Forever's Promise. Farrah Rochon
friends with an eight-year-old; she was here to help raise her. Disciplinarian was part of the job description.
“Cass, didn’t I tell you that we would dye the eggs later?” Shayla started.
Pulling her trembling bottom lip between her teeth, Cassidy nodded.
“Your sister could have been seriously hurt if those dyes were toxic. You know better than to put them in your mouth, but Kristi doesn’t. This could have been very, very bad, Cassidy.”
Dread cascaded down Shayla’s spine just thinking about what could have happened. Goodness, how did parents do this 24/7 for eighteen years? It had been just over three days and she was ready to climb the walls.
“Promise me you won’t disobey in the future,” Shayla said.
“I promise,” Cassidy mumbled. The dour frown on her face told Shayla that the little headway she’d made in softening Cass’s feelings toward her had just evaporated. Great.
“Why don’t you get ready for bed,” Shayla said. “You have school tomorrow, and it’s already past your bedtime.”
Cass remained stoic as she rose and lumbered down the narrow hallway toward the bedrooms. Shayla remained at the kitchen table, sipping her cranberry juice and trying to talk herself out of adding vodka to the glass. She’d messed up once already tonight. She knew better than to render herself completely incapacitated by drinking alcohol while the girls were still under her watch.
She set the glass on the table and covered her face with both hands.
“What in the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
She had never been the type to make rash decisions. Her careful, methodical thinking had taken her from being a lowly junior marketing assistant to the executive director of community relations at one of the country’s largest coffeehouse chains. Yet she’d succumbed to the impulsive decision to return to her hometown, turning her once well-ordered life completely upside down. What on earth had possessed her to do that?
“You know exactly what brought you back here,” Shayla whispered before downing the last of her juice in one gulp.
Guilt.
Suffocating, unrelenting, soul-crushing guilt. And if leaving her previous life behind so she could do right by her brother’s family was the only way to assuage that smothering guilt, then so be it.
Shayla set the juice glasses in the sink, made sure the back door was locked and went in to check on the girls. Kristi was still sound asleep. Cassidy was in bed, reading an R. L. Stein Goosebumps book.
A smile drew across Shayla’s lips. Like father, like daughter. Braylon had kept stacks of Bobbsey Twins mystery paperbacks next to his bed when he was younger.
Why did you leave these two babies?
How she wished she could ask him that question face-to-face.
It took some effort to swallow past the lump that instantly formed in her throat. Once she was able to clear it, she said, “Ten more minutes, okay, Cass?” The girl nodded. “Good night. I love you, honey.”
Cassidy didn’t respond.
Shayla’s eyes closed briefly in defeat before she pulled the door, leaving a five-inch gap. She went into her bedroom and barely managed to change into her own old, comfortable T-shirt before falling onto the bed and into a deep sleep.
The next morning, Shayla was nearly a half hour late making it to The Jazzy Bean. Unlike yesterday, Gayle had not been there to help get Kristi and Cass off to school. She’d enjoyed her first weekend alone with the girls, but she would probably weep in relief when Leslie picked them up tonight.
It was no surprise that Lucinda had everything running like a well-oiled machine by the time Shayla arrived at The Jazzy Bean. And, thank God, Erin was back behind the counter.
“I am so happy to see you,” Shayla told her, giving her a brief hug. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to run the front end of a coffeehouse on my own.”
“I probably could have come in yesterday afternoon, but I wanted to make sure I was completely over the virus before I returned to work.”
“Good girl,” Shayla said. “Spoken like a future pediatrician.”
“I talked to Desiree this morning. She’s still in the don’t-stray-too-far-from-the-bathroom phase.” Erin grimaced. “Believe me, you don’t want her here.”
“Lucinda and I did okay yesterday. We can handle it now that you’re back,” Shayla said.
Despite wanting to run from the building screaming during yesterday’s lunchtime rush, for the most part she’d enjoyed being back in the thick of things. She wasn’t about to give up Erin and Desiree—not by a long shot—but at the end of the day Shayla had felt a sense of accomplishment she hadn’t experienced since her early days with her old company, when she was still climbing her way up the bottom rungs of the ladder.
The morning crowd mostly consisted of regulars, with a smattering of unknown faces that stopped in on their way to the site of the new concrete plant being built just off Highway 190 a few towns over. One of the contractors had stumbled upon The Jazzy Bean a few weeks ago and bought coffee for the rest of his crew. It had become a ritual. Someone came in at least three days a week, ordering one of the carryout cartons that held a gallon of coffee.
That thought brought up another one.
Shayla looked over from where she was adding bagels to the tray inside the display case. “Hey, Erin, will you be able to deliver coffee to the clinic this morning?”
“Not unless you want to make the drinks,” Erin called over the noise of the coffee grinder.
“I don’t think so,” Shayla said. Yesterday had exposed her limits. Although she still had some skills behind the espresso machine, when it came to barista duties, Erin was far superior.
She was really missing Desiree right about now. Her manager was the one who usually slipped out during the slow period to bring coffee to the health clinic.
Since its doors opened about two months before, The Jazzy Bean had provided free coffee and breakfast pastries to the doctors and nurses who volunteered at the clinic that had been the brainchild of local attorney turned state senator, Matthew Gauthier. Matt had recently won his position in a special election and, in a surprise to no one, had quickly set out to improve life in Gauthier.
Residents could receive health screenings and checkups for a nominal fee, which Shayla learned was code for “whatever folks could afford to pay.” The supplies were bought using donations, and the medical professionals donated their time. Shayla figured providing a light breakfast was the very least she could do.
She filled a travel carton with today’s dark roast and prepared a large cup with decaf for the one nurse who didn’t drink regular. She grabbed a plastic tray and loaded it with the oatmeal, cranberry and flaxseed breakfast bars she ordered from the organic bakery in New Orleans that supplied her healthier pastries. She was still having a hard time convincing customers to try the heart-healthy food selections, but Shayla claimed a small victory every time someone got on board.
The clinic was an easy walk, only a couple of blocks down, in a single-story bungalow on Cooper Lane once owned by Matt Gauthier’s family.
She walked up the front steps and encountered Tanya Miller exiting the clinic. Tanya had lived directly across the street from the house Shayla had grown up in, where Leslie now lived with the girls. She was accompanied by a teenager who looked as if he’d come out on the losing end of a battle with the flu.
“Hey there, Shayla,” Tanya said, holding the door open for her. “I was just on my way to your place to get some soup. I hope Lucinda has chicken noodle on the menu today.”
“Chicken and rice.”
“Close enough,” Tanya said. “Maybe I’ll be able to