Blue Dahlia

separate staff for the coffee shop.”
    “What would you say were your strengths?”
    She had to take a breath, calm her nerves. She knew it was vital to be clear and concise. And just as vital to her pride not to beg. “Customer relations, which keyed into sales. I’m good with people, and I don’t mind taking the extra time you need to take to make sure they get what they want. If your customers are happy, they come back, and they buy. You take the extra steps, personalize service, you get customer loyalty.”
    Stella nodded. “And your weaknesses?”
    “The buying,” she said without hesitation. “I’d just want to buy everything if it was up to me. I had to keep reminding myself whose money I was spending. But sometimes I didn’t hear myself.”
    “We’re in the process of reorganizing, and some expanding. I could use some help getting the new system in place. There’s still a lot of computer inputting—some of it very tedious—to deal with.”
    “I can handle a keyboard. PC and Mac.”
    “We’ll go for the two weeks,” Roz decided. “You’ll get paid, but we’ll consider the two weeks a trial balloon for all of us. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll do what I can to help you find another job.”
    “Can’t say fairer than that. Thanks, Cousin Rosalind.”
    “Just Roz. We’ve got some gas out in the shed. I’ll go get it, and we’ll get your car up here so you can get your things in.”
    “In? In here?” Shaking her head, Hayley set her cup aside. “I said I wasn’t after a handout. I appreciate the job, the chance at the job. I don’t expect you to put me up.”
    “Family, even distant-through-marriage family, is welcome here. And it’ll give us all a chance to get to know each other, to see if we’re going to suit.”
    “You live here?” Hayley asked Stella.
    “Yes. And my boys—eight and six. They’re upstairs asleep.”
    “Are we cousins?”
    “No.”
    “I’ll get the gas.” Roz got to her feet and started out.
    “I’ll pay rent.” Hayley rose as well, instinctively laying a hand on her belly. “I pay my way.”
    “We’ll adjust your salary to compensate for it.”
    When she was alone with Stella, Hayley let out a long, slow breath. “I thought she’d be older. And scarier. Though I bet she can be plenty scary when she needs to. You can’t have what she has, and keep it, grow it, without knowing how to be scary.”
    “You’re right. I can be scary, too, when it comes to work.”
    “I’ll remember. Ah, you’re from up north?”
    “Yes. Michigan.”
    “That’s a long way. Is it just you and your boys?”
    “My husband died about two and a half years ago.”
    “That’s hard. It’s hard to lose somebody you love. I guess all three of us know about that. I think it can make you hard if you don’t have something, someone else to love. I’ve got the baby.”
    “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
    “No. Baby had its back turned during the sonogram.” She started to chew on her thumbnail, then tucked the thumb in her fist and lowered it. “I guess I should go out, take the gas Roz is getting.”
    “I’ll go with you. We’ll take care of it together.”
     
    IN AN HOUR THEY HAD HAYLEY SETTLED IN ONE OF the guest rooms in the west wing. She knew she gawked. She knew she babbled. But she’d never seen a more beautiful room, had never expected to be in one. Much less to be able to call it her own, even temporarily.
    She put away her things, running her fingers over the gleaming wood of the bureau, the armoire, the etched-glass lampshades, the carving of the headboard.
    She would earn this. That was a promise she made to herself, and her child, as she indulged in a long, warm bath. She would earn the chance she’d been given and would pay Roz back in labor and in loyalty.
    She was good at both.
    She dried off, then rubbed oil over her belly, her breasts. She wasn’t afraid of childbirth—she knew how to work hard toward a goal. But she was really hoping she could avoid stretch marks.
    She felt a little chill and slipped hurriedly into her nightshirt. Just at the edge of the mirror, just at the corner of her vision, she caught a shadow, a movement.
    Rubbing her arms warm, she stepped through to the bedroom. There was nothing, and the door was closed, as she’d left it.
    Dog-tired, she told herself and rubbed her eyes. It had been a long trip from the past to the verge of the future.
    She took one of the books she’d had in her