Page 39 of A Brambleberry Summer

She and Wyatt had decided not to take the dogs with them because of Carrie’s spoiled and rather unfriendly cats. Inside the apartment, Fiona rose to greet her, giving her an unblinking stare, as if she knew exactly what Rosa had just been doing in the moonlight with their downstairs neighbor.

“Not you, too.”

Fi snorted as if she had plenty to say but only regretted that she did not have the words.

“What do you want me to do?” she said aloud to her dog. “You know I cannot invite the man up. He is a police officer. He would not be interested in me, if he knew the truth.”

Fiona whined. She needed to go out, but Rosa wasn’t eager to go down the stairs again and risk meeting up with Wyatt. Her dog’s needs came first, though.

“Don’t be like that,” she said as she hooked up Fi’s leash. “You know it is true. I have too many secrets I cannot tell him.”

The dog didn’t look convinced.

“I cannot,” Rosa insisted. “You know I cannot. They are not only my secrets. I cannot tell him.”

Wyatt was a good man, A decent, honorable man, she thought as she walked down the stairs again and outside into the moonlight. To her relief, she didn’t see any sign of him.

He reminded her so much of Daniel, who would always be her hero for rescuing her in her darkest moment.

She loved her adopted father dearly so she supposed it was only natural that she would be so fiercely drawn to a man who had all of Daniel’s best qualities.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. She didn’t feel foolish carrying on this conversation with her dog. Fiona was the best possible confidante, who listened to all her inner thoughts and only judged a little.

She didn’t tell the dog that she suspected she might be falling for Wyatt, though she knew he would never feel the same. Not if he knew the truth.

She knew he was still grieving for his wife. Even if the two of them shared a few kisses, she knew Wyatt wasn’t in a good place for anything more.

She wanted things to be different. If only they were both free of their pasts and had met under other circumstances. But she knew she wouldn’t have been the same person without all that had happened to her and she thought the same of Wyatt.

She would not kiss him again. What would be the point? Nothing could come of it and she would only end up with more pain.

With the Oregon coast in full tourist season, Rosa didn’t have time to think about that kiss more than about two or three dozen times a day at random moments.

Over the next week, she made several day trips out of town to the central coast and to Portland to pick up inventory from some of their vendors.

Today she was busy revamping her window display a week after Independence Day, adding in the new products she had collected to feature, while Jen worked the cash register and assisted customers.

Rosa was thrilled at the change in her friend. Jen had come so far over the past few weeks. She was far more relaxed with the customers. She smiled and chatted easily and seemed to have lost that haunted look she used to wear at random moments.

“Thank you. Come back again. We have new inventory all the time,” she told the final customer at her register. A few other browsers were looking at their selection of T-shirts, but they didn’t seem in any hurry so Rosa left the window to walk over to Jen and check on her.

“How are things going?” she asked.

“Great. Really good.” Jen smiled, looking far more like the woman Rosa remembered from their college days together. “It’s hard to be in a bad mood when the weather is so glorious, isn’t it?”

They really had been blessed with unusually sunny weather. It was good now, but made her worry about forest fires later in the season.

“You seem to be more comfortable with the customers.”

“I am enjoying the work, but to tell you the truth, I’m starting to miss teaching. This is the time of year when I would usually start thinking about my classroom decorations for the next school year and working on lesson plans.”

Jen had been a third-grade teacher in Utah and had loved her career. That was one of the things that angered Rosa the most, that her friend had been forced to leave all that she loved in order to escape.

“I can understand that.”

“I was actually wondering if I could take a day off tomorrow. I know it’s short notice.”

“Of course,” Rosa said immediately. “I can rearrange the schedule. If I cannot find anyone to cover for you, I will work myself. That should not be a problem, especially now that the holiday weekend is over.”

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