process. If we work hard and we’re lucky, we’ll be hosting alpaca retreats by this time next year.”
“Well, congratulations,” Nora said weakly. She couldn’t crap on someone’s dream.
“I know it’s a lot sooner than we planned, but sometimes that’s the way things happen. When the universe gives you what you want, are you going to complain that it’s too early?”
“No?” Though she didn’t see why not. Didn’t they say that timing was everything?
“No,” Wynd said decisively. “Sometimes you just have to trust the universe.” She patted Nora’s arm. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you today because I need my two weeks’ notice to start now. We’re moving this weekend, but I’ll commute in for the next two weeks. Unless you can find someone sooner?” she added hopefully.
Nora sighed. She had to go jab teenagers now. Maybe one of them would be about to graduate and hear the universe whispering, “Become a medical receptionist.”
She sighed again. Well, she could jab teenagers and contemplate her dilemma.
Sadly, this was a problem Jake couldn’t bail her out of.
Speaking of Jake…“Hey, can you slow down?” Nora asked Amber, who was driving the Mermaid Monstrosity. “That’s my dog!”
She rolled the window down as well as she could—it was manual and refused to budge after about the halfway mark—as Amber pulled up next to Jake. He had just come out of Jenna’s and was bending over to feed something to Mick.
“Are you giving him treats?”
He looked up, surprised. “Doc.” Then sheepish. “Guilty.”
“Jake’s keeping me in business.” Jenna had emerged from the store with a piece of chalk to update her sandwich board with the day’s new funny saying.
“He’s supposed to be on a diet!” Nora protested, but she couldn’t help smiling. Overall, Mick’s time under Jake’s care had slimmed him down considerably.
She hadn’t told Amber yet about Wynd, but suddenly she really wanted to tell Jake, even though she’d just been thinking that this was a problem he couldn’t solve. Sometimes it felt like she and Jake had ESP. Wynd just quit, and I’m freaking out about it.
It didn’t work. “He really likes those bacon–peanut butter things,” Jake said.
“Who wouldn’t like a bacon–peanut butter thing?” Maya appeared on the scene—she lived in the apartment above Jenna’s. “Hi, Nora! Are you on the move?”
“I am! Headed to the high school for a flu-shot clinic. You want to come?”
She wasn’t sure why she was asking. Maya wasn’t going to add any medical expertise, but she was really fun to be around, and Nora, still reeling from Wynd’s news, could use the distraction.
“Sure!” She opened the passenger-side door. “Scooch over, though, cause I’m not riding in back.”
The van had an old-school bench seat up front, so against her better judgment—the seat belt in the middle was only a lap belt—Nora scooted over.
“Sorry, Jake, no room!” Maya trilled, and they were off.
Though he would never admit it to anyone, Jake could kind of see the appeal of having a cell phone. If, for example, you knew someone who was running her first out-of-town flu-shot clinic and you had a cell phone, you could text that person and ask how it was going. You could ask that person to send you pictures.
If you were the kind of person who wanted to see pictures of flu-shot clinics.
For God’s sake.
It was midmorning. He and Sawyer didn’t have any active jobs. He and Mick had already been walking for an hour.
It was a beautiful day.
It was not a Tuesday. But what the hell. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do. He had basically bequeathed his traps to a guy who fished out of Port Frederick. But maybe he could get out his tackle and just…fish? Like, for fun? When was the last time he’d done that?
Half an hour later, he was waiting for Dennis to lift the bridge to let a bigger sailboat in front of him pass. Mick was perched on the stern of his trawler, a squat little mascot.
Twenty minutes after that, he’d dropped anchor in a spot about three miles north of the cove. He was using an ancient rod and lure, ones he’d had as a kid. Once he’d come on board with his dad, pleasure fishing had fallen out of his life. But he’d held on to all the stuff, because, like his dad had done with both Jake and his brother, he had planned on taking Jude out.
He never had gotten Jude his own rod, though. They’d never made it into London for that shopping