Page 31 of Luck of the Draw

“We’ll announce the change to everyone after River and Georgie return from their honeymoon.” She clapped her hands. “Now, there’s something else I wanted to discuss with you before I send you off with dear Deeandra’s address.”

Her expression turned stern. “You did a noble thing yesterday, promising to pose for Stella to get her to leave. But I’m afraid she won’t let you out of it. I’ve already tried. She wants you to come over tomorrow evening, after your shift at the brewery. I’ll come, of course, because you need a witness.”

What did she think Goat Lady Stella was going to do? She couldn’t be more than a buck twenty sopping wet. Then again, maybe that was the kind of question I’d do better not to ask.

“Uh, okay. Thanks, Dottie.”

“No, thank you,” she said, patting my hand. “Another job well done.”

Then she pulled a folded slip of paper out of her pocket, indicating she’d thought this out well before my arrival, and handed it over. “Now, you go see your woman.”

* * *

My heart pounded as I pulled onto Deeandra’s street in the south side of town. Most of the houses were little bungalows, several painted bright colors like Dottie’s, but there were a few new houses interspersed—tall, modern ones that looked as out of place as a crane would in a flock of bluebirds. There wasn’t much street parking, so I took a space a few houses down from the one that had to be hers. A dark green bungalow with lemon-yellow trim and a green lawn.

A car was in the driveway. I grabbed the shoes and was about to get out when a red Toyota Corolla pulled into the drive. Two kids got out, the older one about Tyrell’s age, followed by a smarmy-looking man with honey-brown hair and a slight paunch. The three of them headed to the door together.

Had I gotten the address wrong?

Then the door flew open, and Deeandra stepped out, wearing jeans and a T-shirt—although unfortunately not my T-shirt—and wrapped her arms around the kids, the love and joy in her expression unmistakable. These were her kids.

She said something to the man, and then the guy got back into his car and drove away, and Deeandra and the kids headed back inside.

If I’d felt gut-punched before, I felt eviscerated now. She hadn’t told me she had kids, but it made sense of a couple of the things she’d said or almost said.

She hadn’t told me because she hadn’t wanted to let me into her real life. She hadn’t told me because I’d only been a fantasy to her. She hadn’t wanted the real me any more than she’d wanted to give me the real her. The wedding had been nothing but a good time to her, and I’d checked all the boxes for a night on the wild side.

And the guy? Part of me wondered if she’d lied about him too, but I couldn’t make it square. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who was capable of that big of a lie. So he probably was an ex, dropping the kids off after his weekend with them.

But I still had her friend’s cousin’s shoes, and it was obvious I wouldn’t be sliding them onto her feet the way I wanted to, so I got out and left them on the front stoop. No one came to the door, which was for the best.

I needed to forget Cinderella.

Chapter Nine

Dee

“So you tooktime off to raise your children?” asked Beverly, the older woman across the desk from me. It was Monday afternoon, and I was at the interview I would have spent much more time preparing for if I hadn’t spent the weekend with Dylan.

Except that wasn’t totally true. I would have spent all of those hours stressing about it. Worrying and fretting. And instead I’d spent most of them happy, and I’d stayed up late last night trying to think of questions and answers that might help me today. This was one of them, but it was still a scary question, because this was when I usually got ushered out the door.

But this woman had a kind face, and her eyes lit up with understanding and possibly a bit of appreciation.

“Um…” I cleared my throat and decided that I should feel no shame for having chosen to raise my children. I lifted my chin slightly. “I did. It didn’t make much sense to spend most of my salary on childcare just so I could say I was out in the workforce. I knew the sacrifice I was making, but it made sense economically, especially after I had my second child. And it wasn’t like I was sitting at home watching soap operas or talk shows all day. I volunteered at my kids’ elementary school. I chaired the PTA’s major fundraiser for five years straight, increasing the donations between ten and twenty percent each year.”

She glanced down at my résumé, which she’d printed out and set in front of her—everyone else I’d interviewed with recently, and admittedly, there hadn’t been a lot, had used tablets—then back up, a frown creasing her forehead. “Why isn’t the fundraising on your résumé?”

I blinked. “I wasn’t paid. It was strictly in a volunteer capacity.”

Beverly picked up a pen from her desk and laid the paper down. “When were you in charge of the fundraiser?”

I blinked again. She probably thought I had dry eyes or a nervous tic. “I started when Liam was in elementary, but Oliver’s younger, so I kept doing it after Liam moved on to middle school.” I cringed. “Sorry. Those are my boys.” I did some quick mental math, but I was too nervous to pull up the actual years, so I just said, “I had to let it go this year, so for the five years prior.”

“You let it go this year?” she prodded.

“Yes, my husband left, and I needed work that paid…” Now I sounded pathetic.

“I see.” She bent over the paper and wrote down a few things I couldn’t read. When she glanced up, she smiled. “How long were you at your previous employer? Before you left to raise your family?”

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