Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“Dad, it’s fine.” His daughter’s eye-roll as she picked up her coffee mug reminded Sven Carlsen of her teenage years. “Really. I’m an adult and I’d like to be treated like one.”
She was right, but damned if he didn’t want to bundle her up and keep her safe like he had when she was a baby.
He poked at his eggs and tried for a more diplomatic approach. “I just wondered who you were with. We haven’t gone out to eat since…you know, and—”
“You’re allowed to say it. The car accident.” Brenna leveled a frown at him. “Repeat after me. The car accident. I’m not going to freak out if you call it what it was.”
His insides scrambled worse than his breakfast. That day, the call, the waiting to know the extent of her injuries—it had been the worst experience of his life.
He swallowed past the hard lump in his throat. “The…car…accident.”
His voice cracked over the words, much like his heart had cracked open when he hadn’t known if his little girl would live or die. He would’ve traded places with her in an instant.
The soft brush of her fingertips on his clenched fist brought him back from the cliff. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, especially not yours. Shit happens sometimes, and you can’t protect me from everything. Well, you could, but not being able to do anything would drive me bananas. Life is for living. That’s the mantra of my support group.”
Instead of gathering her in his arms and never letting her go, he wrapped his much bigger hand around hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I know. I’m just having a tough time accepting that you’re all grown up and you want to live on your own again, especially when I can make all the adjustments you need. I like having you here and taking care of you.”
“I know, and I love you for it.” She pulled her hand away and fiddled with the remains of her toast. “If it’ll make you feel better, I met this very kind woman when I was on my way home from the basketball game. And before you say anything, I’m not mad about my friends wanting to sit up in the bleachers where they could see the game. They offered to stay on the floor with me. I wasn’t super comfortable about being there with so many people anyway, so I said I just wanted to say hi and that you were waiting for me outside. It was easier, and that’s what felt best at the moment.”
He fought a grunt and lost. Her so-called friends should’ve seen how uncomfortable she was. “So, who was this lady you met?”
She cradled her nearly empty mug in her palms and sipped her doctored coffee. “One of my wheels dropped into a hole when I was crossing the street and she stopped to help me. She was waiting at the light and, like, actually parked her car in the middle of the road, turned on the flashers, and got out. She didn’t feel sorry for me, unlike most people who think they’re being helpful, and she showed me how to get unstuck. Then she invited me to Lorenzo’s for pizza. God, she taught me more about how to navigate an unaccommodating world in less than an hour than I learned in a month with the guy who left me high and dry. She’s an occupational therapist and is in town for the holidays. Until sometime in January. Maybe longer. I’m going to call her this afternoon about scheduling some sessions. See? I’m being proactive.”
“Is she licensed? We’ll… You’ll need to find out what—”
“Dad. You’re doing it again.” Setting down her mug, Brenna sighed. “It’s already handled. She’s in the process of moving, so she isn’t working right now, but she’s going to check into a temporary position with the same clinic my last OT worked for. She mentioned a couple other options too. I like her a lot, and I’m hoping I can convince her to stay for a while.”
Although the woman would have to prove herself to him, Sven gave his daughter the benefit of the doubt. She was smart and independent, and he had no right to hold her back, even if it ate at his soul to adopt a hands-off approach to her care. “Okay. Do you need anything before I head over to Grandma and Grandpa’s to fix the flashing around the chimney?”
“Nope.” She rolled back from the table with her breakfast dishes in her lap. “I have a work project due next week, so I’m just hanging out in your office this morning.”
“It’s your office too, for as long as you want it.” Yes, his comment probably rubbed her the wrong way, but he hated the thought of her living by herself again.
Cut the bullshit. You’re the one who doesn’t like living alone.
She opened the dishwasher and strained to reach the faucet to rinse her plate.
Resisting the urge to turn on the water took planting his work boots on the floor, pressing his ass to his seat, and focusing on not gripping his own dish hard enough to break it. His jaw ached and his ears rang by the time the clink of her mug, fork, and plate told him she’d finished her task at the dishwasher.
Brenna wheeled to the table and picked up her mug. “I can’t wait to have an accessible kitchen. Do you think the fundraiser will make enough money for the renovations to a house or apartment?”
Despite his feelings about her moving out again, he nodded. “I’ll make it happen if that’s what you want. Even if I have to dress up as Santa Claus myself.”
“Oh, that reminds me. Mrs. Barber emailed me this morning. Her brother had to have emergency gall bladder surgery last night, so he isn’t available this year. Should I tell her you’re willing to fill in?”
He gave a curt nod, even though the thought of wearing a red suit and socializing was near the top of the list of things he’d rather not do. “For you? Yes. But there better be a rule against adults sitting on my lap.”
“If you had a girlfriend, they might back off.”
A shudder rippled through him. “I don’t want or need a girlfriend.”
Laughter echoed through the kitchen as his daughter left him to finish cleaning up.
The single women of Creekside had finally decided to leave him the hell alone since that horrible day eleven months ago. Even a few married ones had propositioned him over the years. If he’d been looking to get laid or married, he would’ve been in heaven. Unfortunately, he preferred the company of his hand to another soul-shattering breakup or an accidental pregnancy with his rebound mistake.
Been there. Done those. Never again.
He didn’t regret being a father, but it hadn’t worked out quite the way he’d hoped. His first and only love was to blame for that.
Maybe not entirely, but I didn’t have a choice.
With a final wipe of the counter, he pushed that counterproductive memory from his mind. Life sometimes sucked. Besides, his daughter deserved all his affection.
He snagged his coat from the hook in the hall and poked his head into the room he’d transformed into a shared office on his way to the garage door. “I’ll be back by lunchtime. Call or text if you need anything.”
Brenna looked up from an open file on the desk. “Okay. Be careful up on the housetop, Santa.”
“Always.” A smile came easily for the most important person in his world. “Love you, Bee.”
“Love you too, Dad.” She blew him a kiss and grinned. “Mrs. Barber said she’ll stop by Grandma and Grandpa’s to drop off the Santa suit and a thank-you batch of buckeyes about ten thirty when she goes to have her hair done.”
Smothering a groan, he dug his keys from his jeans pocket. “No adults. If you didn’t make that clear, I will. See you in a few hours.”
She snickered and set her fingers back on the keyboard. “I told her. She thinks we’ll raise more money if you set aside at least half an hour for the single ladies to share their Christmas wishes with you, but it’s up to you.”
“Then the answer is no. I’m not letting anybody pimp me out for a few hundred bucks I can donate myself. I’m going now.” He waved with his empty hand and stalked to the garage, slowing only to lock the door and shaking his head the whole way. “I’ll donate all the damn materials and labor myself before I let a bunch of women hoping for a husband or a roll in the sack turn that fundraiser into a three-ring circus.”
As soon as he backed out of the driveway, the gray clouds skidding across the sky decided to spit a mix of sleet and wet snowflakes at his windshield, adding to his grouchy mood. It showed no sign of stopping or changing to all snow during the four-block drive to his parents’ house or the ten minutes unloading his extension ladder and supplies took. Fortunately, he’d done more difficult jobs in worse conditions.
At the start of his ascent to the roof, his mom appeared on the other side of the living room window. Her broad grin warned him she planned to ambush him with another fix-up attempt or a dinner invitation with a surprise guest.
He returned her wave and continued upward. “I need a woman in my life like I need to fall through a roof.”
Focusing on the job at hand required enough concentration to wipe all thoughts of dating from his mind, especially with the weather making a safety harness necessary. No way would he risk an injury, not if it might keep him from being there for his daughter. She’d been his whole world since the day she was born, and nothing would ever change that.
He finally gathered the leftover supplies and then stepped back to inspect his handiwork an hour and a half later. The new materials sealed the area around the bricks a lot better than the patch job he’d done during the early days of Brenna’s lengthy hospital stay. Hell, he’d barely managed to function for weeks after the accident.
Months, more like it.
With the unfastened rope looped over his shoulder and the box tucked under his arm, he swung his foot to the closest rung on the ladder to climb down. Sleet and wet snow became light drizzle as he reached the ground and freed himself from the harness. Then the sweep of headlights across the house from behind drew his attention to the driveway.
The front door opened as Mrs. Barber shut off the engine of her prized 1996 Lincoln Town Car. She’d been driving that boat a mile to the beauty salon and back home every four weeks since her husband had passed away right after he bought it for her. The decades-old vehicle probably had less than ten thousand miles, even with her weekly visit to the grocery store.
His mom unfurled the huge golf umbrella in her hand. “Wait for me, Janice!”
“Take your time, Mom. It might be slippery.” He stowed the box in his truck and still beat his mother to the visitor’s car. Then he held out his arm to the white-haired woman who had been not only his middle school English teacher but the town’s favorite Mrs. Claus for a good many years as well. “I’ll come back for the suit.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I’m just as capable of walking as you are. You can carry the Santa suit. And don’t forget the buckeyes!” Mrs. Barber pointed to the cookie tin on the passenger seat as she shifted her boot-clad feet to the slick driveway. Waving away his arm, she stood and ducked under the umbrella his mom carried. “Who ordered this nasty weather? It wasn’t you, was it, Sven?”
His mother raised her eyebrows at him, her mind clearly going straight to her frequent observation—that he walked around like a storm cloud more often than not.
Ignoring her insinuation, he stalked to the other side for the garment bag laying on the backseat and the tin in the front. “Why would I do that when I had to go up on the roof this morning? Head inside. I’ll be right behind you after I put these in the truck.”
His former teacher leaned in toward his mom, who glanced his direction over her shoulder with a troublemaking grin spreading across her face. The co-conspirators clearly had something up their sleeves and, without a doubt, it involved butting into his personal life.
He caught up with them in the kitchen, but he kept his mouth shut. Commenting would only bring more suffering down on him.
With the cupboard door open, his mom looked over her shoulder at him. “Want to warm up with a cup of something? Janice and I are having tea, but there’s still some of your father’s paint thinner from breakfast.”
A bark of laughter echoed through the space, far outsizing the five-foot-nothing octogenarian it came from. “I remember when my Harold drank coffee so strong it could strip the varnish off a wood floor. It’s a wonder he had any insides left.”
Shaking his head, he held out his hand for a mug. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“Speaking of killing, it wouldn’t hurt you to—”
“No grown women are sitting on this Santa’s lap.” He poured an inch of dark brew into his cup and inhaled the wonderfully bitter scent of aged coffee. It matched his feelings toward most women perfectly. “I’m not in the market for a girlfriend, wife, date, hookup, or even a housekeeper.”
The stubborn set of Mrs. Barber’s shoulders made his stomach knot. “But we could raise so much—”
“I don’t care. The women of this town can go apply for a job at the strip club up the highway if they want to give somebody a lap dance.” A huge gulp of his dad’s brown sludge fortified his mood. “That’s my final decision. If it isn’t acceptable, find yourself another Santa Claus.”
Despite her grimace, his former teacher gave a curt nod. “Suit yourself. I’ll see you Saturday morning at nine thirty in the high school’s main hall. You can put on the suit in the nurse’s office.”
“Okay.” Not giving her a chance to change her mind, he rinsed his mug and headed for the front door. “Thank you for the buckeyes, Mrs. Barber. Mom, tell Dad the flashing’s fixed. You shouldn’t have any more problems with it.”
Whispers followed him down the hall and finally ended when he stepped outside and shut the door.
No amount of conspiring would convince him to change his mind about women and dating.