Chapter Three #2
“Yeah. She was worrying about money, and I said she should just ask you for some.”
“When was this?” Gard asked, too quick he knew. Too cop-like, because Sammy’s expression went guarded.
Sammy shrugged. “Few months ago. She said you’d already given up enough for us, and she wasn’t coming to you for more money, and when I asked what that meant, she said law school and being rich and important like her dad.”
Gard frowned. Dani had been working at a restaurant in Fairmont the past two years. She’d claimed she was making enough. She was supposed to ask him if she needed help. He didn’t have a kid to support. He had the money, and he wanted to help.
Why hadn’t she just asked him? But since Dani wasn’t here, he couldn’t lecture her about asking for help. He had to deal with the story she’d told Sammy. Did Dani believe all that BS? Did she really not understand?
Sammy would. He’d make sure of it. He looked right at her and delivered a speech he’d given Dani too many times to count. More repeating patterns he couldn’t seem to stop.
“I didn’t give up law school for you guys.
I gave up law school because the way my parents treated your mom when she was struggling was a wake-up call.
I didn’t want to follow the path they’d set for me—being a lawyer and being cruel like them.
I wanted to follow my own path. So I didn’t go to law school.
It was no great sacrifice. It was a choice I made. Don’t let her ever tell you otherwise.”
Sammy watched him carefully, but he couldn’t read what was behind all that careful survey. “But you have sacrificed for us, even if you didn’t sacrifice that.”
He wanted to lie to her, but he figured she’d see right through that. “That’s what family should do, Sam. When it matters.”
She looked down at her now-empty plate.
“Sammy.” There were so many things he wanted to say.
He struggled to find the words to express what he felt, what she needed to know.
Gard and Dani had grown up in a house of hard words.
Or no words. Criticism and high expectations.
Icy silences, withdrawn support. No one spoke of love, just respect and failing to meet expectations.
They might have had all the material things in life, but they hadn’t had anything deeper, anything soft.
Gard still struggled with expressing those softer things, but if he’d learned anything in the years of trying to deal with Dani’s addiction, Sammy growing up with just him and Dani as support, it was that he didn’t want words left unsaid just because he was afraid to be uncomfortable or vulnerable.
And he’d use whatever words, whatever feelings, whatever soft, sharp truths to make sure Sammy knew that she was loved, cared for. That she was important. He couldn’t make her choices for her, or Dani’s, but he could do that.
“I know her doing this again hurts. It hurts me too. I love her, and I’d do anything to fix this for her. For you.”
Sammy shoved away from the table. “I’m going to do my homework.”
But Gard was faster, and he blocked her path to the room. She stood there, gaze on the floor, shoulders hunched and rounded forward as if she could protect herself from the soft words.
He pulled her into a hug, squeezed her tight. “It would be worth any sacrifice, because you both matter,” he said softly.
She didn’t pull away, but she did look up then, tears in her eyes. “I thought it was enough this time. I really believed…she wouldn’t go back this time.”
Gard had to swallow against his own tight throat as his heart cracked in two—not the first time Dani had done that to him. Hopefully not the last because he needed her to come back, even if she broke his heart a million more times. “Me too, baby. Me too.”
“So, we’re hiring criminals now?”
Lia didn’t spare Albennie a glance. Even though she was breaking the no-talking-the-first-hour-at-the-bakery rule. “She’s fifteen.”
“Fifteen-year-olds can still be criminals.”
Since Lia knew that from experience, she could hardly argue with Albennie. “We’ll have her do prep. Wash dishes. Keep her in the kitchen and away from the till. It’ll be fine.”
“You’re too softhearted.”
Lia snorted. Not something she’d ever been accused of. Except from Albennie. Who, in fairness, probably knew her better than anybody. So maybe she should be a little worried about that soft heart.
The bell on the door tinkled, so they moved out of the kitchen to the main area. Sammy stepped in first, looking just as surly as she had the day she’d played thief. Gard was dressed in his uniform behind her.
“God, he’s hot,” Albennie said quietly, fanning herself with a dishcloth.
“You say that about every cop who walks in here,” Lia said irritably, because he was hot and she didn’t want him to be. Bad enough when he was a random figure on the periphery of her social life. Worse when she was starting to see the man behind the uniform.
An uncle who cared about his teenage charge, who was that hot, and now far more in her orbit was a recipe for disaster.
Lia snatched the dishcloth out of Albennie’s hands and stepped forward with a smile that had to have looked more like a grimace thanks to Albennie’s words. “Morning, guys.”
“Good morning,” Gard greeted cheerfully.
Sammy only grunted. Which Lia supposed was the reason behind Gard’s cheer.
“Sammy, this is Albennie,” Lia said. “She’s going to show you your first exciting job of the morning. Measuring out ingredients.”
“Whatever,” Sammy muttered.
Albennie sent Lia a look, but Lia ignored the clear disapproval in it. Albennie was all talk anyway. She’d be nice and patient with Sammy, because that was who Albennie was under that tough outer shell.
A pair of softhearted women was what they were. Recipe for absolute disaster.
“Follow me, Sammy,” Albennie said, waving Sammy back into the kitchen.
Since Gard was still standing there, Lia stayed put. “You want a cup of coffee? To go,” she clarified quickly.
His mouth curved a little, like he knew that little tack on was because he made her…nervous. Ugh.
“No. Thanks.” His expression sobered. “Listen, I don’t suppose there’s any way you could keep her around until three?”
Lia frowned at him, and she had to actually tilt her head up a little. She was tall for a woman, so she wasn’t used to having to look up at people too often, but he was tall.
And built.
Not the point of anything right now. “You want me to babysit? I thought you took the afternoon off to come by and pick her up.” He’d told her that when he’d called the bakery yesterday to confirm their plans.
“You’re the one who insisted she work here. Look…” There was something in his eyes then. Expression carefully blank, but something in those deep blue depths. She couldn’t have put a label on it, but it had all that soft bubbling up.
Oh, she was in some trouble.
Gard leaned forward, lowered his voice, and the fact her stomach jittered in ways it should not only verified trouble was in the offing.
“I just have to…” He trailed off like he wasn’t quite sure how much to give away.
“I can’t trust Sammy on her own right now, and I have to…
I have to make sure Sammy’s mom isn’t in more trouble than usual.
I know you don’t owe her or me a damn thing, but you’re the one sticking your nose in and giving her a job.
So, I figure this can’t be asking too much. Put her to work.”
“And if she wreaks havoc?”
Gard’s mouth quirked up on one side, a lot like he expected Sammy to do exactly that. “I’ll owe you one.”
How he made that seem…serious but also kind of flirty—which she was not responding to—Lia wasn’t about to parse.
Lia crossed her arms over her chest and sighed gustily. “Fine.”
“Thanks. Really. I’ll owe you one anyway.” He glanced beyond the counter where Albennie had taken Sammy. Then that direct, blue gaze was back on Lia. “She’s a good kid. I know I’m biased, but she is. She deserves some kind of break, and I don’t know how to give her one.”
That soft heart Albennie accused her of having fluttered, because it was just so clear he cared. And that was not something Lia had seen very much of. Particularly from the male species—in and out of a uniform.
“I’ll see what I can do.”