A Temporary Arrangement

He chewed at his lower lip. “You got the deposit?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ain’t a big town, if you’re lookin’ for work. You got a job?”

“Blackberry Hill Memorial Hospital. I’m the new director of nursing. The interim director, I should say,” Abby added carefully.

He appeared mollified at that. “Grace’s job.”

“Exactly. Last month I leased one of the Hawthorne Apartments near the hospital but—”

“Fire, first floor.” He folded his arms across his thin chest and gave her a long, skeptical look. “They checked you out before letting you sign?”

“They did,” Abby assured him. “Credit check, work history. Everything.”

He thought for a while, searching her face. “I suppose you can have the room, long as you understand the rules and pay on time.”

Suppressing the impulse to kiss his whiskery cheek, she quickly read the contract and signed her name, then wrote a check for two months’ rent. “You won’t regret this. I promise.”

He appeared to regret it within minutes—glaring at her from his front window as she lugged her suitcase and several boxes up the sidewalk and around to the stairs. He thumped on his ceiling with—she suspected—a broom handle when one of the boxes slipped from her grasp and hit the floor.

Her new landlord appeared to have a major personality disorder. The apartment was cramped and dark. Yet she wouldn’t inconvenience Grace and she’d just bought herself time to find a better place. How hard could that be?

TWO WEEKS LATER she knew. Finding a better place wasn’t hard. It was impossible. And working in an idyllic north woods town certainly didn’t give her tranquility. Not when she was overseeing the nursing staff of a hospital that had been on the brink of closure less than a year ago.

She’d talked to Grace for hours on her first evening in town. The older woman had even stopped in at the hospital the next morning before she and Warren flew south. She’d run a tight ship and had left her office in perfect order, but every day brought new challenges given the tight budget and shortage of nurses.

“Bad day, professor?” Erin Reynolds, the hospital administrator, smiled sympathetically as she watched Abby pore over the nurses’ work schedule on her desk.

“Interesting.” Abby grinned back at her.

After graduating together with bachelor’s degrees in nursing, they’d gone their separate ways—Erin had eventually gone back to school for a degree in hospital administration, while Abby had chosen graduate school and a career in teaching at the college level.

They’d kept in touch through Christmas cards and occasional e-mails, though, and Erin had been the one to let Abby know about this temporary position.

“I just need a magic wand and a few more nurses,” Abby continued. “Marcia’s home with strep throat. Carl’s on vacation until Monday. Gwen agreed to pull a double shift today, but I’m trying to avoid that, because she works tomorrow, too.”

Erin came farther in and wearily rested both hands on the back of a chair. Five months pregnant, she was as lovely as ever with her short, glossy dark hair and delicate features, if somewhat drawn and pale. “Any luck with the ad?”

“A half dozen calls and several applications.”

“Good.” Erin stifled a yawn. “I’ve asked Madge to run it in the Green Bay and Milwaukee papers this weekend, too.”

Erin was just two years older than Abby, and they’d hit it off from the first time they’d met. Now, Abby looked at her old friend with growing concern.

The hospital was in the midst of renovation and expansion efforts that hadn’t been going smoothly. With the three children Erin had adopted before marrying Dr. Reynolds last winter, her job and her pregnancy, she looked ready to drop in her tracks.

Dr. Jill Edwards, on the other hand, was due the month after Erin, but she barely showed yet and seemed to have boundless energy. Though without other children to contend with, she probably got much more rest.

“So, is it true you and Connor have never had any weekend time alone?” Abby asked. Erin and Connor had flown to the Bahamas in late January for a beachside wedding with all three children as attendants. “Not even on your wedding trip?”

“We had adjoining rooms. And—” she grinned as she patted her stomach “—we occasionally locked the door between those rooms.”

“Not quite the same,” Abby said. “I’m thinking you need some absolute peace and quiet. This weekend.”

Erin snorted. “I don’t think that’ll happen. Our sitter is off on her senior high class trip this week. Connor’s on call this weekend and he’s also covering Jill’s practice while she’s out of town. He’ll probably end up sleeping at the hospital, so it’ll be just me, the kids, and my round-the-clock morning sickness. I can’t believe the nausea has continued past the first trimester.”

“So this could be a weekend to pamper yourself. Maybe I could take the kids—”

“You?” Erin’s eyes were round. “Are you feeling okay?”

“How hard could it be?” She’d gone out for pizza a couple times with the Reynolds crew, and she’d also been to a few of the boys’ baseball games. The three kids all seemed, well, manageable enough for an afternoon.

“This is so sweet of you. A whole weekend to myself just sounds like heaven.”

Abby had meant to volunteer for a few hours, but she couldn’t resist Erin’s gratitude. “Whatever I might’ve said about lacking maternal instincts, I could do it. I’m a nurse, after all. We’re nurturing types.” Was she? Her ex-fiancé, Jared, sure hadn’t thought so. “And heaven knows, I owe you,” she added. “Coming up here is the perfect opportunity for some practical experience before I start teaching again.”

Abby ignored a sudden vision of her landlord Hubert’s reaction to all of this. “You could sleep in. Relax.”

“As much as I’d love it, I’m afraid the kids are really energetic. I swear, sometimes they could wear out the patience of a saint.”

The children had been adopted shortly before Erin’s first husband left her for another woman. All three had come from troubled backgrounds, but Erin had already done wonders with them. Surely she was exaggerating.

“And I’m not exaggerating,” Erin added dryly. “No matter what I tell them, they’ll push the limit with anyone new—that’s why Haley is still our one and only babysitter. The others refuse to come back.”

“If I can handle this hospital job, I can handle three kids. And if things get really wild, you’re only a phone call away,” Abby added firmly.

“Well…” Erin hesitated for a moment, then dissolved into laughter. “Deal. Though I’ll understand completely, if you decide to give them back early.”

“Not a chance. The boys, Lily and I are going to have a great time.”

WHAT EXACTLY, did one do with three kids under the age of eleven to make sure they had a “great time”?

Connor dropped them off after supper on Friday. Abby took them to a movie, for pizza, then finally to the video store on Main Street.

There, eleven-year-old Drew had argued for renting some sort of video game for the Xbox he’d brought along. Eight-year-old Tyler had begged for a different game, one Drew said was dumb. And ten-year-old Lily had shyly asked for an old Harry Potter movie she’d seen at least a million times, according to Tyler.

Abby’s plans for holding a vote fizzled when the boys stood toe-to-toe and both proclaimed it was their turn to choose. Abby ended up renting all three and praying for peace.

Now, back at the stairway to her small upstairs apartment, Abby held a finger to her lips. “My landlord is elderly and needs his sleep. We have to be very quiet, okay?”

Lily nodded and tiptoed up. Tyler stumbled on the third step and yelped as his knee struck the edge of the riser. Drew, distracted by a motorcycle coming down the street, bumbled into him and said a few words he must have learned in inner city Chicago during his earlier days. The video he’d been carrying bounced down the stairs to the grass.

Sure enough, the lights in Hubert’s first-floor bedroom blazed on a second later and he appeared at his window to peer out into the dark.

“Just me, Mr. Bickham. Sorry,” Abby called.

Shooing the kids ahead of her, she held a finger to her lips again and gave them a conspiratorial smile. “He’s got very, very good ears,” she whispered. “Let’s pretend we’re secret agents and see how quiet we can be.”