Chapter 3
Dan Bryson glanced at his daughter slouched on the sofa, scrolling on her phone.
Lindsay had given Sophie the latest iPhone on her thirteenth birthday, which he’d felt was far too young, but like with so much in his life, he hadn’t been given the opportunity to have a say, and now getting Sophie off that thing was akin to asking a meth addict to go cold turkey.
A sigh escaped him as he turned back to the elements he’d assembled for what was meant to be a healthy family dinner—chicken breasts, red peppers, broccoli, and a cup of wholegrain rice.
Sophie would complain about it all, maybe even lob an offhand grenade about how “Mom always let me get take-out,” although she wasn’t even mentioning the M-word these days, and Dan couldn’t blame her.
Just over a year after their divorce, Lindsay’s abrupt decision to take a corporate job in Dubai and have Sophie move back in with him had been a shock for both of them.
Six weeks later, they still were. Moving to Starr’s Fall had felt like a way to have a fresh start, especially after Sophie’s suspension from school, and also had provided an unexpected opportunity to be close to family, and also near Sophie’s new school, which had come highly recommended.
It had all felt like positive progress, but a week into their move, surrounded by boxes and with Sophie as sullen as ever, Dan wasn’t sure it had been the right call.
“Hey,” he called over to her, making sure to keep his voice light, “you want to get off that thing and help me make dinner?”
Sophie glanced up, scowling. “So now I’m the cook?”
“It’s you or me, bud,” Dan reminded her. “Why don’t we do it together?”
With an audible groan, Sophie flung her phone onto the sofa and slouched over to the counter, wrinkling her nose at the sight of the items Dan had gotten out. “Ew, broccoli? You know I don’t like it.”
“You need your greens. So do I, as it happens.” Dan reached for a knife and a cutting board. “I thought we could do a stir fry. You want to slice the peppers?”
“Fine.” She shrugged her grudging assent, and he handed her the knife, wishing just one thing could be easy. But ever since Lindsay had walked out on him eighteen months ago, it felt like nothing had.
“So,” Dan remarked casually, “what was actually happening in that ice cream parlor earlier?”
Sophie hunched her shoulders, her head bent over the bell pepper. “What do you mean? Nothing,” she mumbled.
Dan wasn’t stupid. He was pretty sure Sophie had stolen the magnet, and for some reason the woman who owned the place—Zoe—had decided to let her go.
He hadn’t been about to question it at the time, when Sophie was so volatile.
A meltdown in a public place wouldn’t serve anyone.
But he wasn’t going to let it slide, either.
Parenting, he’d discovered, was an endlessly hard slog, but if you stopped, it only got worse.
He’d taken his eye off the ball for just a few weeks when Lindsay had moved to Dubai and he’d been trying to keep his business going, and it had turned into a disaster, ending up with Sophie not being asked back to her ritzy private school. He was trying to be more diligent now.
“I mean with the magnet,” he replied patiently.
He waited a few seconds for Sophie to answer, focusing on slicing the chicken breast into bite-sized chunks.
His daughter remained steadfastly silent.
“Did you really drop it?” he asked gently, and Sophie’s head reared up, her eyes blazing angry hurt, her mouth twisted.
“Oh, so you believe some stranger over me,” she hurled at him. “That checks out, but thanks. Thanks a lot.”
Dan had learned the hard way not to respond to these accusations, but it remained a struggle to keep his tone and temper both even. “I’m just asking, Soph,” he told her. “That’s all.”
“Why would you think I’d stolen something?” she demanded. “I mean, just jump to conclusions, why don’t you!”
“I’m asking,” Dan emphasized, “because the guy in the store said you did, and I just want to make sure I have all the facts.”
“So you do believe some random guy over me?” she screeched, flinging down the knife.
“Sophie, we both know you’ve been a little… light-fingered in the past,” Dan replied, an edge to his voice that he instantly regretted. “I just want the truth.”
In response, his daughter let out a hurt cry and hurtled from the room, thundering up the steps of their little Cape house, the slam of her bedroom door making the whole house rattle.
Dan closed his eyes as a weary sigh escaped him.
All right, maybe he shouldn’t have made that light-fingered jab, but considering it had gotten her expelled from school only a month ago, it was surely a fair point.
And Sophie’s go-to response of acting hurt and hard done by after he’d said anything remotely upsetting was getting kind of old.
His daughter needed to face the music. Dan just wasn’t sure how to get her to do it…
or whether he had the energy for the fight.
He was just so tired. He’d gotten divorced, lost his mother and moved house all in the last six months.
Plus continuing to deal with a very difficult teenaged daughter.
All while trying to keep his business afloat.
And now he had to get used to being somewhere new and all the dynamics it created…
Sometimes Dan just wasn’t sure he had it in him.
With a sigh, he went back to the chicken he’d been slicing and continued to make a dinner he was pretty sure only he would eat.
Still, maybe Sophie would slink down in fifteen or minutes or so, her sulky silence the only apology on offer.
Dan knew his daughter was miserable, and he understood why.
But until she stopped taking it out on him, he wasn’t sure he could help her.
Part of his reason for moving to Starr’s Fall was the hope that maybe someone else could.
But since they’d arrived they’d only seen Sophie’s great-grandmother once, and that had been a difficult enough visit, with Sophie sullen and silent, and her great-grandmother austere and officious.
Still, it was early days, and they belonged in Starr’s Fall more than anywhere else—with his mother passed and his father having been out of the picture since he was a kid and no siblings…
Starr’s Fall was, whether they liked it or not, the closest thing they had to home.
It just didn’t feel like it yet.
As he started frying the chicken, his mind drifted back to the uncomfortable and awkward scene in the ice cream parlor.
Sophie had gone out without telling him where, which in a small town like Starr’s Fall was fine, but after an hour Dan had started to get nervous, because Sophie had an unfortunate history of getting into trouble.
Which she had, and he’d stumbled right into it.
But why had the owner of the place—Zoe—backed down?
He’d been pretty sure she’d been squaring up for a fight, and one he’d already known he didn’t have it in him to argue.
Appeasing angry adults while trying to keep his daughter on an even keel was a balancing act Dan definitely did not have the hang of yet, but he certainly was racking up the experience.
It was frustrating, though, to have such fallout all over a magnet.
What had Sophie been thinking? And, while Zoe had every right to be annoyed at the theft, Dan couldn’t help but wish people could be a little more laidback and let things go.
Even if he knew, in his heart of hearts, that wasn’t necessarily the best thing for his daughter.
But Zoe had let it go in the end… and he didn’t understand why.
On impulse, he reached for his phone and typed in her name and the name of her place, The Latest Scoop.
A website for the store came up right away, and he clicked on it.
It was the usual out-of-the-box website but well done, clear to navigate with some whimsical pencil sketches on every page—the town’s Main Street, a banana split sundae, the waterfall above the town.
Zoe had done a good job of anchoring the store in its place, he mused, before he clicked to go on the About Me page.
On the top of it was a picture of Zoe standing in front of the store, arms folded and chin tilted up, a defiant pose that he recognized from earlier.
There was something about Zoe Wilkinson that felt not quite aggressive, but close.
Like she’d come out swinging at every opportunity.
Her appearance had certainly held a measure of defiance, at least by most people’s standards.
Her hair in a bright pink pixie cut, a nose ring as well as three piercings in each earlobe, and he’d glimpsed some black ink tattoos on both her arms. Her clothing had been of the punk/grunge variety—black skinny jeans that were shredded from thigh to shin and an asymmetrical t-shirt in lime green that had clung to her figure and slid off one pale shoulder.
Not that he was against any of that, of course.
Every person had the right to express themselves however they wanted.
But it did make her different… and interesting, as well as very pretty, with her heart-shaped face, large, lushly fringed eyes, and a figure that the t-shirt and skinny jeans had nicely emphasized.
Dan lowered the phone as that realization reverberated through him. Did he really find Zoe Wilkinson, punky ice cream owner who had to be at least ten years younger than him, interesting?
The sound of footsteps thudding deliberately down the stairs had him quickly swiping off The Latest Scoop’s website. Sophie stood in the doorway of the kitchen, arms folded.
“I want to Zoom Mom,” she stated, and Dan’s heart sank.