19. Claire
19
CLAIRE
“ H ey, Dad,” I said as I came home.
“Hi, Claire.” He grinned as he looked up from the kitchen where he was trying to make… something. I couldn’t tell whether he was mixing a dough or a paste.
“What’s that?”
He shrugged, furrowing his brow as he checked his phone. A recipe was on the screen as I walked up, but I saw a push notification of an email from Grace slide away at the top edge.
“Wait. What was that?”
“Huh?” He was all smiles, but I got the sense he was hiding something. “Oh, this is sourdough. Or it will be.”
I wasn’t interested in the recipe. “No, I thought I saw something from Grace pop up.”
“We’ve been emailing and such.”
“About… her going into help for gambling?”
He nodded. “We talked about it yesterday. She’ll start with the one rehab program the day after New Year’s.”
That wasn’t a surprise. Even though I was busy with Derek and Naomi, failing at pretending to be his girlfriend and somehow just becoming his girlfriend, I wasn’t absent from my family. Dad and I texted a lot, and so did Grace. Shawn kept me in the loop at the office, and he was included in group texts between me and my sister.
I’d been telling them all that I was busy checking out land and finalizing deals, but in all honesty, I worried I wouldn’t make it. I wouldn’t be able to pull in the money to keep the company going. Our fourth quarter would be dismal.
“But I thought the subject line said something about negotiations with a client.”
He didn’t reply, pointing at the measuring cup on the counter. “Can you hand that to me?”
Hmm. I wanted to be suspicious, but I didn’t have the energy for it. Grace very well might be talking to Dad for tips and pointers on where to go for more or better deals. He did the same with me. Even though he was retired, his interest and passion was real estate. The man still checked listings daily.
“You sure have been busy,” he commented. “Checking out all those properties I hinted at?”
“Yeah.” No? I was building snowmen on a little bit of the land I was supposed to get from pretending to be Derek’s girlfriend, but that arrangement didn’t sit right with me. “I’ve mostly been dealing with calls and following up on things I already had in the works before Thanksgiving.”
He nodded. I didn’t have to tell him. He always knew. “What’s this about a new man you’re seeing?” he asked with a sly smile.
I rolled my eyes, thinking back to how Shawn overheard Derek when he’d called. Just hearing a man asking me if I wanted dessert triggered my assistant into all kinds of conspiracy theories. I told him I was dating a man in Preston and hoped that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t. He’d tattled to Grace, and I bet she hadn’t wasted a second in calling Dad.
“Just… someone I met.” And thought I could bargain for him with land. God, it sounded so lame and wrong like that. What I felt for Derek and Naomi was stronger than a passing interest.
“When can we meet him?”
“We?”
He nodded. “You do remember Christmas is almost here, right? Grace will be here before it and will stay until her rehab will begin. You’d be back in Denver by the time that starts.”
“Right. Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck. This was all getting too messy. With what to call him, what to permit myself to feel about him. Why my stomach clenched with dread at the thought of going back to the city…
“It’s just that you’ve never met any of my boyfriends.”
“Because they’ve never really lasted,” he teased. “A date here or there. But never someone who’d stick. Who is this man?” He paused in mixing the dough to smile at me.
“Someone from Preston. I met him when I was checking out those properties you told me about, along the river. He’s a widower and has a young daughter, too.” I cleared my throat. “As a matter of fact, they want me to stay with them until Christmas.”
His brows shot up high as he grinned. “Wow. That’s fast.”
I nodded. “We were looking at puppies today at the shelter.”
His eyes opened wider. “And that’s serious.”
I laughed, sitting to chat for a little longer. “No. I don’t think he’s ready to get her a dog. It seems that his late wife was very allergic, and I guess he’s still worried that his daughter might be? I’m not sure.”
“Oh, man.” He shook his head and chuckled. “I remember when you and Grace got it into your heads to beg for a puppy.”
I snorted. “Good old Peppa the hamster…”
He laughed. “What about Peanut the hamster?”
I laughed louder. “I can still hear Mom yelling that she saw a mouse in the closet.”
“I don’t,” he said, laughing louder than me.
“Because you ran so fast to the rescue that you tripped on a shoe in the hallway and knocked yourself out hitting your head on the wall.”
Everyone had a hamster story, and ours was when Peanut, Grace’s hamster, figured out how to sneak out of his cage. It made Mom think she saw a mouse, assuming that the hamsters would of course be safe in their cages.
We’d never gotten to the dog phase, starting with hamsters as pets to teach me and Grace how to be responsible for a pet. She got her cancer diagnosis before we could seriously talk about getting a family dog. And then, that was that. Life was just different, and none of us could bring up the topic of getting a dog because Mom had been the one most excited for it.
Sitting at the island, we reminisced for a while yet. Grace video called too, and we all had a trip down memory lane. When she said she’d talk to Dad later, I got suspicious again.
“Is she working on something?” I asked. “Something I don’t know about?”
He smiled and shrugged. “I promised I wouldn’t say.”
“Oh, no.”
He laughed lightly. “Claire, you’ve got to stop mothering her. It’s past time she starts owning up to her mistake. Give Grace some… well, give her some grace. She’s trying, and we owe her the space to figure out her own way out of this mess.”
I took his message with me as I gathered my clothes and packed for staying with Derek and Naomi. It sounded too good to be true, that she’d be wizening up and growing like that.
But I will. I would step back and let her do her thing. If Dad was confident she was learning from her bad decisions and trying, then I’d give her the space to do so.
I could turn my mothering instinct toward Naomi, and I did. I arrived just in time for another discussion about the dogs we saw at the shelter. She’d gone back on the shelter’s website to list the pros and cons of each dog she saw.
“I have to say, this is… impressive,” I admitted the next day when she presented us with a slide show at breakfast.
Derek grunted as he dodged around me at the stove as I turned the Canadian bacon over.
“Impressive, or obsessive?” he teased, leaning in to sneak a kiss on my cheek.
Naomi smiled, watching us, and I felt good about it. Staying with them. Letting her see us kiss here and there or holding hands. Making food together and tackling chores.
It was all so domestic, like we were meant to find each other and glue together in a family unit. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses. We had moments, slight ones, and those kept us from being in some kind of la-la land of bliss.
“I thought you had your heart set on a white German Shepherd, though,” I reminded her.
“No. After further consideration, I am opposed to getting a dog from a breeder. I would prefer to rescue and adopt.”
After further consideration. I bit back a smile at her proper and loquacious mannerisms.
“I’ll collect a consensus,” she said as she hopped out of her chair to grab the papers she’d printed. “I’ll ask Aunt Stacy and Uncle Nicky what they think!”
“No, no…” Derek groaned. “I’m not getting a teacup anything. It’d get lost out here in all this land.”
I laughed as we cleaned up for the tree-cutting tradition the family had.
“Stacy keeps encouraging her to get a little frou-frou thing.”
“What about Nicky?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s on my side,” he replied as he hugged me, kissing up my neck with Naomi off to get ready. “He’s being logical about it.”
“Well, don’t look at me.” I smiled, thinking back to those adorable little puppies.
“Oh, you’re trouble,” he taunted. “Making up that stuff about a ‘real’ dog pack having four dogs.”
I laughed, leaning into his hard, hot body. These lazy mornings were like a daily mini vacation with him.
“And it just so happened that there were four of those beagle mutt puppies.”
“It’d be a Christmas miracle to keep them together with their brothers and sisters.” I turned to kiss him.
“Yeah, if you’re starting a hunting club. Can you imagine the howling?”
We laughed, shelving the matter to get ready and meet his sister and brother-in-law at the farm to cut trees. Stacy had yet to warm up to me, but that was all right. I read between the lines and knew she was just being protective, wanting the best for her brother and niece. Nicky was sweet, too, a fun and goofy uncle who helped to mediate when Stacy and Derek argued. As they were wont to do, especially in the form of bickering about which tree would be best for whose house.
Inserted into this family tradition, I worried that the lines were getting that much more blurred. I didn’t feel like I was faking a single thing. Derek wasn’t either—holding my hand like it was magnetized to find mine, pecking kisses on my cheek, and letting Naomi ride on my back as we trudged through the snow.
This seemed like a test, this family day, but the moment I gave up trying to label what I was doing here and why, I felt like I fit. I simplified it with one simple goal—to have fun. And that was all it took for me to realize I already was. Without effort.
When Naomi wanted to go to the ice sculptures that the farm had delivered to make their place more of a touristy stop, Stacy volunteered to pick up the hot cocoas and coffees from the food mart.
I stayed with Derek as we waited for the trees to be bound to take home.
“When do you put your tree up?” he asked, since Stacy and Derek explained that they kept this tradition of putting their tree up mere days before Christmas because of a story about their grandpa’s mishaps with a tree. According to their family lore, Grandpa Scott brought home a Christmas tree Thanksgiving weekend only to realize it had ants in it. Then the replacement to that had a bird nest in it. And the tree after that was so big that it wouldn’t fit in the house. One incident after another kept them from having a tree inside to decorate on time, all the way until the week before Christmas. Derek and Stacy’s dad had the same “bad” luck, and they joked that they should keep the tradition of having the tree later rather than earlier.
“I didn’t.” I hated how cold that sounded. “I mean, in my apartment in Denver, I didn’t.”
“No space?” he guessed.
“No time.”
He nodded. “I remember those days.” He glanced at me. “Before Jenna.”
I didn’t like how heartless it made me sound. “But Dad and Grace and I always got one. There was never a set date to get it. We just figured, okay, today’s the day, and we’d get it. Then we’d bicker over who would get to put which ornament up.”
“Stacy and I did that too.”
“That’s the sibling life for ya.”
“I think Naomi would be a dictator about it too, if she had a sibling.” He laughed once as the trees were lugged away for pickup at the lot.
“Oh, of course,” I agreed, feeling right about claiming to know the little girl that well. He walked up and hugged me, sharing his warmth.
“She’d have a map. A diagram, depending on ornament weight and density.”
“Not to mention the color schemes and the symmetry of the shapes…”
We shared a laugh, but it led into kissing.
“Has she ever mentioned whether she wanted a sibling?” I asked.
“Only a puppy,” he replied, walking me further out of the way as other people passed in the lane between trees. I tripped on a clump of snow, and we fell together, cushioned on the snow bank.
“And a mommy,” he admitted.
I sobered at that heartfelt admission. Framing his face, I sighed and stared into his eyes. “That’s… rough.”
“It is what it is.” He kissed me, seeming determined not to let that sad comment linger. “One day… maybe I’ll be ready. When the time is right.”
I smiled as he kissed along my neck, showing no interest in getting up and out of the snow. Wrapping my arms around him, I kissed him back and let the present rule us, not the sad past.
“With the right woman,” he added, slipping his hand under my coat and teasing at the hem of my sweater.
Like… me?
I said we were moving at warp-speed when he asked me to stay at his house with him and Naomi, but hinting at anything more was a big difference. Sooner or later, one of us would have to say this was real, not fake. And when that discussion happened, we’d need to clarify what he offered in giving me some land. The transaction would be unethical.
If I had to choose between a deal and my heart…
I sighed into his kiss, wishing I could be unshackled with obligations to choose what I wanted.
“Oh, for the love of God.” Stacy groaned, finding us. “Can’t you keep your hands off each other for a few minutes?”
She was smiling, though, at catching us red-handed. As I stood and brushed snow off myself, blushing, she cleared her throat.
I hadn’t felt this young, this lighthearted, in forever. And I wanted to make it last for as long as I could—which would be accomplished by ignoring those thoughts about the land Derek had mentioned.
We all headed back to Derek and Naomi’s house for a family dinner, and it was too busy, chaotic, and fun to dwell on labels and deciphering what we were doing as far as a relationship would go.
Dinner was messy, with Nicky and me screwing up the recipe while Derek and Stacy argued about how to put the tree up. That switched to Nicky taking over to help Derek and Stacy and me handling the food. But then when the guys couldn’t see that the tree was still lopsided, Stacy and I swapped, managing the tree while they finished making the pasta dinner.
Throughout it all, Naomi coached us on where we were wrong. Most of the time, she was right.
Whenever tense moments popped up between Derek and Stacy, or Stacy and Nicky, and even Derek and me, Naomi made it all easy and smooth again with a funny factoid or quip. Nicky was fun, and I had no issue with him, but at some times, it seemed like Stacy wanted to grill me and test me.
All in all, as we saw Stacy and Nicky to the door and bade them goodnight, I sighed with the realization that it had been a perfect day. A fun day.
I stood with Derek at the door as they left, teasing us about not having vermin, pests, or any other tree mishaps overnight. It seemed to be the place I belonged.
Here, at his side, not alone in the city. Right here with plans to string lights on the tree with Naomi before she went to bed, not working and worsening eye strain at the computer all night.
But in the back of my mind, I felt like a liar.
I wasn’t here, really. It was just for the holidays.
It was all supposed to be fake and temporary, no matter how much I wished it otherwise.
This daddy-and-daughter pair were tricking my heart into wanting something far more than saving the company for Christmas.