Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
“You track that stuff too much,” her cousin mumbled, rolling back over on the couch. “It’s weird.”
Nah, she didn’t think so.
“It’s not weird to know what your body is supposed to do,” Delaney replied. “It means you’re informed and prepared if something’s not all the way right.”
“I guess you’ll never have to wonder if you’re pregnant, huh?”
Delaney blinked at the comment. “Um …”
“I’m just saying because you’ll know the second you’re a day late.”
Well, fair enough.
“You know what, I’m definitely late for lunch,” Delaney said, opting to end the conversation there.
Babies were not on her docket.
Not today.
*
“I’m sorry, I’m late,” Delaney said the second she dropped into the bistro chair across from Linda at the corner table in the coffee shop. Her apologetic smile earned her an unconcerned wave from her beaming boss. “I know, I’m late. Did you get my text?”
“I did,” Linda assured, “no worries there.”
Oh, good.
“I ordered two soups and sandwiches of the day. Does that work for you?”
Delaney, who had seen the tomato soup and grilled cheese option for an all-day menu item scrawled on the chalkboard sign in the front window on her way in, nodded. “That’s perfect.”
Food didn’t have to be fancy.
Just delicious.
The two women made easy conversation, about safe topics like the road conditions and price of gas that week, as Delaney shrugged off her parka, and shed her mittens, gloves, and hat. She made a pile of items inside her large handbag, and then hung her jacket off the back of her chair. Not two minutes after she sat down, the server in her standard red and brown uniform came over with hot, fresh coffee that Delaney eagerly accepted.
Linda got a refill on her cup, too.
“The food will be right out,” the young lady with a bouncing ponytail assured before heading off to a table nearby.
As soon as the server was out of earshot, Linda asked Delaney, “So, how was last week? Did you get the family emergency handled?”
The question came with a genuine smile.
Delaney instantly felt bad. “Can I be honest?”
Linda’s kind expression never waved. “Of course. Why wouldn’t you be?”
Some people didn’t create the kind of environment where others saw the opportunity to be truthful without consequence. Delaney had become acutely aware of her ability to tell the difference from one person to the next whether that was the case.
Her boss, beautifully sweet inside her soul, only ever proved that she cared when it came to the ladies who worked for her, or the people that came through her doors.
“It wasn’t technically my family’s emergency,” Delaney clarified about the spread of days off she had unexpectedly taken the week before without much notice or explanation to Linda. “It was, however, a situation that needed me to leave town for a bit, so I did. I feel bad that I made you think it was something that had happened to someone in my family when in fact—”
“Sometimes, the family we choose is all we’ve got, and they need help, too,” Linda interjected with a sympathetic pat to Delaney’s hand.
Well, if only …
“I wouldn’t say Lucas Dalton is necessarily the family I’ve chosen,” Delaney hedged carefully, “but I did feel like he needed my help for a few days.”
The same drew a spark of recognition in Linda’s bright eyes.
“I knew it!” the other woman proclaimed, smacking the table with a hearty laugh. “I knew there had to be a reason there was a Dalton leaving messages on every phone number I have listed publicly to me. I mean, I didn’t want to call your cousin and ask her if you were seeing Lucas, but … I almost did.”
Delaney blinked.
The tables had turned on her so fast that she was still trying to catch up with a situation she clearly didn’t understand.
“I’m sorry?” Delaney asked.
Linda, still cackling to herself and proud of whatever accomplishment she managed in getting Delaney to talk about Lucas, waved the confusion off. All the while, she dug into her own tote bag hanging off the corner of her bistro chair until she found the item she wanted.
A newspaper, actually.
“Have you seen this?” Linda asked, slapping the front page down for Delaney to see.
“No, what?”
“This,” her boss pressed, pointing at the second story on the front page.
Surprisingly, a picture of Lucas shaking the hand of a man who looked a lot like him, if not a couple of decades older, and grinning for the camera with a plaque and cut ribbon between them. His father, Ronald Dalton, according to the information in the text beneath the printed photo on the front page. Along with the details of the photo; a shot that had been taken a couple of years ago during the expansion of their Saint John brewery.
More concerning was the headline at the top of the story.
Troubles inside the Daltons Worries Brewery Future.