Hunks, Hammers, and Happily Ever Afters (27 page)

“I know where you work.” For an instant, she caught that twinkle again, but it vanished as he cradled his daughter’s head in his hand and pressed a kiss on top of her curls. “I think right now it would be best if you and Maura left.”

“Of course. Again, I’m so sorry—” She grabbed hold of Maura’s arm and steered her to the door.

“Wait!”  Cilla cried and scrambled down out of her father’s arms, vanishing for a moment before racing over to Regan. “You didn’t get to drink your tea. Take it with you.”  She pushed one of the plastic teacups into her hand.

Regan’s fingers tightened around the tiny cup. “Thank you, Cilla.  I’m sure it’ll be the best tea I’ve ever had.  Um, bye.” She squeezed her fingers around Maura’s arm, unable to meet Brodie’s eyes. “Let’s go, Maura.”

She couldn’t close the door fast enough, or drag in enough of the early summer air, barely kissed with the promise of warmth and impossible dreams of days spent at the beach. Days that would never be hers. The desire to take off and leave, well, everything behind, descended with a ferocity that had Regan’s heart tripping over itself.  She did take time. Every two weeks she had a few blessed hours to decompress with her friends at book club. These days, those hours had become as precious to her as a four-leaf clover to a leprechaun.

Not even the promise of an evening with friends next week or the comfortable confines of Murphy’s Pub where everything remained in and under her control gave Regan any sense of peace. Something had broken inside her. Something she wasn’t certain could ever be fixed.

“Enough with the silent treatment.” Maura heaved a heavy sigh and hopped up on one of the bar stools before she dropped a weary chin into her hand. “How long am I grounded for this time?” 

“You’re not.”  Regan scanned the clipboard of invoices her assistant manager passed to her as she rounded the bar.

“I’m not?” Maura’s eyes brightened, but not for long. “Wait. Why not? What gives?”

“I do.” Regan didn’t have the energy or the inclination to fight any more. “I give up, Maura. There’s nothing left. I was willing to chalk up breaking curfew or even drinking and smoking pot to teenage stupidity and curiosity, but what you did by lying about Brodie Crawford was positively reprehensible. Your lies, your complete disregard for anyone other than yourself, I’ve had enough. Did you even see that little girl’s face? ”

Maura dug a finger into a scratch into the polished wood bar. “They wouldn’t have arrested him.”

“Have you met me?” Regan demanded. “You know there is nothing more important to me than this family. How many visits with your teachers or principals have I had to endure because of your irresponsible and callous behavior? I would have happily seen that man’s business shut down if I thought it meant keeping you and others in this town safe. But you don’t see that, do you?  You don’t see anything beyond what you want no matter who gets hurt. Even now.” Regan blinked back tears, which only added to her anger. She didn’t cry. She was the strong Murphy. The one who never broke. The one who fixed everything, took care of everyone, and kept the family together and running. Because of her the pub was operating efficiently enough to keep her siblings in school and the home bills paid, but there was only so much she could shoulder before she was driven completely under.

The day she’d been dreading had arrived.  She’d reached her limit.  “Even now, I can see it on your face. You don’t have any compassion for what your actions caused. I don’t know what’s happened in the last six months, but I’m done trying to figure it out. At some point you’re going to have to grow up, Maura. I can’t be responsible for your poor choices any longer. You want something, you need something, go to Dad or Desmond or Finn. I am officially tapped out.”

“You don’t mean that,” Maura said and for the first time in months, Regan saw real fear on her sister’s face, but she told herself she didn’t care.  She couldn’t. She had five other siblings and a failing alcoholic father to think of.  “You can’t mean that.”

“The sad thing is I really do. You might be my kid sister, and I love you, but I don’t trust you anymore.” Regan placed Cilla’s tiny plastic tea cup on the counter above the register with more than a pang of remorse. “You wanted to make your own decisions, you wanted your freedom? You’ve got it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work.”

CHAPTER TWO

“Daddy, do you think Regan will come back for another tea party?” Cilla asked late Friday afternoon as she blinked her mother’s penny colored eyes at him and hopped into the chair at Brodie’s station, smoothing her dress over her knees.

“I don’t know, Swee’Pea.” Brodie scowled, unsettled by the idea he’d been wondering the same thing. Of all days he needed a distraction—in the guise of a shop full of customers—business had slowed to a trickle.  He’d worked at enough tattoo studios to know it would take a while for a town like Lantano Valley to embrace something new like his shop. He’d stick it out. He had to. This was the perfect place for him and Cilla to get that fresh start they needed.  So far so good.  Well...until today. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

“That woman knows how to make an entrance.” Toshi grinned as he finished cleaning his station, setting his inks back into the carved wooden cabinet and placing his needles, machine, and tubes aside for the ultrasonic cleaner prior to sterilization.  “From what Mr. Waters said on his way out, I’d bet everyone’s going to know your name by the end of the day.”

“Exactly the word of mouth I was hoping for.” Brodie attempted to keep his tone light so as not to tip Cilla off to the fact he’d had a crap day. Starting the morning with a call from his ex-in-laws demanding he bring Cilla to see her mother was enough to make him reconsider cancelling the recently installed land line.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Cilla to have a relationship with Gemma.  Of course she should know who and what her mother was. But if anyone, even the single-minded Ray and Florence Hollister, thought he was going to take his five-year old to a women’s correctional facility for Mommy and Me class, they didn’t know Brodie at all. 

It had taken most of his savings and more than half Cilla’s life to gain full custody of his daughter. He wasn’t about to do anything to jeopardize her future—or his.  Cilla would always come first; she had to. But the idea Regan Murphy thought him callous enough to disregard state law in exchange for a few bucks...

What did he care what some random albeit stunning woman thought of him? It didn’t make any sense.

“Looks like Ms. Murphy has her hands full with that sister of hers,” Toshi said. “Good lesson for you, little lamb.” He tapped a finger against Cilla’s nose as he passed. “Lies don’t do anything but get you into trouble. Always tell the truth and nothing bad will happen.”

Brodie pinched his lips tight.  Not quite accurate in his experience, but he understood what his long-time friend and assistant manager was attempting to do by instilling the importance of honesty for Cilla.

Brodie glanced down at the flyer and application for the town’s upcoming
Spring Into Summer
festival.  He’d been holding off on any major marketing blitz until he got a better feel for Lantano Valley and while the festival seemed as good a time as any to dive in, he wasn’t sure it was the correct venue for what MARKED offered. Then again, there wasn’t much he had to lose. Booths for the events weren’t prohibitively expensive and besides, a portion of the three hundred bucks it would cost him to rent a tent went to the local Tremayne Foundation and their Pediatric Cancer Treatment Center.  If Brodie had any doubt about making the investment, he only had to glance at his healthy Cilla to know how lucky he was especially given her early years.  Even if participating in the festival didn’t bring him a single customer, some good would come out of the investment.

He headed to the reception desk—which was still minus a receptionist—and grabbed a pen and settled into the chair only to have Cilla follow and scramble into his lap.

“I can help.”  She grabbed hold of his hand as he started filling out the form. “I’m good at writing now.”

“Yes, you are,” Brodie assured her as his letters took on a life of their own.

“What is it we’re doing?”  Cilla asked.

“Um.” Brodie frowned, finding her “help” distracting. “It’s an application to be part of a town fair at the end of the month.”

“A fair?” Cilla turned her face toward him as her eyes went nearly as big as her face. “Will there be games and toys and rides?”

“All excellent questions.” Brodie handed her the flyer so she could see for herself. “Practice your reading and tell me.”

Cilla jumped down and raced off to find Toshi, who happily postponed his closing duties to assist Cilla develop her reading skills. She’d been so far behind socially, verbally, and intellectually when Brodie had tracked Gemma and his daughter down eighteen months ago, a new fragment of his heart had broken. Neglect didn’t come close to describing the circumstances he’d found his only child living in with his ex. That Cilla emerged from the meth-house experience mostly unscathed—she still had nightmares about Gemma’s abusive boyfriend who thankfully had ignored rather than targeted Cilla—was as close to a miracle as Brodie had ever experienced.

The pictures he’d had the forethought to take the day he’d tracked Gemma down came in a close second and managed to cement his custody case against Gemma and her parents once and for all. The limited supervised visitation stipulation was something he was still fighting. Given the job they’d done with their only child, the idea of leaving Cilla alone for any length of time with Ray and Florence terrified him to his marrow.

Cilla was his. Permanently.  Gemma would be lucky to be released from prison before Cilla was an adult and Lantano Valley was now their home. 

Cilla had just about caught up to where she should be and, if Brodie had his way, by the time she started school in the fall, she’d be ahead of the game. He’d give his daughter every advantage possible—every advantage neither he nor Gemma had ever been given. His years in the foster care system had been a mixed bag while Gemma’s overly permissive parents had been doubly damaging.  Cilla would never see the ugly side of life again.

“Did you read the small print on the application?” Toshi asked Brodie as Brodie scribbled his signature at the bottom of the form.  “The deadline for submission was last week.”

“What?” Brodie scowled and scanned the small italic font. “Son of a—” He’d marked the wrong date on the calendar.

“No swearing, Daddy,” Cilla ordered in her little old lady voice.  It was a game they played—a game he wasn’t particularly good at—to help him clean up his language.

“Well, I guess that’s the topper to the day I was waiting for.” He leaned back in the chair and blew out a long breath. “So much for getting our name out there.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Toshi started whispering something to Cilla, who rocketed over to Brodie and pushed the flyer into his hands.

“Daddy, look!  Look who’s in charge of the fair.”

Brodie looked closely at the flyer. He couldn’t be this lucky, could he?  Regan Murphy was the festival coordinator? He glanced across the street as thin crowds trickled in and out of Murphy’s Pub. It was worth a shot, wasn’t it? “Cilla, what do you say we go out to dinner tonight?”

“Can I get a hamburger?”  Cilla asked. “And root beer?”

“With veggies on the side,” Brodie said with a nod. “Carrots and...what else?”

“Broccoli! They look like little trees!” Cilla giggled as he tickled her. “I feel like a fairy in the forest when I eat them.”

“Burger, root beer, and trees it is,” Brodie promised. “But let’s finish cleaning up first.  Go put your tea stuff away, okay?”

“’Kay!” Cilla disappeared into the back room.

“You have some kind of plan for this fair?” Toshi asked as he grabbed the broom from behind the counter.

“I’m working on something. It’s going to take some research, but I think it’s doable. You up for some Internet time?”

“What do you think?” Toshi grinned and flexed his fingers. “Tell me what you need.”

What Brodie needed was for some one-on-one time with Regan Murphy. Time to call in that favor she owed him.

~*~

“E
than, you hanging in there?”  Regan piled a round corked tray with four tapped beers, a bottle of hard cider, and a Chardonnay, and hefted the tray to her shoulder as if it were nothing more than a cloud.

“All good here.” Ethan Sutherland, one time baseball star, soon-to-be P.E. Coach and all around good guy, gave her a salute and finished topping off three shots of Tequila for the Dodgers fans sitting at the far end of the bar. “Not too busy tonight.”

“So I noticed.” Regan couldn’t complain. She could appreciate a slow evening now and then. There was a surfing competition down in Malibu, a mere thirty minutes away that usually sucked the crowds from Lantano Valley for this weekend every year. Add to that the concert in Lancaster Park and those first blush days of summer and well, a night out at Murphy’s Pub didn’t top many people’s list. “You should call Cass and tell her to come keep us company.”

“Good idea.” Ethan’s grin tugged the sad strings of Regan’s heart. “If I can tear her away from her contract work for Nathan Tremayne. Never should have introduced those two. It’s like they speak another language when they get their heads together. They could be plotting to take over the technological world and we’d never know it.”

“That’s what happens when you fall in love with a geek,” Regan teased. Who would have guessed a few short months ago that perennial loner Cassidy Wells would have hooked back up with her one-time high school boyfriend? Given Cassidy’s tragic childhood, who would have thought Cass would hook up with anyone? But the positive changes Cassidy—and now their friend Loni Talbot—had undergone were an inspiration and more than a hopeful sign for someone as increasingly jaded—and lonely—as Regan.

Every heart had its key her mother used to say. Cassidy had proven it with Ethan and just a few weeks ago, Loni, who not so long ago could have curdled milk with her scathing and callous remarks, had tripped head over heels for reclusive sculptor Patrick Quinn.