Chapter 5 #2
He chuckled. “You’ve been a trial coming up on thirty years, so why stop now.” He glanced out the window at my van. “That Tucker—too damn efficient.”
“Dad,” I said gently. “I know you’ve had a long week. You’ve got to be tired. Go to bed.”
He handed me a container from the counter. “Cookies.”
My stomach did a happy dance, but my brain held up a stop sign. “You’re not supposed to have cookies.”
“Sybil made them.”
“Sybil?”
“Mrs. O’Brien, from down the street.”
“My old math teacher?” I squeaked.
“Yeah.” His face reddened a bit. “She says they’re healthy. They don’t have sugar or fat, and she used shredded carrots and sweet potatoes instead of flour.” He shuddered.
The man had never met a vegetable he didn’t hate on sight, but with his new diet requirements, he was trying. Only… “Why is my mean old math teacher making you cookies?”
He flushed again, and I felt my brows go up.
“Oh my God. Are you…dating her? You remember her, right? She tried to flunk me because I kept getting A’s on her tests and she was certain I was cheating, which I was most definitely not.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“She called me ‘demon spawn’!”
“Hazel, have you seen the dating pool at my age?”
“Oh my God, you are. You’re dating her.”
My dad scrubbed a hand down his face. “People change, you know. Would you want to be judged by your teen years?”
“I am still judged by my teen years. By everyone.” I took the container and opened it.
The cookies were big and fluffy, and I folded like a cheap suitcase.
“Okay, how about this: If these cookies suck, we dump her. If they’re good…
I’ll try really hard to ignore the fact that you’re doing my old math teacher. ”
“I’m not—Jesus.” He pointed at me. “If I had to suffer your dating years, you can suffer mine.”
“Deal or no deal?”
He eyed the cookies, then shook his head. “No deal.”
I gaped. “Ohmigod. You really like her.” I took a bite and had to fight a moan.
He grinned. “They’re good, aren’t they.”
I popped the entire cookie in my mouth. “Horrible. Terrible. No good.”
“You still blink when you lie.” He reached for the container.
I clutched it to my chest. “Mine now.”
“You can keep them only if you’re nice to her.”
“I’m not going to see her.”
He gave me a long look.
I sighed. “I’m going to see her because you’re seeing her.”
“Now you’re getting it.” He patted me on top of my head. “Now come on, it’s past our bedtime.”
“I’m not sleeping here.”
“Hey, I’m letting you keep the cookies.”
“For which I’ve already bartered my soul.”
His smile slowly faded. “Hazel. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“You can’t sleep here because of me. Because of what happened.”
My heart stopped. He didn’t know what had happened. No one did.
“You were acting out and getting in trouble, and I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand what you were going through after your Mom died. I was…stuck in my own grief. But I want to make this home for you again. I’d give anything to fix this. What can I do to get you to sleep here?”
The house held every memory that I’d long ago tucked into a box and sealed shut. “It’s not you, Dad. It’s…” I looked around. “It’s exactly as it was when she was alive. It makes me…sad.”
He looked around as if seeing it for the first time. “What if we pack up her stuff?”
That he would offer…God, it nearly broke me open. “Maybe,” I said softly.
“Maybe,” he repeated and nodded. “I’ll take that.” He opened the back door for me and waved me off.
I was nearly to my van when a car pulled into the cul-de-sac. Rob Hayes stepped out in a suit, as confident and smooth as he’d been in high school.
When he saw me, he crossed the street and smiled. “I’m relieved to see you on your feet. Heard you totaled three vehicles, crashed into the convenience store to steal beer, and wrestled a coyote.”
“Seriously?”
He laughed. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Damn, Hazel, you look good.”
“I’m in my pj’s.”
He just grinned. “I know.”
Rob had always been my high school dream guy, the safe option. Still was. And he’d been casually asking me out since I’d come back to Star Falls.
I opened my mouth, then closed it, and he shook his head. “It’s okay. You’re still not ready.”
That’s what I’d told him, and it had been the truth. Being home again had brought up a lot of things, and I’d known I needed to take a beat to face them. “I’m sorry.”
He smiled easily. “Don’t be.”
Something stirred inside me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for him.
“I mean, I will say, you don’t know what you’re missing,” he teased.
I laughed in relief. “My loss.”
Rob went into his house, and I turned to my van, stilling at the sight of Tucker standing between our houses, hands in his pockets.
Watching me.
That something inside me flared, warm and dangerous. Bad idea. Very bad idea.
And as if Tucker read my mind, he dipped his head in a barely there nod and vanished inside his house, all without a word.
The next night, I collapsed onto my van’s bench seat. I’d finished the Henderson project for Colburn Restorations. I’d paid Tex and Annie and now just had to finish the pavilion job and…
I’d be out of work.
Freedom.
But also…panic.
I ate the last of Sybil’s cookies. Disgusted with myself and my too-tight yoga pants, which had never once attended a yoga class, I set out for a run.
Actually, it was more like a fastish walk because I hated running. Always had, even when Tucker used to drag me out at oh dark thirty with his maddeningly cheerful You’ll feel amazing after.
Note: I never did.
I wondered if he still liked running. Two miles later, I couldn’t imagine why anyone liked it. I showered and stared at my face in the mirror. I was…glowing. Damn, I hated when exercise did a body good.
Then I beat my dad at gin, twice, and returned to my van. I sprawled out to read, windows open to the night sounds: wind rustling the oak trees, crickets chirping, an owl hooting.
And then a soft, sad “mew.”
I sat up and slid open the van door.
There, blinking at me in the dark, sat a tiny kitten. Gray, scruffy, with sweet golden eyes.
“Hey, kitty,” I said, crouching. “You okay?”
She headbutted my palm, then climbed into my lap like she belonged there.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Not shy…” And also a female. I looked into her eyes, realizing they were rheumy. There was also a frailness to her, like she was mostly skin and bones. “You’re not a kitten, you’re…elderly.”
She gave me an offended squint, and I smiled gently. “Shouldn’t you be inside all nice and cozy?”
She bumped my hand with her forehead again. When I adjusted her, something crinkled.
A note was tied to her collar.
I’d know that handwriting anywhere—Tucker’s, all bold slashes and impatient angles.
Once upon a time, those same scrawls had filled the margins of my algebra homework. He handled equations; I faked enthusiasm for grammar. It had been a solid trade—he thought commas were a conspiracy, and I considered long division a hate crime.
Do NOT feed me. I have a home. I’m just a freeloading asshole.
Beneath that was an address.
Tucker’s.
Of course. His cat was a grumpy alpha with boundary issues. Why was I even surprised?