Getting Lucky (5 page)

TJ felt a strange surge of happiness at that. He’d found Hope’s father for her and it wasn’t
his
father. Dan was one of Thomas’s best friends.

Hope looked thoughtful when TJ glanced at her.

“So we’ll introduce her to Uncle Dan,” TJ said. “Do you want to give him a call or should I?”

And then she could park her camper and her pretty little butt—and long, silky hair and big green eyes and long legs, tattoo and cute ears—over there. And TJ could get on with his being pissy about his shoulder by himself. Though that was depressing suddenly.

“Neither,” Thomas said.

“
Neither
?” He looked at Hope again. “You think she should just go over there?”

“No,” Thomas said firmly. “Definitely not.”

“We have to introduce them,” TJ said.

“Maybe.” Thomas looked conflicted now.

“Maybe? This is her
father
. She came all this way to meet him. Her mom is gone. We can’t
not
let her meet him.”

“Let me think about it,” Thomas said again.

“What’s going on?” TJ asked.

“Dan and JoEllen were also dating that summer,” Thomas said. “Dan broke up with Jo because of Melody.”

“He cheated on JoEllen?” TJ asked.

Thomas looked at Hope. “No. At least I don’t think so. I think he broke up with Jo before anything really happened with Melody,” Thomas said. “He’d asked Melody to stay. But she had no intention of that. She was almost ten years younger than we were. She had a lot of things she wanted to do. She hung out with us because Dan was the one who picked her up when her car broke down. Come to think of it,” he said, looking at Hope. “She was pulling a camper like that one.”

Hope nodded. “That’s Mom’s camper.” They were the first words she’d spoken.

Thomas smiled. “She said she loved sleeping out under the stars but that the camper would do in the rain.”

TJ got the definite impression that his father had liked Melody.

“That sounds like her,” Hope said with a smile. “It’s called a teardrop camper. There’s hardly any room inside for anything more than the bed and a bit of storage, but she only used it when the weather didn’t cooperate with sleeping outside.” She traced a finger up and down through the condensation on the side of her glass. “I’m guessing she also said something about her summer here being just one adventure of many she needed to go on.”

Thomas laughed. “Something like that.” He shook his head. “She was…different from the girls here. Sweet, kind, warm, but very…earthy,” he said. “Very into self-expression and being free and open. She dressed differently, ate differently, thought differently.” Thomas was definitely having a hard time describing Melody, and yet TJ knew what he was saying. “She introduced us to hummus and edamame and
kombucha
.”

TJ frowned. He knew edamame and hummus, though he’d never tried hummus. But he had no idea what
kombucha
was.

Hope laughed. “Really? Do you still drink it?”

Thomas shuddered. “No way. Couldn’t get into that.” He smiled at Hope. “You look just like her.”

Hope looked pleased at that comment. “She was a force of nature, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sorry to hear she’s gone,” Thomas said. “Are you an only child?”

TJ sat back. Well, this wasn’t all bad. He could get to know Hope better this way.

He didn’t let himself think too hard about why that was appealing.

Hope nodded. “She never married and never had any more children. It was just her and me all my life.”

“Can I ask what happened to her?” Thomas asked. His tone was warm and kind. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”

Hope took a deep breath and TJ fought the urge to cover her hand with his.

“She was hiking with a friend,” Hope said. “It was a path she’d done a million times. It was totally routine. She felt fine. Everything was great until they got to the point where they were going to turn around. Without any warning, she suddenly passed out. At least that’s what her friend thought. Turned out it was a brain aneurysm. She died instantly. It was…strange. Random, really. She had no signs or symptoms, nothing that would have alerted her to a problem. And there was nothing anyone could have done. It was just…her time.”

Hope was looking at Thomas as she told the story, but as she finished, she looked to TJ.

“So I totally wasn’t ready for her to go. And I’m here now because I want to walk in a few of her footsteps. I want to see and experience and meet people and places that were important to her.”

TJ had no idea what to say, and this time he didn’t fight the urge to cover her hand. Or maybe he did it before he even felt an urge or thought about it. It was simply an instinct.

“I understand that,” Thomas said. “And I’m glad Sapphire Falls meant something to her.”

“And Dan,” TJ said. “Obviously.”

Thomas nodded. “Yeah.”

“So we have to introduce them. Dan would want to know Hope, wouldn’t he?”

Thomas sighed. “That’s complicated.” He met Hope’s eyes. “It’s not about you personally, honey. But your mom broke Dan’s heart when she left. He’d ended a three-year relationship with the only other woman he’d ever been with for her, and when she left…it took a long time for him to get over her. In fact, I’m not sure he ever did completely. He eventually got back together with JoEllen, but it was tough, and I think deep down she also believes he’s still in love with your mom. He might want to know about you, but it will cause issues with his wife and…” Thomas looked at TJ. “They haven’t always had a perfect relationship.”

TJ felt Hope squeeze his hand, and he looked at her.

“I don’t need to tell him who I am,” she said. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”

TJ felt his heart clench. Damn. He did
not
want to get sucked into a big family drama. But he couldn’t lie to Hope either and tell her it would all be okay. Nor could he say that it was a good idea for her to
not
meet Dan. Fuck.

“Jo’s bipolar,” TJ told her. “And Dan’s an alcoholic. Not a great mix. She doesn’t take the medication she needs to regulate her disorder. Dan takes care of her. And drinks because of it. And they have a daughter. Who also gives Dan a lot of excuses to drink.”

Hope’s eyes widened. “Daughter?”

TJ nodded. Her half-sister. “Peyton. Peyton’s twenty-one. She’s…a wild child. Never thinks things through. She likes to party and maxes out her credit cards and attracts loser guys, and when she gets into trouble she calls her daddy.”

TJ glanced at his father. Dan was one of Thomas’s best friends, but all of this was common knowledge in Sapphire Falls. He wasn’t sure how Thomas would feel about TJ sharing all of Dan’s baggage, but somehow he felt Hope deserved to know. Besides, Thomas and Dan’s friendship had started a long time ago, before any of that baggage had been an issue. At one time, they’d been two peas in a pod. Now, with Dan’s drinking and marital issues, he and Thomas had very little in common.

Except their devotion to family and friends.

The men shared that and it was what kept Thomas around, helping his friend attempt to help his family.

Thomas apparently agreed that Hope needed all of the information. “Dan started drinking after Melody left,” he said. “And I really believe that he lets Jo and Peyton walk on him, even to this day, because he feels guilty about his relationship with Melody. It’s like he’s been trying to make that up to Jo all this time, so he gives in on everything. Neither of them really knows how to parent, so Peyton gets to do whatever she wants.”

Hope seemed to be taking it all in. She hardly reacted outwardly though.

TJ of course knew Dan’s wife and daughter, but he’d never known the reason behind it all. He loved Dan.

Fortunately for TJ, his own wife had left him, and his brothers had intervened to stop his drinking before it had gotten out of hand. Dan was still with his wife, and his friends’ interventions over the years hadn’t stuck.

Not that TJ blamed Dan. If he’d still been with Michelle, he and the bottle would be close.

“Finding out that Dan fathered another child, even accidentally, who has grown into a beautiful, independent, responsible woman might be a tough blow,” Thomas said. “I’m not saying they shouldn’t have to face it and deal with it, but I do worry about the fallout.”

Something about that frustrated the hell out of TJ, even as he understood it. He felt like he knew Dan. Dan’s friends, including TJ’s own father, had never been through some of the stuff that drove Dan to drink and didn’t understand him completely. Their marriages were good and their children had turned out well. TJ understood why Dan stayed in the marriage, and he understood why the other man drank. He didn’t agree with it or condone it, but he understood it. At the same time, he caught himself feeling sorry for Dan and labeling him as weak. It was a tough position to be in. Especially when TJ also remembered Dan from before he’d gotten married and had Peyton. He’d just been a kid, but he remembered Dan being fun and laughing and playing practical jokes. It had been a long time since he’d seen that side of Dan.

“So what do we do?” TJ asked.

Thomas shook his head and blew out a breath. “Let me think about it.”

“I think Dan would want to know her,” TJ insisted.

“I think so too. But I don’t think Dan would want Jo and Peyton to know.”

Could Jo make Dan even more miserable than he was now? Maybe. TJ shuddered with the thought.

“So you want us to wait?” TJ asked. “For how long?”

Thomas sighed. “I don’t know. I’ll feel things out.”

“Do I get a vote?” Hope asked.

They both turned to look at her.

She pulled her hand from TJ’s and put both hands around her glass. “I need to think as well.”

“You do?” TJ asked.

“I’ll admit that coming here was a spontaneous decision. I knew that my father, whoever he was, might be surprised to meet me and maybe wouldn’t be thrilled. But it didn’t occur to me that I might not want to know him.”

TJ frowned. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t want to stir up trouble for anyone or mess with anyone’s relationships, especially one that’s already tenuous. And maybe Dan isn’t someone I need to know. I told you before that I’m not really looking for a
father
. I just wanted to meet the guy who was so important to my mom.” She looked at Thomas. “It’s more about knowing
her
better than it is about knowing him.”

Dan was an okay guy. He’d made some poor decisions, he handled confrontation badly, and he had let guilt and grief over Melody turn him into a doormat for his wife and daughter. But he was basically a decent guy. When he wasn’t drinking.

But, yeah, okay, maybe he wasn’t someone Hope would love getting to know. That sounded horrible, but there it was.

“You came all this way,” Thomas said. “You wanted to meet him. Let me figure out a way to make it work.”

She looked back at TJ. “Maybe he’s not the reason I was supposed to come here.”

TJ felt like he’d touched an electric fence—a hot shock burst through his body as he met her eyes.

What the
hell
?

Hope was becoming more and more the
last
type of woman he would ever get involved with. If she thought there was some kind of cosmic force at work here, that fate or some damn thing had brought her here, he was going to stay far, far away.

“Well, it’s certainly your choice if you want to meet him and get to know him or not,” Thomas said.

“I need to think about it,” she said again.

“And I’ll think of the best way to handle this with Dan,” Thomas said. “Then we can decide what to do.”

“Okay,” Hope agreed.

“And in the meantime?” TJ asked. This sounded like a lot of thinking and waiting around. Not two of his favorite past times.

“Hope should stay here. Lay low,” Thomas said.

So then he could stay as far, far away from her as his own front yard. Dammit.

“Stay here?” Hope repeated.

“If you go into town, everyone is going to notice and want to know who you are and why you’re here.”

TJ shrugged casually in spite of the chaotic mess of emotions churning in him about all of this. “Told you,” he said.

She laughed lightly and TJ felt it all the way to the soles of his feet.
More
. That’s all he could think.
I want more of that.

“Okay, so I’ll camp out for another day or so.”

She gave him a look that was hard to decipher, and he had to wonder if she was thinking that
this
was why she’d ended up here after all.

Fuck that fate shit. He’d been with a girl who’d given him all of that romantic crap and look how that had turned out.

He stretched to his feet, accepting the fact that he was involved, at least for a few more days. He was anxious to get those days started and over with.

“Let me know,” he said to his dad. “And,” he hesitated, “I’m sorry I thought…”

“Don’t be.” Thomas got to his feet as well. “I understand. And we’ll figure this out for Hope and Dan. Somehow.”