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“I knew it was coming.” Greer lifted her shoulders up to her ears and dropped them. “They want the boys to start preschool, which means that my position is kind of pointless. No use for a nanny when the kids are in school.”

“Greer…” Kamryn frowned. “You’ll find another position.”

“I know I will. It’s hard though, leaving the boys. I’ve been with them for five years straight. They’re my babies.” Greer gave an over-accentuated pout. “At least I have until the New Year with them.”

“What about Andra’s wedding?”

Greer smiled. “They said that I could still have that time off for the wedding, not for anything else. So no bridal shower, no bachelorette party. They want to use as much of my time as they possibly can.”

“Greer.” Kamryn wanted to drive over there and hug her best friend, but it was damn near impossible to do that right now. And they both knew that.

“I’ll be fine. It isn’t the first time this has happened.”

“I know, but it’s hard.”

“It is. But worth it.” Greer forced a smile and winked. “Is everything as much of a mess as you thought it was?”

“More. Which I probably should have suspected. I’ve been digging into the board a bit. I still find it really odd that they wouldn’t just hire from within for this.” Kamryn ran her fingers through her hair and stretched again. She really should get up and take a short walk somewhere. It’d be good for her.

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing.” Kamryn frowned. “At least not yet. But I have taken care of two issues that the board wanted me to work on. There’s a third one that I think is going to be a bit harder.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to form an ethics committee. Want to be part of that?”

“Hell no!”

They both laughed, the lightheartedness of this conversation exactly what Kamryn had needed. Sometimes it was like Greer was psychic when it came to these kinds of things. When they settled again, Kamryn looked directly at Greer. “Think you can sneak away on Friday and come to town? They’re having their fall festival. I remember it always being amazing.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.”

“Perfect.” Kamryn ended the call shortly after and rolled her shoulders.

With her first day done that meant her first week was nearly in the books, and while she’d be bringing a lot of the work home with her that night, it had been well worth it. And she hadn’t created chaos yet, so that was a good thing too. Picking up the phone on the desk, Kamryn searched for Dr. Waddy’s home number. She really had to make this call, no matter how much she didn’t want to. But she needed to update the staff like she’d promised.

four

“I nearly forgot the festival was tonight,” Elia said, turning to her best friend, Abagail, and smiling. They’d gone out for dinner, Elia really needing to get away from the school and from the jealousy that was raging within her. It was taking over everything she had attempted to do that first week of school, and every time she’d seen Kamryn, it had gotten worse.

She’d avoided Kamryn as much as she could, but it was impossible in a school so small. The kids arriving had been the sanity she’d needed, and meeting up with Abagail was her chance to unwind and vent. And boy had Abagail heard it over dinner.

“Remember when we were in our twenties and we used to come to this thing every year?” Abagail laughed lightly, holding onto the takeout containers in her left hand.

Elia nodded, shoving her hands into her pockets. It was supposed to get chilly that night, the first night that it’d truly feel like fall, though it wasn’t set to last very long. “Yeah.” Elia’s gaze was drawn to the town square, with the lights that were up year-round casting a glow onto the cobblestones and the people that loitered underneath them.

“Let’s go tonight,” Elia said in a rush, an impulse that she hadn’t known she’d still possessed. Then again, she’d done a whole lot impulsively in the last two weeks, including just about every interaction she’d had with Kamryn.

Why couldn’t she get that woman out of her head already?

“I can’t,” Abagail responded. “I’ve got that early morning meeting, remember?”

“Right.” Elia shoved her hands a little tighter into her jacket, clenching her fists. She wasn’t ready to go back to the school, not just yet. She needed a bit more time than she’d had away from that place, somewhere to find her center again and to step away from the insane jealousy that kept her up at night.

“But you should hang out for a while.”

“I…” Elia was about to object, since her introverted self wasn’t someone who would just stay alone at an event if she could avoid it, but something caught her eye. There was a loud raucous laugh not that far off, but the tone of the voice sounded very familiar. “Can you stay just a few more minutes?”