Dating a Single Dad (15 page)

It would be easier to appreciate his family’s concern if it didn’t come with a side order of implications.

“Well, that’s very nice of you all to spend your time speculating about me, but you can stop now. Nothing is happening between me and Brynn.” At least, nothing he would mention to any of them. “And even if I were interested she swims in a different gene pool, as you so kindly pointed out. You think I’m stupid enough to fall for someone when there’s no chance of it ever amounting to anything?”

The change in Carter was so fast, it was like he was inflatable and someone had pulled the plug. He set down the last of his pastry, folded his hands together and bowed his head.

“Yeah.” The word was muffled and raw. “Yeah. That would be a really stupid thing to do.”

Hank’s worries for himself faded as he took in the lines in Carter’s face, the bleak cast to his voice.

“You, uh, you have a problem, Car?”

Carter continued to stare at his hands for a long moment before drawing in a sharp breath and lifting his head.

“What? No, no. I’m... You know. Memory Lane. You just caught me by surprise.”

Bullshit.

* * *

B
RYNN
SAT
CROSS
-
LEGGED
on Taylor’s bed Thursday night, mainlining bean dip and calling instructions as Taylor buzzed around the tiny room, adding and removing things from the suitcase at the other end of the bed.

“There are always boring sessions at these conferences. Use them. Did you upload the Ian playlist to your iPod?”

“Weeks ago.”

“Did you pack it?”

“It’s in my carry-on.”

“Good girl. Do you have some of his aftershave?”

Taylor added a pile of bras to the suitcase. “No, but there’s a drugstore beside the conference hotel. I’ll buy aftershave, cashews and that disgusting beef jerky that I refuse to eat, but which will perfume my room with its gross scent.”

“Excellent.” Brynn frowned at the bowl. Empty. “Is there more dip?”

“No, you piglet, you plowed through it all.” Taylor whizzed into the room, grabbed the empty bowl and headed to the dimple in the wall that passed for a kitchen. Brynn shrugged and followed.

“I need ice cream.” She opened the freezer and peered past bags of green beans and boxes of assorted chicken products. “Ew, you really eat those fake burritos?”

“No. They’re part of the Ian plan. And there’s no ice cream, so get your nose out of there.”

“How about beer? You have any beer?”

Her rapid opening of the refrigerator door was followed just as quickly by Taylor reaching behind and slamming it.

“What’s with you today? You’re acting like a teenage boy who hasn’t eaten in three hours.”

“I’m hungry, that’s all.” Not a lie. But even Ben and Jerry couldn’t help with this kind of hunger.

She and Hank hadn’t discussed the incident in the truck. They hadn’t said much of anything to each other, actually, other than the essentials—
remind Millie to keep her thumb out of her mouth; I’ll be a bit late tonight; there’s a drip on my porch roof.
But it was Hank’s most recent bulletin that had her scrounging for satisfaction in the cupboards.

“We won’t need you Friday,” he had told her a couple of nights ago. “Heather is in Ottawa and she’s taking Mills for the weekend.”

Millie would be gone. Hank would be alone. It would be just the two of them and all those empty cabins. Cabins, she had come to realize, that Hank had named after islands of the St. Lawrence.

Islands were well and good, but at the moment, Brynn was contemplating bridges. Maybe even a ferry. Anything that might connect those isolated land masses, if only for a while.

“I have a hard time believing you’re that hungry,” Taylor said, cutting into Brynn’s mental wanderings. “No. Wait. That, I can believe. It’s
what
you’re eating that’s got me worried. I can’t remember the last time I saw you eat this much junk, and I don’t have time to go all Dr. Phil on you. Why don’t you tell me what’s happening so I can pack and you can stop doing your imitation of John Belushi in the cafeteria in
Animal House?
”

Oops. The focus was supposed to be on Taylor, not Brynn. Diversion time.

“Hey, you’re the one who had this food in her cupboards.”

“I had the pita chips. You brought the dip. And the chocolate. And the red licorice, though I’m not giving you grief about that because I’m taking it on the plane.”

“That’s right. Steal my stuff and then insult me. Did you pack Ian’s shirt to sleep in?”

“Yes.”

There was an interesting twist to Taylor’s voice that pulled Brynn away from her own idiotic melancholy. “Yes?”

“Of course.”

“Why are you refusing to look at me when you assure me that you’re following instructions?”

Taylor stared at the floor.

“Taylor?”

“Fine.” She flounced past the bathroom to the corner of the room affectionately known as the bedroom. “Okay. The truth is, you keep saying I have to keep Ian in mind whatever I’m doing. Wearing his shirts was a nice thought, but the fact is that when we shared a bed, I was usually—”

“Naked?”

The lovely pink coloring Taylor’s cheeks was all the answer Brynn needed.

“Every night, Tay? You dog!”

But her hoot of laughter couldn’t negate her brief stab of jealousy. Lucky for her, Taylor cut through her self-absorption with a quick shake of the head.

“No, not every night. Just when I stayed over.”

“But I thought you two were practically living together before he left. You certainly have enough of his stuff lying around.”

“Right. He was pretty casual about all that. But we weren’t— I liked having my own space. I was there a lot, sure, and he was here. At least two or three times a week. We talked about me moving into his place, but I didn’t want to give Grandma a heart attack.”

“And you only got engaged a few weeks before he left, right? After he had already arranged for the house sitters?”

“Right. So moving in together—it didn’t seem like the right time, you know? I kind of wondered...”

Her voice trailed off. Brynn braced herself for what she was sure was coming—that Taylor thought her hesitation about living with Ian was a further sign that she wasn’t truly in love with him. Even Brynn was having a hard time rationalizing the fact that two newly engaged people weren’t jumping each other’s bones nonstop, especially when one of them was about to depart for umpteen months.

But before the panic could spread from her stomach to the rest of her, Taylor continued.

“Anyway, none of that matters. All I need to focus on is what I’m feeling now. There’s been kind of a change the last couple of weeks. It’s getting easier to bring all those feelings and memories back to life.”

The last couple of weeks. Ever since Brynn had started consciously drawing on her brief but searing interactions with Hank to fuel her pep talks and visualizations with Taylor.

“In fact,” Taylor went on with a happy smile, “the other night when he called, I almost pulled out a calendar to start looking at dates.”

“Really? Tay, that is awesome!”

“Isn’t it?” Taylor dropped on the bed and took Brynn’s hand. “Honestly, I think this conference is coming at the perfect time. I’ll be away from...from everyone else, and surround myself with Ian, and by the time I come home, I think, maybe—” she bounced a little on the bed “—maybe there might be a happy ending here after all.”

Brynn pulled Taylor close for a long, rocking hug. “Oh, sweetie. Not a happy ending. A happy
beginning.
”

Taylor grinned. “Talk about efficient. Only you, Brynn, could engineer things to work yourself out of two jobs at once.”

“Well, you know what they say. If you’re going to do something, you might as well...” Brynn paused, gripped by a fleeting pang of something she couldn’t quite identify. Loss? Sorrow? But that was ridiculous. She was doing what she’d set out to do. She should be feeling joy and relief and pride in both herself and Taylor.

“You might as well do it right.”

Which was exactly what she was doing. No matter how many unexpected pangs left her wondering if something was actually very wrong.

* * *

O
N
F
RIDAY
NIGHT
,
Hank steered the truck into the parking lot of the Foodland on the outskirts of Ottawa where he and Heather had agreed to meet, turned off the engine and took a deep breath.

It didn’t help.

“Where is she? Daddy, is she here?” Millie freed herself from her booster and slithered over the seat. For a moment she was a tangle of legs and shoes and hair. Then she righted herself, grabbed the dash and peered through the rain-spattered windshield around the deserted corner of the lot.

“I don’t see her, Mills.” He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He didn’t want Millie to have to wait, but the thought of letting her go still hit him in the gut.

“Send her a text, okay? ’Cause she might be on the other side or something.”

Highly unlikely, since Heather had named the spot, but it was an easy enough way to keep Millie happy. No sooner had he sent it than a small red Nissan pulled off the street and aimed for them.

“Is that her? Is it— I can’t see, Daddy. Is it— It’s her!” Millie vaulted toward the door. Hank snagged her around the waist a mere second before she would have launched herself from the truck.

“Mills, I know you’re excited, but wait until the car stops, okay?”

“But I have to see her!” Nonetheless, the squirming ceased, at least for a moment. But the instant the Nissan came to a halt beside them, Millie lunged again.

This time, he let her go.

“Mommy!”

He followed more slowly, allowing himself another deep breath, pasting on an expression that he hoped didn’t look too hesitant, and climbed down from the cab.

Heather had dropped to her knees and wrapped Millie in a swaying embrace that looked so tight it might have cut off Millie’s ability to breathe if she hadn’t been equally plastered to her mother. He had a feeling the wetness he spied on their faces had little to do with the rain.

He turned away to give them a little privacy, busying himself with Millie’s tiny purple suitcase. When at last he looked back, Heather was on her feet with her arm draped around Millie’s shoulders as if she didn’t dare let go.

Funny. Heather had occupied such a huge place in his mind for so long that he always forgot how tiny she was.

“Hello, Hank. You’re looking well.”

Her hair was shorter than it had been during the last visit. He’d thought she might have cut it from the glimpse he got when she Skyped with Mills, but he tried to stay out of the room then, so he hadn’t been sure. She wore clothes that made his jeans feel like last week’s leftovers, with shoes that he considered a broken ankle in the making, but he had to admit that the happiness pouring off her was something he absolutely recognized.

“Hey. So, are you all settled in?”

They chatted for a couple of minutes, politely and far more easily than he had anticipated. He handed over Millie’s thumb-sucking chart and briefed her on what to record and when. Millie pouted. Heather laughed but promised to follow through.

Maybe he was being too optimistic, but he believed her.

Too fast, Millie was wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a perfunctory kiss on the cheek before ducking into Heather’s car. He stood beside the truck with his hands in his pockets, watching them drive away with little more than a token wave in his direction.

“Have fun,” he whispered in the direction of the disappearing car.

* * *

A
N
HOUR
LATER
,
Hank walked into his empty house, dropped into the kitchen chair and looked around.

“Shit.”

He’d thought he was ready for this. He had plenty of practice, both from Heather’s previous stays in Ottawa and from the two or three times each year when he’d taken Millie to Vancouver Island and flown home to emptiness. He’d had a vague hope that it would be easier now, but that wish had been blown to hell the minute he opened the door.

How could a house feel so damned hollow with just one small person missing?

His head knew that this was good for Millie. A kid needed her mother around. A girl, especially. He should be counting his blessings that it looked like Heather might be on hand to handle things like haircuts and shopping and the talks that would be needed in a few short years.

If only the house weren’t so damned silent.

He pushed himself to his feet, headed to the sink. A drink of water, maybe blow the dust off the treadmill, then a couple hours’ work. That was the ticket. He needed to keep busy, keep his mind from things that he shouldn’t be thinking about.
Accept and move on.

Things like what Brynn might be doing down in the Wolfe cabin.

Standing at the sink with his water, he could see her lights spilling into the wooded areas between them, pushing back the encroaching night. She was down there, probably alone. He was up here, definitely alone. All of a sudden, he couldn’t remember why he had ever thought that
alone
was the best way to be.

Dammit to hell. He wanted her, and she had done a fine job of letting him know that the feeling was mutual. So what was stopping him from walking down that path and kissing her until their knees gave out?

The answer was embarrassingly clear. He was scared. Not of being rejected, but of what might happen if anyone found out. He was standing at his sink, staring at her cabin like the stupidest dork on the planet because he didn’t want anyone in his family to smirk and say “I told you so.”

Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your dumb-ass face.

“Oh, for the love of...”

This was his
family.
The ones who knew him best, had seen him be a total idiot more times than he could count, and still loved him. They wouldn’t think any more or less of him if they learned that he had finally acted on what they all suspected. They would tease him, rub his nose in it for a bit and then they would—