How long was she going to lord money over him?

    Until she no longer needed him, he suspected.

    Knowing he didn’t have any other choice, he sighed a bit in defeat and said, “I assume you have a n.”

    She replied with a vicious grin. “I have several.”

    Amber’s POV

    Eventually I took Alice back home. She seemed happier then, and promised to talk to me rather than running away again.

    Still, even after I tucked her in bed, I couldn’t find any sleep myself. I kept having to check her room, worried each time I opened the door that she might be gone again.

    After a long, restless night, I readied myself for work. I could only truly rx when I dropped Alice off at school, knowing her teachers and the school employees would be keeping an eye on her. Yet now was no time for sleep.

    I had plenty of appointments today. As the only healer in this town, I couldn’t just call out.

    When I walked into the clinic, Ca, for the first time ever since I’d known her, gave me something of a

    dark look.

    “Good morning, Ca,” I said.

    “Yeah,” she replied.

    Weird.

    But I pressed on. The rest of the staff was friendlier, but each of them seemed to gossip and whisper behind my back. They all fell quiet as I turned toward them though, looking for exnation. Before I could ask, they scurried off in different directions.

    By the time I walked into the office I shared with Anna, I was both exhausted and confused, entirely at my wit’s end.

    “What’s going on around here?” I asked. If the employees wouldn’t talk to me, perhaps they would to Anna instead.

    “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

    “I noticed,” I said.

    Anna huffed a breath. “Everyone thinks you and Chase are an item. I’ve tried to set them straight, but it’s

    the talk of the office.”

    “That’s why Ca’s mad at me?”

    “I’m afraid so,” Anna said. “I’ve never seen her so gloomy. I think she actually likes that guy.”

    “She can do better than him,” I said. Though, thinking back, Ca never had much luck in love. “He’s a yboy. She deserves someone more stable.”

    Anna hummed.

    Just then, there was a knock on the door to the office. I looked up, bracing myself for whatever the day might have in store for me this time.

    I was relieved to see it was only Julian standing there.

    “Julian? You are early,” I said. Typically he didn’te in to volunteer until mid–morning.

    “I know,” he said. “That’s because I wanted to talk to you about something.”

    “Should I leave?” Anna asked.

    “No,” Julian said. “It’s nothing like that.”

    I waved him forward and he came into the office.

    He continued, “I was just hoping that we could start nning our project again. Alice is almost done with school for the summer, and I thought it might be a good time for all three of us to go and help people… and maybe bond some…”

    His voice trailed. Likely he meant, bond as a father and daughter. I couldn’t imagine he meant to include me in the mix, but… then again, he had said things about wanting to be a family.

    Would it truly be so bad to go and help people and see how things developed for our small trio?

    Anna gave me an expectant look. Julian was looking more like he was wearing his heart on his sleeve, asking for something more than just if we were going on the trip we already agreed to.

    Yet, just as I was opening my mouth to give him an answer, Ca appeared beside him at the door.

    “Healer Amber,” she said dryly. “Chase is here for his morning appointment.”