âYou didnât give a reason for leaving.â
Nate ran a hand over the taut muscles at the back of his neck. âSo why donât you tell me now, Callie? Whyâd you take off like that, never to be heard from again?â
âI donât know,â she said softly.
For a moment he simply stared at her. After all these years, this was her answer.
âI donât know,â he mimicked. âBullshit!â
Callie flinched and he realized heâd never raised his voice to her before. He took in a ragged breath, leaning his forehead against the door frame. Callie was one of the most intelligent women he knew. Intelligent women didnât abandon someone without a reason.
So what was hers?
Dear Reader,
People often act in ways that they canât explain. For instance, I have spent my life hopping from task to task, doing a little here, a little there, until the jobs are done. I thought I was a master multitaskerâwhich I am. I also recently learned that ADD runs in our family and Iâm a classic case. I adapted to my particular challenge without knowing what it was. Such is the situation with my heroine in Always a Temp.
Callie McCarran has a problem staying in one place long enough to put down roots. Like her father, sheâs a traveler. She works as a journalist and takes temporary jobs when she needs additional income, moving from city to city, job to job. She avoids permanence in all aspects of her life and accepts this as part of her makeup. What she doesnât know is that there may be other reasons she acts the way she does.
Nathan Marcenek, whom Callie had unceremoniously dumped the day after high school graduation, is a stayerâor so he thinks. Heâs convinced himself, after suffering a devastating accident, that heâs happy living in his small hometown and editing the local paper. Then Callie comes back into his life and suddenly he finds himself questioning his decisions and the reasons he made them.
I hope you enjoy Nate and Callieâs journeys in Always a Temp. Please stop by my Web site at www.jeanniewatt.com or drop me a line at [email protected]. I love hearing from readers.
Jeannie Watt
Theater usher, gymnastics instructor, grocery store clerk, underground miner, camp cook, geologist, draftsman, executive secretary, groundskeeper, ball-field mower, janitor, teacher, artist, cowboy gear maker, writer. Jeannie Watt has worn many hats, some temporary, some more permanent, during her life. Because of this she knows how to politely ask a parent with a crying baby to step into the lobby without also making the parent cry, how to coax a cranky copy machine into operation, how to jack a loaded mine car back onto the tracks, and how to make breakfast for thirty in a wilderness setting. The skills learned from her many occupations have now become invaluable resources for her favorite jobâwriting.
Many thanks to Kimberly Van Meter and Victoria Curran for straightening me out on a number of journalistic points.
Any remaining errors are my own.
I also want to thank Victoria for her patience and insights during revisions.
I knew I needed something more in the story. Victoria knew what it was.
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE BOY SCRAMBLED UP and over the fence just as Callie McCarran opened the back door. Sun glinted off his short, silvery-blond hair before he dropped out of sight into the vacant lot next door.
âHey,â Callie called, but it was too late. The kid couldnât be more than seven or eight, but he was a quick little guy. It was the second time sheâd seen him in the yard in the two days sheâd been back in town, which seemed odd, since there was nothing of interest back hereâ¦. But then she noticed the baseball-size hole in the porch screen, which was quite possibly related to the baseball lying under the wicker chair.
Callie bent down to get it.
âI found your ball,â she called. Nothing. Shaking her head, she went out into the overgrown grass and set it on the empty birdbath.
âItâs on the birdbath,â she yelled, in case the kid was crouching on the other side of the fence. âIâm going in the house now.â She walked a few steps, then added, âAnd Iâm not mad about the hole.â The entire porch needed to be rescreened before she could sell the house, so no big deal.
Callie went back into the classic 1980s kitchen, complete with country-blue ruffled curtains at the windows and cow-decorated canisters on the cream-colored countertops. She poured a glass of tap water and drank it all without setting the glass down. Sheâd cried a lot during the past few days and no matter how much water she drank, she felt dehydrated. But she had held up during the memorial service, thank goodness, because if she had broken down, the good townspeople would have added âhypocriteâ to her list of epithets. They were already treating her like a leper.