Page 33 of Her Summer Hope

Of course, he couldn’t do that without going AWOL, but the place had gotten stuck in his head and no amount of rationality could get it out.

After the last deployment, he’d had another powerful urge…and McClellan’s Hope was born. He got to live in the place that called to something deep in his soul, and he got to help others while doing it.

It was probably as close to heaven as he’d ever get.

He pulled a notepad from the drawer and tried to think about business owners he knew personally. Southern Sweets had potential. The owner was an elderly woman in her eighties. She had one assistant that she relied on heavily, and he happened to know that she needed more help.

He wasn’t sure if Aiden or Jace would be amenable to baking and frying up donuts though.

There was the market, which was adequate for the needs of the town, but by no means large enough to support many extra workers. There was also a flower shop, an antique store, a law firm, a small gym, and a book store. There were other places but he’d have to investigate those later. The list was large enough for now.

He sighed, thinking about the legwork he was going to have to do. He couldn’t send anyone in his place to meet with the owners. The thought of Murdock negotiating with anyone was laughable, Evans wouldn’t give the task the seriousness it deserved, and John was too busy with other matters.

He’d have to do it himself.

He was hoping at least a few of the places might be amenable to offering employment or even just taking on volunteers if anyone wished to go that route instead. Some will have ample disability pay, and while they may not want to work for money, they may want to get out a little for the social aspect.

He’d found that helping others had also helped him when he was in a dark place. The foundation—the chalet—had probably saved his life…or at least his sanity.

He stood abruptly, tired of being cooped up in the office. He went out to the living room, but it was empty. The day had turned cloudy and he checked his watch. It was only three. He had plenty of time to get a workout in.

He changed his clothes and headed for the small gym at the back of the house. It was chest day and he felt the urge to push himself more than usual.

Chapter Nine

Madison

Madison blinked blearily, staring at the numbers on the clock as if they’d personally betrayed her.

In a way, they had.

Emmie had been up wanting to eat every two hours and she’d only just got into a good sleep a couple of hours ago. The red numbers taunted her every extra minute that she lay there thinking about them. She almost closed her eyes again—just for a minute—but she knew she’d fall asleep immediately and most likely be extremely late for work.

Christian was a good boss, a good man, but he was running a business and he couldn’t give her special treatment and she wouldn’t take advantage of him. He’d already given her a half-hour off to go over to McClellan’s Hope to start the evening meal before her lunch break. It would take hours to cook and there was no other way.

She had to get up, shower, and get the kids breakfast. She had to get Emmie ready for Helen’s, which meant feeding her, changing her, feeding her again, and then feeding her some more as she fried eggs and packed the kids a bag.

Em was in a cluster-feeding frenzy at the moment and it was exhausting.

She also had to run to the grocery store after she left her first job, rush home and put away the things, and then rush to her second job. She still hadn’t gotten into a routine. The kids missed her in the evenings and she missed them. Their schoolwork wasn’t suffering as badly as she had anticipated, but they couldn’t keep doing it at eight and nine o’clock indefinitely.

She was working Monday through Thursday from eight o’clock to two o’clock for Christian, then every day from four to seven-thirty for Kyle. She was thankful for the jobs, but she practically never got to play with the kids during the week anymore and the guilt was piling on.

It won’t be forever was the mantra she kept repeating in her head. She just needed to get enough money saved up for property taxes and a car. Then she could maybe start taking weekends off…or at least Sundays.

They had gone over the paperwork and Kyle had set up her direct deposit for Fridays. She was anxiously waiting for that first paycheck. She planned to save every single penny for the property taxes, and when she finally had enough to pay them, she needed to save for a car. She couldn’t use Helen’s indefinitely.

She finally rolled out of bed at six-thirty, deciding to forego taking a shower so she could lay there longer. Em was still sleeping soundly, so she went right to the kitchen to start breakfast and pack the diaper bag.

Jack came in first as he usually did. She pulled the carton of eggs from the alarmingly empty fridge, noting that they were low on those too. She added them to the list and then cracked four into the skillet while he told her about his dream and got the toaster from the pantry.

She plugged it in for him and he made toast.

Ellie came in shortly after with a sleepy James in tow, and she would pour the milk while Madison fed and dressed Em. It was something they had gotten good at doing. They practically had it down to an art form.

They all cleaned their plates and she thanked God that she didn’t have overly picky kids. True, Ellie didn’t like the eat the edges of her fried eggs, but Jack loved them.

“Is there any more?” James asked, looking at the empty egg plate.