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you can.” I’d already raised two boys, and I wasn’t about to take David on as a surrogate third.
    “You know what I mean.”
    I took a deep breath before I trusted myself to speak. I was on dodgy ground here, torn between my responsibilities to my friend and those to my employee. Being in the middle of a fight was not where I wanted to be. “I won’t keep him here at the shop late,” I said, “but he wants to be here in the day. Don’t take Fire at Will away from him, or he might drop out of school altogether.”
    I heard a sharp intake of breath and then dead silence. I wondered for a second if I’d killed her. “Hannah? Are you still there?”
    “I am, but I’ve really got to go.”
    “Blast it all, I really am trying to apologize.” Hannah could be more stubborn than Bill sometimes, and that was saying something.
    “I know. It’s fine. We’re all right, but I really do need to go. I’ll call you later.”
    “Bye,” I said as she hung up.
    Had I made it better with that last comment, or perhaps worse? David’s employment at my shop was a sore point with Hannah, but we couldn’t keep tiptoeing around it. He wanted to be a potter, and he found something working for me that was lacking for him at school. There was no doubt that David had a gift for clay, but what he lacked was the discipline, the patience of a master potter. As for his attendance record in school, they’d have to work it out between themselves. I had a shop to run. I glanced at the schedule to see if we had any groups coming in, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that we were clear of group lessons. In a moment of temporary insanity, I’d offered the teachers of Maple Ridge Elementary an overly generous discount, and most of them had taken me up on it. Things were just starting to slow down again, and I was looking forward to a quiet day—despite my worry about the lack of business.
    Twenty minutes after I opened the shop, I heard what sounded like a flock of grackles outside my door. When I peeked outside, I saw twenty-five or thirty grade-schoolers heading my way, led by a young blonde with a look of sheer exasperation on her face. I knew I had to stop the horde from pillaging my place, so I walked outside, putting myself between them and Fire at Will.
    Before I could say a word, the woman leading them said, “Hi, I know I didn’t call ahead, but I promised them a field trip, and the bowling alley isn’t open, even though I called them yesterday, and one of the children threw up on the school bus and our parent chaperone Mrs. Beasley had to take her back to school, so I’ve got all these kids and I can’t bear to disappoint them. I’m Emma Blackshire. I’m new.”
    I don’t know how she managed to get all that out without taking a breath or a break, but she did. There was no way I could handle this crowd without help, and there were no reinforcements I could call on. I was about to turn her away when I spied one of the little boys, a towhead who looked just like my son Timothy when he was that age. The poor sweet child looked as though he were ready to burst into tears, and my heart melted.
    “Bring them in,” I said, and the young boy smiled. I was going to picture that expression all day. It was the only thing that was going to get me through what I knew was about to happen.
    That, or a shot of bourbon, though I doubted Miss Blackshire would approve. Then again, based on her agitated state, she might just join me.
    I managed to round up enough of the small bisque fired saucers we used for school groups, and the kids seemed to have a good time, though they did wreck the place as only a class of grade-schoolers could. After they were gone, I stacked two of the kilns and started firing their works. Once that was done, I was scrubbing down the tables when the front door opened. Not another student group, I prayed under my breath.
    The second I saw who it was, I found myself wishing for the entire student body of the