What Bailey needed to do was sit down and get specific with time, money, and options. Put together a pros and cons list. Maybe then the answer would be more obvious.
“Excuse me.”
A woman’s voice pulled Bailey out of her own head. An older lady held out her hand. “My grandson found this near the sunflower field. I wanted to make sure and turn it in. I figured someone might be looking for it.”
She dropped a watch into Bailey’s hand.
“I appreciate that. Thank you.”
The customer smiled warmly and headed back outside.
Seth ran up. “Whoa. It’s like a treasure. I wish I’d foundit.” He rubbed a finger across the metal band. “Sure is dirty.”
“I’m betting it’s been out there for a while.” Bailey ran a thumb over the watch face to dislodge the dried dirt. “The battery probably died some time ago.” It wasn’t an overly fancy watch, but it wasn’t cheap, either. Based on the petite size, she guessed it’d been made for a woman’s wrist.
“Are we going to find out who dropped it?”
“We’re sure going to try.”
A grin lit up Seth’s face. “Just like detectives! Can I have it for a few minutes? I’ll draw a picture of it and write down any clues I see.”
“That would be great, sweetie. Thank you.” She’d be taking photos of it, too, but she hated to deny her son the chance to indulge his creativity.
He beamed at her and carefully took the watch before going to the table where Jordan was playing.
“Isn’t that something?” Rachel shook her head. “It had to have been dropped recently, or surely someone would’ve spotted it before now.”
“One would think. I’ll put a sign up on the bulletin board next weekend. Make sure someone identifies it if they claim they’ve lost a watch. Hopefully, we’ll find the owner.”
“I could take it to town for you this evening. Maybe run it down to the police station.” Rachel motioned to the boys, who were both bent over the watch. “At least it would take one thing off your plate.”
“I appreciate that, but I’ll keep it here in case someone asks about it. I may even put up a couple of posts on Facebook and Instagram to see if someone speaks up about having lost it.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” Rachel gave her an encouraging smile. “I hope someone comes forward to claim it.”
Bailey hoped so, too. They had a lost and found box, but she didn’t want to put the watch in there. Someone might see it and just take it whether it belonged to them or not. If no one stepped forward, she would consider taking it to a jewelry store to see if it was worth anything. She knew next to nothing about watches or the different brands, but by the size of it, it clearly belonged to a woman.
The watch kept the boys entertained for a good half hour. When Seth brought it back to Bailey, she slipped it into a drawer in the small office area.
By the time the store closed to the public, she was exhausted and more than ready to go home. She said goodbye to Rachel and wished her a good week, then made sure everything was clean and put away. Finally, she got the watch out of the drawer, put it in her bag, and loaded the kids into the truck.
The boys were quarreling as Bailey drove them to the front gate. She retrieved the mail from the small box out front and tossed it into the passenger seat. Before going back through the gate, she activated the lock and waited for it to close again behind them.
“Mom! Jordan won’t stop throwing his Batman.” Seth was clearly done dealing with his little brother. No doubt he was stretching down to retrieve the action figure every time.
“Stop giving it back to him, and he’ll figure it out.”
They were halfway back to the house when Jordan started to cry.
Bailey swallowed a sigh. She enjoyed her sons so much, but she couldn’t wait for bedtime tonight. There was a lot on her mind, and the chaos of the day was making it impossible to sort through any of it.
They finally stopped arguing when sheset dinner on the table. Once they had finished eating, they were back to being best friends. The sounds of their Hot Wheels track floated down the hall.
Thankful for the small break, she dove into the stack of mail. Most of it was trash. There were two bills, but it was the plain, white envelope with her name typed on it and no return address that caught her attention.
Bailey flattened the trifold piece of paper and began to read the typed note.
“Accept the next offer to buy your property. You will regret it if you don’t.”
