In the morning, Tom ordered room service for breakfast and they stayed in bed until it was delivered.
After they ate, he gave her a long, lingering kiss goodbye and promised her friends were on their way.
As soon as he left, she ran herself another bubble bath and put on an audiobook to listen to. Solitude wasn’t a problem for her at all.
But when Olivia and Jenna arrived just before noon, she was happy to see them. Jenna had a sleeping baby on her chest, in a baby carrier, so they headed out for a walk around Blue Mountain village.
They finished their walk at a gastropub next to the man-made lake beside the hotel, where Chloe ordered two kinds of French fries and a pitcher of lemonade for them all to share.
“We know how to party,” she told the waiter.
He didn’t laugh, but Olivia and Jenna did.
“I swear, these kids are going to demand fries as their first food,” she said as she dipped a sweet potato chip in mayo. “They have been my staple. Fries, and soup. That’s all that Tom’s been making lately, and it’s truly perfect. Maybe as we get closer to summer, we’ll swap that out for salad.” She tipped her face up to the sun, bright in the sky, even though the air wasn’t really warm yet. “Dunno.”
“These are good pregnancy problems to have,” Olivia said teasingly.
“Knock on wood.” Chloe ate another fry and sighed happily. “This is nice. Thanks for coming to keep me company.”
“Since our husbands were otherwise busy this weekend…”
“Who’s watching Sophia?”
Olivia’s eyes lit up. “She’s gone to my mom’s for a week. It’s freaking magical. I’ve been so productive. Jenna and I drove separately. She’ll take you home tomorrow, and I’ll drive down to London to pick up my munchkin.”
“That’s lovely.” Chloe frowned. “Don’t Anne and Alessandro ever take her?”
Olivia groaned. “For a few hours, sure. But they don’t like overnights. That’s okay—it really is. Everyone has different boundaries, and I don’t think grandparents should be forced to do primary care if they don’t want to.”
“No,” Chloe said slowly. “Of course not.”
But it hadn’t occurred to her before that her babies would have two sets of emotionally distant grandparents. Her own parents were non-starters. Her mother had only enquired about the pregnancy once. And her father had simply replied to her email, informing him he would be a grandfather, with an update on his second set of children—all still young enough to not be giving him grandchildren for quite some time.
And now she was realizing that Tom’s parents would only have a limited role, too.
It was okay.
It was just…not any kind of fairytale.
Which was life.
Her children would have adoring aunts and uncles. “We can swap kids for date night,” she said suddenly. “I’ll babysit Soph. Of course I will. Why haven’t I volunteered before?”
Olivia laughed and looked at Jenna, who waved a sweet potato in the air. “You were busy banging Tom in secret, if you’ll recall. And then you were tired and sick, and that brings us up to the present. But a verbal offer is legally binding, blah blah blah, I’m totally taking you up on the kid swap plan.”
Jenna and Sean didn’t have grandparent support, either. In fact, other than Faith’s mom, who was a really active part of young Eric’s life, all of their friends did the childcare thing on their own. What fantasy had Chloe built up in her head that she wasn’t going to live up to? They were all just struggling to make things work.
And she loved them for it.
It was time to trust that they loved her because of her mess, too, and not despite it.
“Deal.” Chloe raised her glass of lemonade in the air. “To our own Date Night Network.”
Olivia added her glass to the cheers. “Genius.”
“Legally binding,” Jenna repeated, joining them with a loud clink.
After another leisurely stroll around the village, they made their way to the spa in the hotel for pedicures, where all the attendants cooed over Chloe’s belly and Olivia’s child-free escape and Jenna’s perfect little baby, asleep in her arms.
Soon, Chloe would have two of those.
“You’ll have to show me how to use the carrier thing,” she said.
Jenna smiled. “Will do. And you can use it with both babies at once, you know.”
Chloe was pretty sure one at a time would enough of a challenge—at least at first.
“Dinner plans?” Olivia asked from the far side of Jenna.
Chloe swished her feet in the warm water. She could go for another bubble bath, but since the tub was in the middle of the suite, maybe that wouldn’t be appropriate. “We could order in?”
“I brought cheese plate fixings,” Olivia offered.
Done. “That’s all we need.”
And it was. Once their nails were painted a riotous rainbow of colours, they toddled back upstairs and flopped on the couches for a rest.
But soon enough, Olivia was back on her feet to make dinner. And when she returned to the living room, she looked quite proud of herself. “I will say, this has really set a high standard for our next girls’ night.”
Chloe cackled. Her high standards had definitely changed in the last year. It was five o’clock, for one thing. She’d bet they were all in bed and asleep before nine thirty, although there was no telling what sort of fun might happen once they busted into the bottle of sparkling peach juice Olivia had set out next to the most elaborate cheese plate Chloe had ever seen in her life.
On second thought, there was nothing wrong with this new standard.
“Cheese is a perfectly acceptable alternative to wine,” she announced once they tucked in.
“Hear, hear,” Olivia said, raising her glass in a salute.
As they settled in around the cheese plate, Chloe realized her phone was vibrating. By the time she found her purse, it had stopped. She frowned when she looked at the screen. “I’ve missed three calls.”
“Tom?”
She shook her head. “416 area code. Someone from the city.” Her eyes went wide. “Oh! The reporter.” She quickly filled Jenna in on what had happened. Zander had warned her it might be days before she heard anything.
But on a Saturday night?
Holding up her finger to quiet her friends, she tapped the phone number to call it back.
“Hello?” A man’s voice.
“This is Chloe Dawson. I missed a couple of calls from your number.”
“Yes, Ms. Dawson, thanks for calling me back.” There was a pause, and in that moment, Chloe remembered that Zander had said the reporter was a woman.
An uncomfortable feeling prickled the back of her neck.
When he spoke again, the discomfort grew, because he didn’t introduce himself. “Is this a good time to talk?”
She chewed on the corner of her lower lip. Uh… “Sorry, I think I missed your name?”
“I’m calling in regards to library services in Bruce County. I understand you’ve spoken to a number of your colleagues because you are concerned about your position…”
He hadn’t answered her question. And there was something very not right about how much this stranger knew about her life—and still was getting the details all wrong.
Heart pounding, she snapped her fingers to get Jenna’s attention. Can I use your phone to record this call? she mouthed.
In her best Nancy Drew impression, her friend slide the phone across the table, already unlocked.
And there was a recording app right there.
Thank God.
“Sorry, I missed that,” Chloe said as she held Jenna’s phone next to her ear, hoping against hope that he’d say something useful. Her voice had a bit of a shake to it, but she got it under control. If this was a union busting move, she was going to nail this guy’s ass to the wall. “Did you say you were from the library board?”
“I’m calling from Toronto. I work with the ministry.”
“Okay. And what can I do for you?”
“You’ve been making a lot of noise, Ms. Dawson. But what you don’t seem to understand is that the province is entering a period of austerity. Hard choices are going to need to be made, maybe ones that you don’t understand. But the way you’re running interference has to stop. I understand you are concerned about your job—”
“That’s not it at all,” she blurted out. She’d heard enough. She’d recorded enough. This man couldn’t be trusted and she wouldn’t entertain this nonsense a second longer. “I have only been concerned about the people who use our library. Which is a lot of people. We had a packed town hall meeting, but that was apparently all just for show, wasn’t it? The decision has been made.”
“You would be wise to focus on retaining your full-time position elsewhere in the county.”
Her mouth dropped open, then she snapped it shut.
And ended the call.
“So that wasn’t the reporter,” she said slowly, her hands shaking. There was a solid chance she was going to throw up. She felt sick.
Jenna gave her a look of alarm. “Who was it?”
“Someone from the ministry. And honestly? I think he threatened me. Not personally. But he hinted ominously at my job situation. Oh my God.”
Olivia came around to where she was standing and gently took Jenna’s phone out of Chloe’s hands. “Here,” she said, handing it to their friend.
Jenna tapped on the screen, then again, and the recording played from the beginning.
“Sorry, I missed that. Did you say you were from the library board?”
“I’m calling from Toronto. I work with the ministry.”
It was small and tinny, but it was there. The recording had worked.
She was definitely going to throw up. Eventually. First, though, she needed backup. “I have to call Zander.”
She could feel her friends staring at her, wide-eyed, as she rang her brother-in-law. He answered on the first ring.
In the background she heard the loud whir of power tools. “Hang on a second,” he said to her, then to Tom in the background, “It’s Chloe. She loves me more than you.”
“Never,” she said with a shaky laugh. “Although right now, I need you more than him.”
The background noise disappeared. “Okay, I’m outside. Your house looks great, by the way. But what can I do for you right now?”
She quickly ran down the conversation she just had.
“And then he told me that my job was on the line. Basically, if I want a full-time job, I’ll need to move. So much for the promises of reduced hours. I would take a part-time job in a heartbeat over moving. It feels like blackmail, Zander.”
“That’s not okay,” he growled. “You were right to call me. I want you to make clear notes of the call. Did anyone witness it?”
“Olivia and Jenna both heard my side of the conversation. And I, uh, recorded it on Jenna’s phone.”
He laughed out loud. “Genius. Good work.”
“It felt scary, to be honest.”
“That was the hardest part you’ll have to do. Don’t answer the phone again, got it? And next week, we’ll contact an employment lawyer.”
She made a small groan. “This is escalating way beyond anything I ever imagined.”
“A lawyer will de-escalate it, and quickly. That was offside, absolutely not okay, and a mistake on the ministry’s part. Repeat after me: you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” she said cheekily.
“Chloe.”
“You say that just like your brother.” She sighed. “Okay. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Good. I’m going to head back inside and reassure Tom that everything is fine.”
“Thanks.”
“He’ll probably call you himself in about ten minutes. He’s holding up a piece of drywall right now or I’m sure he’d be tackling me for the phone.”
“Tell him I really am fine,” she said. She didn’t feel it. But intellectually, she knew it was true.
When she ended the call, the suite was completely quiet. She looked at her friends, and they looked right back.
“Well, that’s a twist I didn’t see coming,” Olivia finally said.
That made two of them.
“Yeah.”
“You would take a part-time job over moving for a full-time job?”
Chloe blinked. “What?”
“That’s what you said to Zander.”
“The whole whistleblowing thing, and that’s the twist you didn’t see coming?”
Olivia shrugged. “I like what I like. And I like you in Pine Harbour, so that’s exciting and brand new information.”
“It’s not brand new,” she protested. Was it? “I’ve always liked Pine Harbour.”
Jenna snorted. “I think it’s more of a hate-like.”
“Sure, sometimes. But sometimes it’s just a straight-like.” Chloe frowned. “I haven’t thought about leaving in months.”
The way her friends’ eyebrows hit the roof at the exact same time told Chloe she hadn’t shared that fact with them.
Or anyone.
They had just finished hanging the last piece of drywall when Zander returned from outside.
Tom glared at him. “Library shit?”
“Do you kiss your woman with that mouth?”
He fought to keep the scowl at bay. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything is fine. Chloe specifically told me to tell you that everything is fine, in fact.”
“That hardly means anything is fine, and almost certainly means there’s good reason for me to worry about her safety.”
“Nancy Drew can take of herself,” his brother said. “But you do need a lawyer because some asshole from Toronto threatened her job a little.”
“What?” The hammer he was holding slipped, almost falling out of his grip before he caught it again. He shoved it into his tool belt. “Threatened her job how?”
“In the usual spineless way of making vague suggestions nobody can follow up on. It was a scare tactic, because someone has got it in their head that she’s organizing shit up here.”
“She’s not.”
“She should, though.” Zander raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. I know she’s pregnant, but she cares a lot about this. We could have her back while she made some real noise, if she wanted to.”
“When did you turn into such a rebel?”
From the other side of the room, Rafe laughed. “When he left town on a motorcycle at seventeen?”
Good point.
Back then, Tom had thought his oldest brother was impossibly grown-up, and heading out to take on the world’s promises.
Now he imagined his own kids joining the army at seventeen and—nope. Not okay. Fuck. “Listen, are you sure she’s safe right now?”
“Yes. This is political posturing. Besides, she’s in a secure hotel room, with friends, in a reservation made by you, not her. Nobody knows where she is. If some numpty was going to show up to threaten her to her face, they would come here. And you’d get to greet them with that hammer, and your brothers. But when she gets back, we’ll find her a good lawyer to put a stop to this. Something has definitely gone wrong in the communications pipeline, and once that’s brought to light, this will be resolved.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
“That’s fair. Now, do you want to go give her a call before we start mudding and taping your new wall here?”
Tom scrubbed a hand over his face and nodded. Yeah. He needed to hear her voice and get all of that again, straight from the source.