Neither of the waitresses on shift had noticed him, and it killed her that her son could be so overlooked by the people around him. Or that she hadn’t been available when he’d arrived. What if something else had happened at school to upset him? What if he was hiding?

Calm down, she ordered herself. She wasn’t going to do either of them any good by panicking. Magnolia was a safe town. People knew Andrew. They knew Angi and her mom. The freezer at home was stuffed to the brim with get-well casseroles, most of which her mom wouldn’t touch because she was so particular about food. Plus, most of them didn’t fit the new heart-healthy eating guidelines the doctor had given her.

“I’m going to walk the block,” she told Annie and Lana, the two waitresses working the afternoon shift. “Maybe he went for candy at the hardware store or to check out Christmas trees.” She’d promised him that this year they could get a real tree from the lot in the town square, and he had specific plans for what he wanted. “Please text me if he comes back.”

“Will do. You and your brothers ran wild through the town at Andrew’s age. I’m sure he’s just following in your footsteps,” Lana added, then went to wait on the one occupied table in her station.

A terrifying thought.

Lily Wainright, who ran the hardware store her family owned for generations, reported that Andrew had been in fifteen minutes earlier for a box of sour gummies. The knowledge calmed Angi somewhat. She couldn’t imagine giving him a cell phone in fifth grade, but she sure would like one of those tracking apps made for parents.

After scanning both sides of the street with no sight of him, she made a lap through the square and then headed back toward the restaurant. A bright spot of orange on the ground caught her eye. A telltale gummy worm discarded just next to the coir welcome mat outside the In Bloom flower shop. Oh, no. What would her son want in a flower shop? Especially one now owned by a surly, cantankerous hulk of a man.

She glanced at the shop’s picture window and saw a small head bobbing around displays of multicolored roses. As anxiety drained out of her, it was immediately replaced by irritation. Both at her son and the flower shop’s owner.

Angi’d had a crap-tastic day, and an unavoidable confrontation with Gabe Carlyle would be the icing on the doo-doo cake of her life.

She pushed her way into the store anyway, ready to fling a bit of doo-doo around in Gabe’s direction. Maybe that would help her mood. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

CHAPTER TWO

HOW COULD ONE child produce so many questions in the span of a few minutes? Questions that seemed to tear scabs from old wounds as easy as ripping off a bandage. Gabriel Carlyle had tried to brush off the boy with no luck.