Page 63 of Dancing in the Rain

Peyton nodded and stood. “Night, sweetie.”

She headed back downstairs and did poke her head into Sara’s room. A night-light cast a soft glow, enough for her to see Sara’s small face, eyes closed. Peyton touched her cheek gently, then left the room.

It was like Sara was becoming the child in the family.

She bit hard on her lip as she returned to the living room and Drew.

“All okay?” he asked.

This time she sat on the couch with him. “Yes.” She blew out a breath. “I can’t believe what you did.”

She stared at him as he met her eyes. He shrugged. “It had to be done. No way was someone getting away with treating my daughter like that.”

Her chest filled with a hot softness. “I don’t even know what to say. I can’t believe you did that, but…I’m so, so glad you did.”

“I hoped you and Sara wouldn’t be upset about it.” He rubbed his face. “It caused a bit of a scene at the school. And Mr. Lowell’s not too happy with me.”

She couldn’t take her eyes off him, something inside her going warm and gooey. “It’s important. Thank you. Chloe said you helped with her homework, too.”

“Yeah.”

“She was a little upset about Sara not eating.”

“So was I,” he muttered.

“Did you tell her that?”

“No. No! It was after she went to school.” He shoved a hand into his hair, pushing it off his face. As usual it fell back over his forehead immediately. “I cut the grass.”

“Oh. Thank you.” She’d noticed on the weekend that it had needed it, but hadn’t had a chance to do it.

“I did a few other little things…fixed the leaky tap in the bathroom down here. Nailed down a loose board on the back steps.”

“You’re quite the handyman.”

He smiled ruefully. “Not really. But I can figure out a few things.”

“Thank you. Really. For being here today.”

“Anytime. How was your boss? Did he expect you to stay?”

“Yeah. He said all the right things…it’s fine, take care of your family, blah blah blah. But he was annoyed, I could tell.”

“Asshole.”

“Yeah. But he can’t argue much since I got things moving for our new client and took care of a bunch of other things. Let’s just hope there aren’t any fires that pop up in the next while.” She smiled. “I actually feel good about what I accomplished.”

“Want to talk about it?”

She did. She really did. Having someone to share things with at the end of the day, both the successes and the crappy failures, was not something she’d ever really had. Guys she’d dated got a glazed-over expression if she talked too much about her work.

“Well.” She shifted on the couch, hiking her skirt up a bit so she could tuck one leg under her. Drew’s gaze dropped briefly to her bare legs then darted back up to her face. “So this client we’re working with—a big company, I won’t tell you the name—has a major image crisis because the salaries and bonuses of their upper management recently were made public…and this is a company that received a major government bailout. Public outrage is growing and they’ve mismanaged it.”

“Is your job always to help out companies that have screwed up?”

“Not always. Companies make mistakes. Sometimes they’re avoidable, sometimes they’re not. It’s not my job to tell them how to run their company, just to help them deal with the repercussions. One of my current clients is dealing with a big smear campaign that we suspect was started by a competitor. And then there are clients we just work with to help them develop their brand and online reputation, and we monitor it for them to make sure they’re meeting their goals. That was what I started out doing, but I found I really enjoy the crisis management challenges.” She paused. “I like fixing things.”

“This is fascinating.”

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