Wish You Were Here (2 page)

I’m not crying, goddamnit,
Freya thought.

Nate looked back at Piper, and Freya took the opportunity to swipe away the moisture under her eyes.

“Thanks for the heads-up, kid,” he said, ruffling her hair. “Your homework done?”

“
Not yet,” she said. “Hey, Dad, have you ever heard of an eye condition that makes people cry when they’re not sad?”

Nate looked at Piper, then at Freya. Freya tried to smile through the thin veil of her disintegrating dignity but, based on Nate
’s expression, her success was limited.

“
Uh...” he said, “you know what, Piper? We should go get that homework done, leave Ms. Daly alone.”

“
We can call her Freya,” Piper said. “So, have you ever heard of it?”

Nate looked at Freya again and she averted her eyes, hu
mili
ation raging through her.
Just leave, just leave, just leave...

“
Yeah, sure, I’ve heard of that.”

Freya raised her head to look at Nate, but he was still focused on Piper.

“There was a guy who played for the Redskins a few years back who had it,” he said.

Piper hit her dad playfully on the arm.
“Shut up!”

“
No, really,” he said. “Big guy. Linebacker. Six feet tall, 285 pounds, happiest guy in the world. Cried all the time.” He met Freya’s eye quickly, then looked back down at Piper. “Made a miraculous recovery when people left him alone about it.” He chucked her under the chin. “Got it?”

“
Got it.” Piper turned to Freya. “Sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“
No problem,” Freya said, then met Nate’s eyes and smiled. “Thanks.”

Nate nodded and put one hand on Piper
’s shoulder, directing her toward the door. “Homework.”

Piper turned her head over her shoulder and kept talking.
“You can come up to the house later if you want. We can play Slap. It’s this card game—”

“
Freya’s a guest,” Nate said. “We don’t harass guests, remember?”

Piper angled her head to look up at her father.
“I wasn’t harassing. I was inviting.”

“
Sorry,” Nate said to Freya as he nudged Piper out the open door.

“
It’s okay.” Freya walked with them to see them
out, out, out.
She had them all the way out the door when Piper stopped suddenly and peered over the edge of the porch. “Oh, shit, what happened to the railing?”

“
Don’t say ‘shit’ in front of the guests,” Nate said, then looked at Freya and said, “I’ll be back later to fix that.”

Piper turned back to her father.
“You’re coming back? Oooh, I can help!”

“
No, you’ve got homework,” he said, then turned to Freya. “Ruby’s in the office until five, so if you need anything, just dial nine on the phone. There’s also a grocery store in town if you need anything we don’t have, on Second Avenue. Just follow Route 8 back into town and take a left, you can’t miss it.”

Piper grabbed her father
’s sleeve. “I can go with her, show her around.”

Nate took her hand.
“Homework.”

“
But she’s
sad”
Piper said in a stage whisper she probably thought Freya couldn’t hear.

“
She’s
fine
,” Nate said.

Piper sighed and reached around her dad to wave.
“Bye, Freya! It was nice to meet you!”

“
Bye, Piper,” she said.

Nate pulled the girl away, and Freya heard her say,
“She needs friends. We should be her friends,” as Nate shushed her and walked her down the front steps. Freya shut the door, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath to relieve the tension in her shoulders as she leaned against it, hoping it was in better shape than the porch railing.
When I open my eyes, it won’t seem so bad.

When she opened her eyes, her focus went straight to the ugly orange couch, and she was hit with the sudden realization that there was no bedroom.
That
was her bed, and it was the color of fiery brimstone. She was in Hell’s campground, and she’d be sleeping on Hell’s pullout couch.

She felt the panic start to swell within her,
then stamped her foot on the floor.

“
This is
not tougher
than me.” She went to her suitcase, pulled out a pair of pajamas and her toiletries, and headed for the bathroom. “I’m Freya Goddamn Daly, and
I am not emotional
.”

Then she trudged into the bathroom and eased herself into the hot water. A box of Tic-
Tacs later, the tears finally abated, and she considered it a win.

***

Nathan Brody stared down at the sizzling salmon steaks in front of him and tried to clear his mind. The day had been long and—as usual—unproductive, and even cooking wasn’t making him feel any better about the lack of progress he’d been making.

That wasn
’t a good sign.

“
Oh, shit, he’s doing gourmet again,” Ruby said, ruffling Piper’s hair as she entered the kitchen. She tossed the day’s office mail on the breakfast bar and looked at Nate. “What happened? You didn’t find the”—she glanced at Piper, who sat hunched over her math homework—“
toolbox,
did you?”

Nate shot Ruby
a warning look, nodding toward Piper. He’d asked Ruby a thousand times not to talk about it in front of Piper, but it didn’t much matter what you asked Ruby. Ruby was salt-of-the-earth Idaho, and Ruby did what she damn well pleased.

“
Whatcha workin’ on there, kid?” she asked Piper.

Piper scratched some numbers down and lifted her head.
“Percentages. I’m supposed to be counting M&Ms.”

Nate looked up from the salmon.
“Then why aren’t you counting M&Ms?”

Piper sighed heavily, and Nate felt a whiff of cold terror for the teenage years to come.

“Because based on the estimated number of M&Ms per bag, I can just roughly guess and save some time.” She chewed briefly on the edge of the pencil, then casually jotted a figure into her notebook and said, “And then I can go with you to fix the railing on Number Four.”

“
Nice try. No.”

He inhaled, but instead of smelling the salmon, he remembered the warm, clean scent of woman he
’d caught when he pulled Freya off that railing. Excitement sparked within him, and he knew it had been way too long since he’d done anything but fix broken cabins and take care of his kid. One beautiful woman shows up in his path, and his synapses start misfiring.

He shook his head, inhaled again, and it was all salmon this time. He cleared his throat and looked at Ruby.

“Speaking of Number Four, Ruby, I thought we decided that we were going to keep the cabins empty this summer.”

Ruby sat back, rearranging the fabric of her T-shirt over her wide frame.
“It’s just one weekend. We could use the money. And there’s plenty of time to find the—”

“
Salmon’s ready
,”
Nate said loudly over her.

“
—toolbox,” Ruby continued, nonplussed.

They stared at each other in a silent stalemate for a moment until Piper shut her notebook and said,
“I’m not stupid, you know.”

Nate let his eyes travel from his sort-of-stepmother to his daughter.
“I know you’re not stupid.” He pulled the roasted rosemary potatoes out of the oven, plated them with the salmon, and drizzled the reduced wine sauce over it, wiping down the edges of the plate with a towel before delivering it to the table. “Eat.”

Piper sighed and picked up her fork.
“Some parents make hot dogs.”

“
Good for them. Eat.” Nate kissed her on the top of the head and returned to the counter for the other portions.

Piper took a bite, chewed for a moment, then said,
“I know you’re not looking for a toolbox.”

Nate froze at the table, holding Ruby
’s plate in the air. The older woman reached for it and he pulled it back out of her reach, his eyes hitting her with accusation.

“
Don’t look at me,” she said. “I told you to tell her everything in the first place.”

“
Right.” He put the plate down and walked back to the counter to get his own, then placed it at the seat next to Piper before speaking.

“
So, what else do you think you know?”

Piper played it cool for a second, but then a light sparked in her eyes and she leaned forward in excitement.
“I know you’ve been looking for this”—she made air quotes with her hands— “‘toolbox’ since we got here. And I know you’ve already searched most of the land and haven’t found it.”

“
You know a lot,” Nate said, glancing at Ruby, who shrugged and dug her fork into her salmon.

“
So...” Piper said, leaning forward eagerly, “what is it?”

Nate shook his head.
“Piper...”

“
Look, if I know what you’re looking for, maybe I can help. I’m small. I can crawl under things. Plus, I’ll see things you don’t see. Like, you know that story about the truck that gets wedged under a bridge and no one can figure out how to get it out until a kid says to let the air out of the tires? Like that. I can help.”

He glanced at her, half amazed at her intelligence and
enthusiasm, half wishing he could magically make her three years old again. “You figured all that out on your own?”

Piper speared a potato.
“Yep.”

“
Smart kid.”

Piper
’s face lit up. “So. You’re going to tell me what’s going on?”

“
No,” Nate said. “I don’t want you to worry about that, okay?”

“
But I can help.” She set down her fork and sat back. “It’s bad enough that you’ve lied to me this whole time, the least you can do now is let me help.”

“
Hey,” Nate said, pointing his index finger at her. “I never lied. Maybe I didn’t tell you everything, but you don’t need to know everything.”

He met Piper
’s eye, and knew he’d won that part of the argument. Pretty much from the beginning, it had been just the two of them, and while he might stonewall her on occasion about some things, he’d never lied to her, and she
kn
ew it.

Ruby stood up and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Lemme get the wine.”

“
Get the pinot noir, it’s what I used in the sauce,” Nate said, then looked at his daughter. Ruby was right; Piper was going to figure it out on her own eventually, anyway. At this point, the best he could do was cap his losses. “You really want to know?”

Piper
’s eyes went wide. “You’re gonna tell me?”

“
Is there any chance you’re gonna drop it if I don’t?”

Piper shook her head. Nate dropped his napkin on the table, ran his hand over his face, and looked at his kid.
“Then go ahead. Ask me whatever you want to know.” Piper watched as Ruby placed wine glasses in front of each of them, filling Piper’s with milk and hers and Nate’s with the wine. Once Ruby was seated, Piper spoke.

“
Why didn’t you and Mick get married?” Piper said, her eyes on Ruby.

Nate sat forward.
“Hey, I said you could ask
me
—”

“
It’s okay,” Ruby said. She nodded at Piper, her eyes filled with respect. “Your grandfather never asked me, and I never asked him.”

“
Did you love him?”

Nate looked at Ruby.
“You don’t have to answer that.” She raised one eyebrow at him and said, “Thank you, counselor,” then looked at Piper. “Your grandfather could be a very charming man.” She met Nate’s eyes and he could see in her expression the word she deliberately left out.

Sometimes.

Nate had a thousand questions of his own that he’d wanted to ask Ruby since the day she’d called him to his father’s deathbed. Had his father hit her, the way he had hit Nate’s mother? Had he changed at all in the last fifteen years of his life? Or was he the same son of a bitch he’d always been, and if so, why the hell had Ruby stayed with him?

“
Dad?”

He glanced back at Piper, who was watching him expectantly.

“What?”

“
I just asked you—what’s the toolbox?”

Oh. Yeah. That.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Piper
’s face fell in disgust and disappointment and she threw herself back in her seat. “Come on, Dad.”