Page 117 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

It was good that the new nanny was good.

But was he Iris good?

‘It’s too bad it didn’t work out with Iris,’ Kaori continued, and Iris made a mental note to murder her later.

Archer winced. ‘Yeah, it is too bad.’ He opened his mouth as if he was going to say more and Iris wished he would say more, if only so she could hear his voice for another minute. He turned to walk down the children’s book aisle but then stopped and turned back around. The book club waited.

‘Have you seen her lately?’ he asked. ‘Iris, I mean. Is she…’ he shook his head like he was being ridiculous. ‘Is she okay?’

To their credit, not a single book-club member glanced toward the shelf she was hiding behind. But still Iris was scared of what they were about to say.

‘You should probably ask her yourself,’ Isabel said.

Traitor!

‘Yeah, give her a call,’ Nancy said. ‘Or text, or whatever you people do now.’

‘You people?’ Jacob laughed. ‘Just text her, Arch! I’m sure she would like to hear from you.’

Archer stood considering the book club’s advice, a torn look on his face. ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said before wandering off after Olive.

Maybe.

Why would he text her? She was the one who left. She was the one who messed with his kid’s feelings. With all of their feelings, actually.

She was the one who had to fix it.

Because there was one thought that wouldn’t leave the whole time Archer and Olive were in the store, as they picked out books and chatted with everyone, and Iris watched from her cowardly position behind the books, there was one word that echoed loud and clear through her heart.

Mine.

They werehers.

Archer.

Olive.

And this little baby that apparently was currently the size of a gummy bear, were all hers. And she wanted them. All of them.

Now she just had to hope that Archer did, too.

ChapterThirty-Seven

Archer was in the kitchen when there was a knock at the door.

‘I’ll get it!’ Olive yelled, hopping up from her position on the couch where she’d been watching her favorite after-school show. It was some kind of kids’ baking show and if contestant number three burned their caramel sauce one more time, Archer was going to have a stroke.

‘We’ll get it together,’ he said, wiping his hands on the dish towel as he followed Olive to the door. The neighborhood welcoming committee had slowed their visits considerably, which he took as a sign of their budding confidence in him, but he wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the ladies with a freshly-baked something on his doorstep.

It was a typical Tuesday night. He’d gotten home from the diner and relieved the new nanny, Will, who didnotlive here, and then he’d started on dinner for him and Olive. The diner wasn’t the only place where he’d been working on new recipes. While he had a whole repertoire of pancakes named after townsfolk now, at home he’d come up with lots of compromises. Food that Olive would eat and that also tasted good. Tonight, he was making her favorite: homemade chicken nuggets.

And like any other weeknight, they’d eat dinner together and she’d tell him every minute detail of her day and he’d try his very best to listen. Then a bath filled with rubber ducks and bubbles, far too many bedtime stories and, if he was lucky, a few quiet hours to himself.

Those hours were the hardest. The hours when memories of Iris would creep back in after keeping them at bay all day long. It had been weeks since she’d left, and Archer had given up on any hope that she was coming back. She’d made her choice. She didn’t want this life and he couldn’t force her to want it.

Just because he’d changed his mind about how he wanted his life to go, didn’t mean she ever would.

‘Maybe it’s trick-or-treaters!’ Olive said, hopping from foot to foot in front of him.