What Happens After Dark by Jasmine Haynes

was all that about her dad being so proud of her? The words just seemed to tumble out. All right, she’d wanted Erin to forget all the other things she’d said before about not wanting to go home to take care of her father. Because that sounded so bad, like she was an ingrate.
    Erin had been supportive, suggesting Rachel help out. Yet the moment Erin offered, Bree had wanted to shout; no, no, no, she needed those routine tasks herself. They relaxed her, they were easy, and she felt like she’d accomplished something.
    She had to admit, though, it would help for now. There was shipping, receiving, cash receipts, and purchase order documentation in the system. Bree could double-check Rachel’s work from her parents’ home. Rachel was smart, eager to learn something different and take on new responsibilities.
    Except that Bree didn’t like asking for anything from anyone because then she’d feel beholden to them with few ways to ever pay them back.
    She had to stop thinking about that. Erin had made the decision, and here they were. The problem was that Rachel always wanted to make sure everyone was okay. She liked to talk, though she didn’t spread rumors or gossip. If you told her something in confidence, it didn’t go any further. She’d known Bree’s father was ill before Bree even told Erin. It had happened during one of those moments of stress when Bree hadn’t been able to hold back, when she’d lost control for a very short tick of time. Rachel was there to see the chink, and that seemed to make her feel she had a license to talk. And that Bree would want to talk back.
    Bree could have talked, if she was a different type of person. She’d given a few details to Erin, but she could have gone further and told Rachel about the big, kind man who’d brought the hospital bed yesterday morning, his gentle, soothing Southern ac-centh that sounded like a melody. How he’d set the bed up right in front of the window because he wanted her father to feel the sun on his body during the day. How easy it had seemed for him to carry her father to it, and how meekly her father had accepted. Bree had watched from the far side of the bedroom so she didn’t have see out the window. When the man was done, Bree had followed him back out to his truck like a puppy wagging its tail, dying for attention, unwilling to let him go, needing that contact, even from a stranger, someone who had helped . She’d almost cried when he drove away and she was alone again with her mother and her dying father.
    But Bree wouldn’t tell Rachel all that. Instead she said, “Yes, at least my mom’s not alone anymore.”
    “Except for right now, and here I am pestering you with questions when you should be showing me stuff so you can get back home.”
    Bree felt a little blip of guilt in her belly. “I didn’t mean it that way.” The truth was she didn’t want to rush things because then she’d have to go back too soon.
    “I know you didn’t.” Rachel pointed at her chest. “ I did. So you were telling me about the POs.”
    Bree pushed back from the desk and rose to tap the top drawer of the filing cabinet. “Purchase orders, receiving documents, and supplier invoices all go in here. You match the purchase order with the receiver, then with the invoice when you get it. I also put a copy of the check it’s paid on in the vendor file as well. You follow the same procedure with receivables.” She tapped the next drawer down. “Customer order matched to shipper matched to invoice, then a copy of the check they pay us on.” She sat again.
    “It sounds pretty simple.”
    “It is. You’ll be fine. Let’s do a few matchings in the system so you get the hang of it.” Bree pushed a vendor invoice in front of Rachel who was already seated at the keyboard. “Open the accounts payable module, and I’ll show you how to see the open receivers. You can search by vendor or purchase order.”
    Together they went through first the vendor