, stepping closer.

Something in her facial expression made Annie’s stomach sink.

Annie leaned in, voice hushed. “Did it not go well?”

“Leon had a tough day. We had an incident.” She pulled a sheet of paper from Leon’s cubby and handed it to Annie. “Leon hit another student.”

Annie winced. At home, they talked about not hitting. They read books about not hitting, practiced taking deep breaths, and talked about what he could do instead of hitting.

Yet Leon, red-faced and fury-fisted, kept hitting, and he didn’t have the words to tell her why. Since her mom had disappeared to the rehab facility, he’d stopped speaking entirely.

“I am so sorry,” Annie said.

The teacher cut her off. “It’s okay. Something to be aware of. Something we’re working on. Leon had difficulty engaging with the speech therapist today. Next time will be better.”

Did her optimism come from years of experience, or was she offering an empty kindness? Annie swallowed the thought behind a stiff nod.

Leon caught her eye from across the room, and a grin spread across his face.

Annie smiled back. “Yes. Next time will be better.”

She grabbed their backpacks, took Noel’s left hand and Leon’s right, and led them out to the car.

They made great time to the grocery store, and Annie managed to get them into the shopping cart without protest, pleased that her snack cup offering had satisfied them both.

Maybe things weren’t perfect, but she could hack it. She wasn’t going to lose her cool during this blitz-shopping trip. She was going to get them home, make dinner, feed everyone, then pack them into the car to get dinner to her mom, too.

A bit ambitious, but Annie was going to do it. Annie was going to do it all.

She pushed the cart into the store. No time to waste. Leon looked around, wide-eyed and chewing, and Noel sang, “I’m a cup, I’m a cup!” over and over – her rendition of I’m a Little Teacup.

Annie reached into her pocket for the grocery list she’d put together on her lunch break.

Nothing but crumbs.

She searched her other pockets, then her purse.

Empty.

Annie shut her eyes. What good was a list if she’d forgotten it?

She tried to remember what she’d written from her new cookbook with the perfect combination of affordable, fast recipes that her twins might eat and with enough leftovers for her mom to enjoy at the rehab facility.

The ingredients refused to surface in her mind. Annie opened her eyes.

It was fine. She wasn’t going to lose it over a silly list. She had a vague memory of what was required, and all at once, she realized the recipe might be on the author’s blog.

She started a search on her phone, and as it was loading, a word floated into her mind.

Enchilada sauce! That was it, the oddball ingredient.

She was standing right in front of them, as though her subconscious had guided her here. She stooped down, eyeing the prices for the cheapest one.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite set of twins!”

Annie looked up, swiveling her head to see who had interrupted her thoughts. An older lady stood above her, beaming at the twins.

She recognized her from church but couldn’t remember her name on the four hours of broken sleep she’d gotten last night.

“Hi, how are you?” Annie said brightly, standing up.

A drop of sweat slipped down her back. Maybe she needed a snack, too. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly.

The woman waved at the twins. Noel smiled and waved back. “We buy cookies,” Noel said with a nod.

Cookies were not on the list.

The woman leaned in, her face inches from Leon’s. “Cookies are good, aren’t they?”

Leon turned to Annie, his lips pressed into a firm frown. He was not a fan of strangers. Or of being asked questions.

“Oh yes, they both love cookies,” Annie said, sweeping him into her arms before the tears erupted.

The cheap sauce would do. She grabbed it and threw it into the cart, then pulled her phone from her back pocket.

The recipe had loaded. Thank goodness. Beans, and a can of crushed tomatoes with chiles. She never would’ve remembered that.

The woman let out a tsk. “You need to let him speak for himself or he’ll never find his voice.”

A crimson heat crept onto Annie’s neck. Her eyes flicked up at the woman, then back down at the recipe.

Two pounds of chicken thighs. Totally forgot that, too.

“Mhm,” Annie said, as evenly as she could, before pushing the cart off and away.

Leon, recovering with the offending woman was out of sight, wiggled out of Annie’s grasp and got his feet onto the ground.

There was no use fighting him back into the cart. They only needed a few things.

“You have to hold my hand,” Annie said, straining to push the cart with one arm. Her wrist cracked in protest.

No time to slow down. She pushed onward, using her body weight to keep the cart from going sideways into a display.

She rushed, throwing things into the cart, and due to a momentary lapse in judgement, Annie let go of Leon’s hand in the dairy section. He made a beeline for a display of cookies, toddler legs pounding furiously away.

“No!” Annie cried out, lunging to grab him.

It was too late. The small round table crashed to the ground, plastic clam shells of cookies exploding open and cascading across the floor.

Her mouth dropped open. “I am so sorry,” she said to no one in particular.

“It’s only a few boxes,” a man’s voice responded. “I’ve got it.”

Annie was already on the floor, trying to gather the cookies up with one hand while holding onto Leon’s arm with the other. Leon was undeterred, trying to shove a cookie into his mouth.

“Ginger snap,” the man’s voice said. “No one will miss them.”

Annie glanced at him and her heart sank. All she could see was a head of thick dark hair, and a pair of broad shoulders. He was working steadily, his movements far less frantic than Annie’s.

He looked up at her, his brown eyes framed with impossibly dark lashes, a sympathetic smile on his lips. Her heart leapt and she forced her gaze down back to the crumbs in her hand.

Was it her low blood sugar, or was she dizzy from looking at him? Maybe it was the act of being down on the ground.

Annie shot up to her feet. She couldn’t crawl around on the ground for so long. Noel could fall out of the shopping cart.

Thankfully, she hadn’t done so yet. She’d just watched the scene with her mouth open.

Leon had taken one bite of the cookie and thrown it to the ground. Annie stooped to pick it up just as an employee arrived with a broom and dustpan.

“I’m really sorry,” she said, cheeks burning.

“It’s okay,” the woman said with a shrug.

The beautiful man was standing again, towering over them both. “Does that mean I get these at a discount?” he joked.

The woman let out a loud laugh and Annie retreated with her cart before the beautiful man could say anything to her.

Talking was not in her wheelhouse today.

In the safety of the aisle, she regained a bit of her composure, grabbed the last two things she needed, then made her way to checkout.

Annie was relieved to see it was their regular cashier, a middle-aged lady who always gave stickers to the kids.

Leon insisted on helping unload the cart. He produced a container of chocolate chip cookies first, and as Annie tried to piece together when he’d snuck them onto the bottom of the cart, he helpfully threw a dozen eggs onto the conveyer belt.

Miraculously, the eggs didn't break.

“I, uh, made a mess in the bakery,” Annie confessed. “I can pay for whatever I spilled – ”

The cashier waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. One of those days, huh?”

Annie nodded, hands shaking as she bagged the groceries. The rushing, the low blood sugar, and the beautiful stranger were threatening to send her over the edge.

But she wasn’t going to lose her cool. Even when the total came out $26 over budget.

She would have to take a look at the receipt at home. They couldn’t go over budget every week.

Outside, the drizzling rain had finally stopped, leaving an overcast sky. She got the kids into their car seats first, then handed a cookie to each of them.

A voice floated into her ear. “Well, didn’t you make a mess in there.”

Annie’s back stiffened. She turned.

The old woman who had almost made Leon cry stood like a statue in powder blue slacks. Gold chains encircled her neck and arms, as she stood, slowly shaking her white-coiffed head.

If Annie’s blood sugar wasn’t cratering, she would have thought of something clever to say.

But she’d had a salad for lunch, then two coffees, and she could hear Noel screaming inside the car.

So she narrowed her eyes and said, “I’d like to see you prove it.”

Annie returned her cart, got into her car, and after making sure no one was looking, stuffed an entire cookie into her mouth before driving away.