Sara shook her head. “I don’t think so. We just got into town a few hours ago. I’m not from around here.”
“Mommy!” Charlotte tugged on Sara’s arm. “I gotta go potty!”
“Oh.” Sara grabbed Charlotte’s hand and asked, “Do you have restrooms?”
Ali winced. “Not for the public. Sorry. But The Snack Shack does.”
“The Snack Shack is where?”
She pointed at the side door that she’d walked in from. “Just across the courtyard.”
“I gotta go now, Mommy!”
“Okay, come on.” Sara started to pick her daughter up and rush out of the building, but the woman stopped her.
“You can use ours. It’s fine.”
A wave of relief washed over Sara as she asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Ali nodded.
The trio followed Ali through the doorway that the teen had come out of. He was sitting behind a desk, his head down staring at the phone he held in his hand.
“It’s right there.” Ali pointed to a blue door in the corner of the room.
Sara hurried across the small space and when she stepped into the room and flipped on the light she noticed that she was missing a kid. Looking over her shoulder she saw that Trevor was standing beside the desk, by the teen.
“Trevor.” She used her best “mom” tone.
She didn’t have time for arguments or a discussion. Charlotte was doing the pee-pee dance and Sara didn’t have a spare set of clothes for her daughter with her. Which meant the three-year-old would have to walk back to the B&B in pee-pee pants. Only, chances were she wouldn’t want to walk in them which meant she’d be carrying her back in pee-pee pants.
“Mom.” Trevor might’ve just said her name but what he was really saying was stop-embarrassing-me.
“Little man can hang with me,” KJ suggested.
The same moment he spoke Charlotte went from whine to screech. “Mommy!”
At moments like these Sara had to rely on her intuition. Gut instinct was a powerful tool that she’d always trusted. She wasn’t sure she’d trust KJ to handle a store for her if she owned it, but she trusted him to keep an eye on Trev for a couple of minutes.
“Thanks.” She smiled and shut the door.
As she helped Charlotte, the three-year-old explained that she’d been right that the man they’d met looked like a bear and that damn was a bad word. Sara was only half listening to her Chatty Cathy daughter but mainly keeping her ears focused on the door. She could hear Trevor talking, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.
After hands were washed and dried, Sara opened the door and was not surprised when she heard the tail end of her son’s sentence.
“…she’s going to be my stair mom.”
“Stepmom.” Sara corrected for the umpteenth time as she entered the office.
When she did she stopped up short, taken off guard by Ali’s expression. The woman was staring at her, her eyes wide, and her jaw hanging open.
Oh no.
What had Trevor told them?
Sometimes Trev represented things in a not so flattering light. He didn’t do it on purpose, he just mixed things up, like stair mom instead of stepmom. He got the sentiment of things right, but not always the facts or names.
Once he’d stood in front of his first grade class and told them that his mommy spent the weekend growing weed and then she put it in baggies and took it to people’s houses. Which in California would be totally legal, but in Arizona was still frowned upon. The thing that made it worse, was he had drawn a picture to aid in his show and tell. And hell if that kid hadn’t drawn a perfect marijuana leaf and a small clear baggie with green leaves in it.