The Memory Keeper: A Heartwarming, Feel-Good Romance(42)

Hannah smiled.

Darlene paid for the bouquet. “Thank you for this,” she said, the glass vase in one hand and her cane in the other.

“No problem,” Hannah said. “Here, let me get the door for you.”

As Darlene left, it all hit her: Darlene Buxton. Buxton Floral Company from Gran’s journal. Darlene had known Gran since childhood… Hannah couldn’t help but notice the coincidence that it had been Darlene who’d passed along Gran’s idea that Hannah be the new Memory Keeper, when Gran herself must have gotten her start working under Darlene’s mother.

Before she could spend too much time considering it, Hannah refocused on something else: Liam was walking up to the door.

He seemed just as surprised to see Hannah as she was to see him.

“I was walking by,” he said tentatively, surveying the interior behind her tactfully.

“This is my gran’s shop,” she explained proudly, letting him enter to get out of the cold, even though the airy room was still a bit drafty. “It’s pretty… um. Rundown.” She was talking politely but the elephant in the room was hanging over her every word.

He nodded thoughtfully, running his finger along a half-empty display. “I see.”

She walked behind the counter and scooted the stack of papers over in a feeble attempt to make things look better, but she knew it was a lost cause. “The rent’s killing her, and we’re trying to get her to close it.”

Liam’s eyebrows rose in interest.

Who was she kidding, even entertaining the idea that she could save this mess? She’d have to get Gran to sign the paperwork to relieve her parents from the lease. Then Hannah would pay off the bills, and in time, close the shop. That was really the only option.

“You look distraught,” Liam noted, apology in his eyes.

“I am,” she said. “Life is hard sometimes, and I just have to get my mind around that.”

“Yes. Life is hard,” he agreed, a weighty stare in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but Hannah’s phone went off on the counter.

“Sorry,” she said, “it could be about Gran.” She leaned over to view the caller. “Weird. It’s work. I wouldn’t expect them to call me direct unless there was something really pressing. Mind if I get this?” she asked.

“Not at all,” Liam replied.

“Be right back.” Hannah stepped into the hallway at the back of the shop and took the call.

“Hey, it’s Amanda,” her coworker said when Hannah answered.

As assistant director, Amanda had taken the reins while Hannah was out. Amanda had been passed over for the art director job when Hannah was hired and had been crushed, but she’d handled it kindly and professionally, even buying Hannah a paperweight for her office as a congratulations gift. Hannah knew that the only reason Amanda didn’t get the job was because she’d never managed a huge project with a director before, so Hannah made sure that Amanda was right there with her now. She’d gone over her plan with Hannah before she’d left, and the entire project was in her very capable hands. Hannah wasn’t worried a bit… until this call. Amanda never called her out of hours or on her days off.

“I’m so sorry to bother you on vacation, but we’re having a major problem.”

Hannah cringed, realizing that Amanda still thought she was on a beach in Barbados with Miles right now. “What is it?” she asked.

“Right after you left, the computer system at work crashed, and we’ve lost all the photography for the summer farmhouse spread.”

Hannah’s breath caught. “What?” she asked, barely even able to get the word out.

Hannah had traveled the country with the photographer personally, for every shoot, once a month, over the last six months, giving delicate direction on the content she wanted photographed. She had images of a farm family in their denim overalls, sitting on their weathered front porch after a day’s work, the green harvester in blurry view in the wheat fields behind them; there was the shot with the old farm hound sitting next to a scarecrow at sunset… All the gorgeous, award-winning shots lost?

“We’ve been scrambling to recover them,” Amanda told her. “The IT department has been working overtime. They think it had something to do with the file being open at the time of the crash. The damage to the hard drive caused a corruption of the software, and it’s making it impossible to retrieve the files. They’re still working on it, but I worry that by the time they do, it’ll be too late. We’re not going to hit deadline, and without the photos, we’ve got nothing. I tried to use old stock, but nothing is fitting the bill. Do you have the photos saved on anything at your apartment?”

“I don’t think so. I kept them all at work, thinking the computer there was more reliable than my own.” Hannah leaned back against the wall, the phone still at her ear, the enormity of this setting in. She’d just gotten this promotion and, her fault or not, it wouldn’t look good if the first big project she’d been given failed miserably. If it didn’t go well, she could be in real professional trouble. Without those images, there was nothing to put in the main spread with the deadline looming. She had to figure out how to fix this. “Oh my God.”

“I know,” Amanda said.

Suddenly, Hannah perked up. “What about on the camera itself? It should be in my office.”