The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(89)

They climbed into her car, and she drove to town. Toby ordered a super-size concoction of ice cream, M&M’s, sprinkles, peanuts, and chocolate sauce. She ordered their smallest vanilla cone. As luck would have it, Mike showed up not long after they’d sat at one of the picnic tables. “Hey, Toby. Sabrina.”

Sabrina?

Toby jumped up from the bench. “Sit with us, Mike!”

Mike glanced toward Bree. She wasn’t going to be the bad guy, and she nodded. “Sure. Come and join us.”

A few minutes later Mike returned with a small chocolate sundae and settled next to Toby, which put him directly across from her. Her heart twisted as Toby shot her a pleading look, imploring her not to ruin this. Mike avoided looking at her altogether.

Her cone was beginning to drip, but she couldn’t take another lick. She didn’t like feeling as if there was something wrong with her because she refused to join the Mike Moody fan club. Even Lucy liked him. But how could Bree forget the past? Except wasn’t that beginning to happen? Each day it grew more difficult to reconcile the adult Mike Moody with the boy she remembered.

A young couple—the husband carrying a baby in a Snugli—stopped to talk to him, followed by an older man hauling an oxygen tank. Everybody was glad to see Mike. Everybody wanted to say hello. Toby waited patiently, as if he’d been through this before. Finally they were alone. “Toby, this sundae is so good I think I’ll have another.” Mike dug in his pocket and handed over a five-dollar bill. “Mind getting one for me?”

As Toby went off, Bree noticed that Mike had barely touched his first sundae. He finally looked at her. “I was coming out to see you tomorrow.”

“I thought you were done with me.” She managed not to sound too petulant.

“This is about Toby.” He pushed aside his ice cream. “The Bayner boys aren’t coming back to live on the island.”

It took her a moment to place the name. “The twins who are Toby’s best friends?”

“His only real friends. Their parents are splitting up, and his mother is staying in Ohio with them. Toby doesn’t know about it yet, and this is going to hit him hard.”

“Great. One more problem I have no idea how to solve,” she said.

He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I might be able to help out.”

Of course he could. Mike could fix everything, something she should have thought harder about before she’d dismissed him.

He balled the napkin. “I never liked how Myra kept him so isolated, but she was odd that way, and she refused to talk about it. Toby’s with other kids at school, but she wouldn’t let him invite them to the cottage or go to their houses. The only reason the twins were friends was because they lived close enough to walk. She overprotected him.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” It was odd asking Mike for advice, but he didn’t seem to find it strange.

“I coach a soccer team,” he said. “It’ll be a good place for him to start making new friends. Let Toby join.”

She’d already become a beekeeper. Why not add soccer mom to her résumé? “All right.”

He seemed surprised that she’d agreed so quickly. “I’m sure you have some questions. I’m not the only coach. There’s another—”

“It’s fine. I trust you.”

“You do?”

She pretended to examine a ragged fingernail. “You’ve been a good friend to Toby.”

“Here you are.” Toby popped up at Mike’s side with the sundae. Mike surreptitiously moved the first one under his napkin and took up the plastic spoon to start on the second. Toby asked him about fishing rods, and they were soon immersed in conversation.

Long after she should have been asleep that night, Bree was still sitting on the back step, staring out into the darkness, thinking about Mike and the upcoming winter. Her honey was selling better than she could have hoped, and the bee Christmas ornaments were a surprise hit. Pastor Sanders was displaying her products in his gift shop without charging her a percentage. He said he’d take his commission in honey and give it away to any of his parishioners who needed their spirits lifted.

She was saving every penny she could, but she was spending it, too. And not just for more jars. After days of agonizing, she’d placed a big order for some very expensive hand-blown glass globe ornaments that she intended to paint with island scenes and—cross her fingers—sell for three times what she paid for them. But with only a month left before Labor Day, when her customers would disappear, the purchase was a huge risk.

She still had a dribble of cash coming in from the consignment shop at home where she’d left most of her clothes. With luck, that money, combined with steady sales at the farm stand for the rest of the month and a big profit from the hand-painted ornaments she’d just received, might carry her through the winter. If Toby didn’t keep growing out of his clothes, and the old furnace kept running, and the leaky roof didn’t get worse, and her car didn’t need brakes, and …

Winters are long, and people here only have one another to depend on.

It had been easier dismissing Mike’s words in June than it was now, with fall creeping closer each day. If the worst happened, she had nowhere to turn. She needed Mike.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that ignoring him was a luxury she could no longer afford. She had to change direction. She had to convince him that she no longer hated his guts. Even if it killed her.