Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
“Thanks so much for letting me work here. I am not sure what to do, and it’s nice to just have a place to stay.
I promise I’m not going to be here forever.
” Summer spoke to Sunny, who had agreed to allow her to work in her bakeshop and live above it for a time, until she could figure out what to do.
“I’m always looking for good, reliable help. And someone who lives in my place where I can beat the door down and yank her out of bed if she’s late for work is my idea of an ideal employee,” Sunny said with a grin.
Summer laughed. One of the benefits of living with Sunny was she got to listen to her practice, which she had done the last two nights.
Today, Monday morning, she started her new job at the bakery.
She wasn’t cooking anything, thankfully, since she was a terrible cook, but she was responsible for running the cash register and making sure that the display case stayed stocked, as well as filling orders as they came in, either online or over the phone.
It wouldn’t be too hard. There were a few tables where people could sit and enjoy the goodies that they had bought, and she was responsible for keeping them cleaned and wiped as well.
Nothing difficult, nothing that would be taxing for her brain, and it would give her plenty of time to think.
Not that that was necessarily a good thing, but at least she didn’t worry about messing anything up.
And she had a soft place to land until she figured out what she was going to do next.
She had sent her resume to a few places that were looking for a therapist to add to their practice, and she had scheduled several appointments to go and look at office space in Harrisonburg.
Maybe none of that stuff would pan out, and she almost hoped it didn’t.
She wanted to have a job that dealt with horses, except the idea of working with horses was almost heartbreaking, when she thought about Bunny and Cricket and Thatcher all going to different places, and that the horses that she worked with would be different.
But that was life. Animals came and went, and she had to be okay with that.
The morning passed uneventfully, until around 11 AM when she had just finished scribbling down an order on the notepad, hung up the phone, and checked the display case to see that it was full when she looked up and saw Gilbert McBride standing in front of her.
They stared at each other for a little bit before she got her wits about her.
“Good morning.” Thankfully her voice didn’t sound too perky or fake. But it had enough warmth and welcoming that she felt like she was doing a good job. “Can I help you?”
“Summer. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
It was obvious that she had flummoxed him. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like seeing her should bring any kind of shock to him. She hadn’t done anything unkind to him and in fact had left a lot of the things that she couldn’t take with her at the farm for him to use, hoping it would help him out.
“Well, I’m here. And I will be for a little bit. I hope you’re enjoying the farm. I didn’t mention it, but I left the beds, because I figured you’d have more use for them than I did.”
“I appreciate it. We…enjoy it there.”
“Good. It’s a great place for kids to grow up.”
He nodded. “It is.”
There was an awkward silence, and then she said, “So, can I get you something?” She thought she’d already asked him, but she couldn’t remember for sure. She needed to make sure she was doing her job here.
“Um, uh, oh, yeah.” Obviously he was having trouble finding his words. She waited patiently. She hadn’t meant to upset him with her presence, but there wasn’t anything she could do to fix it. Other than trying not to make him any more embarrassed than what he already was.
“I’ll take a blueberry muffin. And coffee. Black.”
She nodded and smiled. “Coming right up.”
She got him a muffin, set it on the counter, and poured him a cup of black coffee. She rang it up, and he paid with a card. As she handed him the receipt back and he signed it, he said, “I’m looking for some horses if you know anyone who’s selling them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Do you have a price range?”
“They can’t be too expensive. I spent all my money on this farm that I just bought.”
She laughed. “It’s a nice farm. I think that investment will be worth it in the long run.”
She hoped he felt that way; she sure did. If she were going to be raising children, that would be the place she would want to do it.
“I think so too.”
She smiled, and he turned around and took one step before he turned back around.
She got caught watching him walk away. He was tall, handsome, maybe with a few gray hairs in his temple, but that only made him look more distinguished, as gray hair often did on men.
His blue eyes were kind, and his strong nose and jaw might have been a little bit too bold for him to be considered handsome, but she thought them striking.
That, along with the broad shoulders and confident demeanor, caught her eye, and she wondered that she never noticed any of it before.
Of course, he was the man who’d bought her farm, the father of her therapy students, not someone she was interested in romantically.
This was the absolute worst time of her life to get involved with someone, and she definitely didn’t want to be involved with someone who lived in her old house.
It would be too…painful when they broke up. And… Where was she going with that?
She shook her head and tilted it. “Did you forget something?”
“So… Are you done with therapy?” He cleared his throat and lifted a hand, holding it out.
“Sorry. Don’t mean to pry. You were just so good with the kids.
And honestly they’ve been struggling getting over not seeing you, not seeing the horses, and all that, and it just seems like a shame that you’re not doing that anymore when you’re so good at it. ”
“Well, it’s not like you can do horse therapy from just anywhere. You kinda have to have a place to keep your horses, and since I don’t anymore, unless I find something, which I haven’t so far, I’ll be just doing regular therapy.”
“Here in Mistletoe Meadows?” he asked.
“I’m looking at a few places in Harrisonburg and even further north in Winchester. We’ll see what the Lord has for me. I’m sure there’s something He’s just waiting for me to have. He’s got something for me.”
“I’m sure He does. He really used you, in my family anyway.”
“Thank you. Your children are special to me.” That was the truth.
He turned away, and then she deliberately looked down. She would not watch him walk away again. So, she was surprised when he set his muffin down on the counter.
He leaned forward and said, “Are you happy doing this?”
“This?” she asked, looking around and assuming that he meant working the cash register here at the bakery.
“Yeah. This job. This is really what you want?”
“No, but you don’t always get what you want. Didn’t we just say that?” Now he was being weird. But it was interesting. She wasn’t put off by it, she almost felt like he…cared.
She shoved whatever odd feelings were welling up in her chest aside and gave him a curious look.
“I’m sorry. I’m acting oddly, because I just had an idea, and I’m not sure how to approach it with you. It’s a little off-the-wall.”
“All right.”
“So… Okay, I know you already sold your horses, but there’s that apartment above the stables.
And you would be welcome to stay there if you wanted to.
I don’t know if you can get your horses back, but if you could, you could keep them in the stable.
And there’s plenty of bedrooms in the house.
” He held up a hand. “I know that’s a little bit…
funny, but I don’t mean anything by it. I’m just saying there’s plenty of room on the farm for you to live there, too.
I can’t shake the bad feeling that I’ve had ever since I moved in.
Can’t shake the way the kids felt when they were with you, how you help them, how generous you were with my family, how you helped my kids through one of the hardest times of their lives, and here you are in a hard time, and I kind of thought I was helping you by offering you more for your farm than what it was worth, but I think I could have helped you more by… figuring out how to help you keep it.”
She blinked, and her mind started whirling as soon as he said he didn’t know whether she could get her horses back or not.
She knew for a fact she could. Everyone that she sold them to—they were all friends who knew her circumstances—would sell them back for exactly the amount they paid for them, and she still had that money.
She hadn’t needed to sell her horses because of the amount that he had paid for the farm.
She just hadn’t had a place to keep them.
And she knew she could get them all back.
But… Was this God opening a door or was this just Him tempting her with something she really wanted, and she should decline and wait for the thing He really wanted to give her?
“That’s…very generous of you. I wouldn’t want to put your family out though.”
“You wouldn’t. I mean, I guess we’d have to figure out how to split the barn, since you would need it for your job, and…
You didn’t charge my family for therapy for the last year.
I wouldn’t charge you for the use of the barn.
That seems fair to me, but… I know my kids would want to be able to use the barn and have horses that they could ride, and I know that you wouldn’t be able to have them around while you were doing therapy, if you could even get your clients back.
” He lifted a hand and shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, I’m kind of rambling, but I’m thinking out loud.
I just…would love to see you be able to continue to do what you love and are good at, and somehow fit the kids and me in around it. ”