After finishing my calls, I fished some kids’ Tylenol out of my medicine cabinet and headed upstairs.
* * *
Two hours later, Juniper trailed behind me at the pharmacy. The official verdict was in. Strep throat. We’d already picked up her antibiotics, and now we were looking around for some soup. I was extra glad for my time off. My mother might be willing to watch her, but this was a situation where a little girl needed her own mother.
Juniper coughed a few times, and I sighed, patting her on the head. She’d been a trooper during the morning, but she was miserable and needed to get set up at home on a couch with soup, cartoons, and popsicles.
I grabbed a can and put it in my basket. I was just turning the corner when we all but ran into an older woman.
“I’m sorry,” I said, backing up. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
“It’s quite all right. Emily?”
It took my brain a few seconds to process that I’d almost run into Amelia Hawkins. Not only was the chance of randomly running into her low, but I also hadn’t expected to run into an old socialite at a pharmacy. Then again, considering the plastic bag she had with pill bottles, it shouldn’t be all that surprising. Just being an old socialite didn’t mean you were free from life’s infirmities.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hawkins,” I said.
She shot me a dazzling smile. “I hope you enjoyed your time in Japan.”
I looked down, suddenly nervous. “I did. I hope I’ve made that clear to Logan.” I considered for a moment. “Has he said something about it?”
“Oh, no. Other than sending me a text message to me let know he’s back home, he hasn’t talked to me about it.” Mrs. Hawkins’s gaze dropped to Juniper. “Good morning, Juniper.”
I held up a hand. “Juniper’s got strep, so I wouldn’t get too close.”
Juniper leaned against my leg and didn’t say anything.
“Oh, you poor little thing,” Mrs. Hawkins said. “I remember one time when Logan got it as a child. The poor boy was sick for a week.” She beamed a smile down at my daughter. “Just mind your mother, drink a lot of water, take your medicine, and get rest, and you’ll be fine.”
Juniper nodded quickly and coughed.
“I hate to be rude, Mrs. Hawkins,” I said, “but I really should be getting her home.”
“You do that,” she said. Her expression shifted. Something about it made my heart kick up. “I’ll let Logan know.”
Always the matchmaker, even when a little, sick girl was involved.
I managed not to sigh as I tugged Juniper toward the register.
* * *
“You have the VPN set up on your home computer?” my boss asked over the phone.
“I do.”
“Then don’t worry about coming in. Just work from home starting tomorrow. Can’t risk you coming in here and infecting everyone anyway. If she’s still sick by next Monday, we’ll revisit the issue.”
“Thank you very much.”
“I hope she gets better soon.” He hung up.
I glanced over at Juniper. She was asleep under her covers on the couch. I hoped she’d spend most of the day resting and maybe wake up refreshed in the morning without a fever, but even right then, I accepted that was wishful thinking.
I thought back to running into Amelia Hawkins at the pharmacy. She had probably already called Logan to pump him for information about our trip. She could easily use Juniper’s illness as the excuse to call before getting to what she truly cared about.
That made me wonder what he would tell his mother. I had a hard time imagining he’d tell her about all the sex we had. That’s just not the kind of thing you talked to a nice socialite mother about, even one who was trying to marry you off.
Would he tell her we hit it off, even though I told him I wasn’t interested in anything stateside?