Chapter Seven
“You invited Lia?” Sammy repeated, clearly surprised as they drove into Fairmont. They’d gone home and Gard had showered the day off of him. Sammy had, wisely, not brought up the party or calling Sarabeth’s mom.
She would, but the girl knew how to time things when she wanted to. Like the current question.
“Yeah, I did. That okay?”
“Uh, yeah, but…” She trailed off. He could feel her narrow-eyed stare. “You’re just trying to put off calling Sarabeth’s mom.”
Maybe. But it was a hell of an excuse. He was also using it as an excuse to distract himself from the fact he was waiting for a call or text from Dani’s manager at the restaurant with the name of whatever customer had offered her a job.
“Look, I’ll call her,” Gard said reluctantly. “I promise. I’m glad you have friends you want to hang out with.” He wasn’t really, but he knew he should be. “Were you friends with them last year?”
Sammy sat back in the seat, maybe looking almost mollified. “I kind of avoided making friends last year. It’s not like Mom could have driven me places or whatever with her work schedule, and she got all weird if I had guy friends.”
“Count me among the getting weird if you have guy friends. Why is this party coed, by the way?”
Sammy rolled her eyes. “We’re sixteen, Gard. Not babies.”
He didn’t point out that while Sarabeth had turned sixteen, Izzy and Sammy had yet to join her there. Because Sammy was still talking, and maybe fifteen wasn’t babies either, but still…
“Besides, Sarabeth plays softball and baseball. She’s really good.
The boys are just her baseball teammates—at least the ones who aren’t jerks.
And her parents won’t let boys sleep over, even though Sarabeth gave them this big presentation on how it’s totally sexist gender essentialism to ban an entire gender. ”
Well, at least Sarabeth’s parents sounded like reasonable people. He definitely wasn’t going to ask what gender essentialism was though. He’d look it up it later. Or maybe he’d live in ignorant bliss.
“Besides, if you let me go, it’s the perfect excuse. You can finally ask Lia out. Just you and her.”
Gard choked on his own saliva since he hadn’t seen that segue coming. “Excuse me?”
Sammy waved a dramatic arm. “Oh, please, like it’s not obvious you want to.”
“Sammy.” He had no idea what to say to that. What he should say. They did not…discuss his personal life.
“And she wants you to,” Lia added.
Gard desperately wanted to demand how she knew that. But he was not a teenager, and neither was Lia. This wasn’t high school. He was Sammy’s guardian, which meant this wasn’t about him and Lia. It was about…her.
“Why are you matchmaking?” he asked, trying to sound reasonable and unaffected.
“Why not?”
“I can handle my own dates, Sammy. It may shock you to know, but women tend to find me attractive.”
She groaned and made a vomit gesture. “Whatever. The point is, if I’m what’s holding you back on that score, I shouldn’t be.”
“You’re never holding me back, Sam.”
“You don’t have to lie.”
He pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, shoved the truck into Park, then twisted in his seat so he could look directly at her, without the distraction of driving.
“Sammy, I have a lot of complicated and conflicting feelings about everything that has gone on in your mother’s life, and in yours, but you have never—not once—been something that held me back. I have exactly the life I want, and that includes taking care of you.”
She didn’t meet his gaze. But after a few beats of silence, she spoke very softly. “Mom would always… She said she couldn’t date while I was underfoot.”
Gard wished Dani would have phrased that better for Sammy, but… “Your mom had good reasons for that rule.”
Sammy slid a glance at him then. “Because of my dad?”
Gard sighed, not sure how everything had devolved into this.
But he wasn’t going to lie to her. “Look, your dad was a… He was young and he was dumb, and boy was he damn selfish, but he wasn’t mean.
A couple of the guys she was involved with after?
Mean.” And dangerous. Not just for Dani, but for Sammy too.
If there was one thing his sister had gotten right, it was swearing off men for the past ten years.
“Lia’s not mean.”
Gard wanted to groan. “Sammy.”
“You like her. You think she’s hot.”
“We’re not talking about this.” Though even awkward and kind of weird, better than talking about Dani’s bad dating choices.
“Don’t not have a life because of me,” she told him earnestly.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t have a life before you came into the picture either.” Probably not the best argument either.
“More of one.”
Maybe, but not by much.
“Look, if I end up letting you go to that party, it’ll be for you. So you can have fun with your friends in a safe environment. It won’t be about what I want to do while you’re somewhere else.”
“But that’s what I’m saying. You should do stuff for yourself too. Don’t forget, I was there when Matilda told Mom and you that your entire lives can’t revolve around me.”
Gard scowled at the invocation of the family therapist. Who likely would also side on letting Sammy go to this party. Doing normal things, rather than feeling like she was being punished
Damn it.
He remembered what Lia had said about wishing she’d been in a place to be able to go to sleepovers.
Fifteen. He’d been obsessed with sports and trying to talk Madison Sealy behind the bleachers. And Lia had run away and never gone back.
Before he could figure out anything else to say to Sammy to get it through her head she was no burden, another car turned into the parking lot. It was an old junker of a car, but he quickly recognized Lia in the driver’s seat.
He grinned in spite of himself.
She’d come.
Lia didn’t know why she was here, but the fact Gard and Sammy were smiling at her as she approached made it feel like the right choice.
She had friends. But they were all Hope Town friends.
All with their own secret pasts. They had busy lives, trying to handle small business in a small town.
It made it easier to understand each other, trust each other and the town they were building, but it didn’t quite make for…
deep connections. Just because you knew each other had secrets didn’t mean you could share them.
Not that she could have any deep relationship with Gard or Sammy, because they couldn’t know the truth about her.
But they didn’t know…any of it—not that she wasn’t Lia Blair, not that she had secrets, so this didn’t feel like…anything else in her life. It felt like a fresh start. It felt like making Lia Blair…real, instead of a role she was inhabiting.
Of course, now Gard knew she was a teenage runaway, but that wasn’t particularly identifying. So, it was okay. It was all okay.
So why are you so damn nervous? And more importantly, why are you here?
Sammy greeted her with a hug, and Lia supposed that answered her question.
Sure, there was this whole weird…flirty thing with Gard, but at the end of the day, she’d fallen for Sammy hard.
It wasn’t just that she wanted to help a girl who reminded her of herself, it was that Sammy was…
great. And Lia wanted to be a part of that.
They went into the pizza place and got a booth. If Lia wasn’t totally off base, Sammy was trying to finagle Lia to have to sit next to Gard, but Lia purposefully sat at the edge of one side of the booth so that no one could sit with her. Sammy pouted.
Lia’s nerves intensified, because if that girl was trying to make something happen between her and Gard…
But Sammy picked up the menu and fixed Lia with a direct glare. “What kind of pizza toppings do you like?”
“I’m pretty easy. Nothing fishy and no mushrooms. Otherwise, I’m open to anything.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” Gard muttered.
“Okay,” Sammy said, shooting Gard a triumphant grin. “The arugula and caramelized onion with balsamic it is.”
“Wait. Balsamic?” Lia pulled a face. “On pizza?”
“Thank you,” Gard said emphatically. “See? No one wants that.”
Sammy pouted again. “It’s sophisticated. Uncle Gard has no vision,” Sammy said. “Be on my side.”
Lia looked from Gard to Sammy. “Sorry. I can’t. I think I’d rather suffer through a mushroom.”
Sammy rolled her eyes dramatically. “Someday, when I’m as far out of Wyoming as you can get, I will find people who appreciate real food.”
Lia couldn’t help but smile at the dramatics, but Gard wasn’t smiling. Lia realized he was probably thinking about Sammy talking about leaving Wyoming, and how a few years would pass by in the blink of an eye.
Ouch.
They ordered. One meat lovers for Gard and Lia to share, and Sammy got a personal-pan pizza for her, as Gard called it, abomination.
Gard made Sammy talk about what she’d learned in school, and though Sammy pretended to be irritated, Lia could see how much she enjoyed Gard’s questions. His attention. Him.
“Sarabeth is trying to talk me into joining debate, but she’s almost never there because of her sports schedule. I don’t really know anyone else on the team, and Mr. Nielson is kind of a jerk.”
“But you’d be good at it,” Lia said encouragingly. “I’m pretty sure if you and Sarabeth teamed up, you’d be unstoppable.”
Gard chuckled. “Debating is in the Fairhurst blood.”
Sammy wrinkled her nose. “Well, I don’t want to be like them.”
Gard ran a hand over her hair. “Never, kid.”
Leaving Lia to wonder just what was wrong with the Fairhurst family.
“You know, before she dropped out, even your mom went to a state competition for debate,” Gard told her.
“And you went to nationals. Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Sammy turned her gaze onto Lia. “He’s freaky smart. He was going to go to law school.”
Gard shifted, clearly uncomfortable with that tidbit. Which Lia had to admit, made her want to hear more about it.
“Is that so?” Lia replied. She could see it though. It was easy to picture him all slicked back in a power suit. Talking people into or out of things, depending on what kind of lawyer. He had that…presence about him.
“Another family tradition,” Gard said, a hint of bitterness in his tone.
“Luckily, I decided to enforce the law instead of warp it even more.” His phone trilled before he could say anything else.
“Sorry. It’s work. I have to take this. I’ll be right back.
” He slid out of the booth and stepped outside the restaurant, but they could still see him through the window.
Lia noted Sammy was frowning as he talked seriously to whoever had given him a call. Then she turned her gaze on Lia—direct and blue, just like her uncle’s.
“If he asks you out, you’d say yes, right?”
Lia felt a bit like she’d been slapped. There was certainly an odd ringing in her ears. “What?”
“Like on a date. You would, right?”
Her cheeks were burning, which was ridiculous, considering she was being questioned by a teenager. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, you like him, don’t you?”
“Sammy, I… Sure. He’s a nice guy, but that doesn’t mean…” She looked helplessly at Gard, but he was tied up in his phone conversation. And there was this whole…dinner, and the other day when she’d thought… She leaned forward, lowered her voice. “Did he say he was going to ask me out?”
“Not in so many words,” Sammy said. “He has this annoying tendency of, you know, not living his life when I’m around. And you’re not…unlike that, though it’s not about me, I know.”
“I’m living my life,” Lia said, not sure why she felt offended by a fifteen-year-old’s point of view.
Sammy studied her critically. “You just seem really…alone.”
Lia bristled, both in surprise and hurt. “I’m not alone.”
“Albennie and Franny are the only two people I ever see you talk to.”
Which wasn’t…far off the truth. Sure, there were the business meetings with Zach and the other Hope Town business owners, and the book club at the bookstore when she managed to read the book, but…yeah mostly just Albennie and Franny and mostly just at the bakery.
But Sammy didn’t need to know that. “Sammy, that’s very…sweet that you’re concerned, but you only see a fraction of my life. I have a lot of responsibilities outside the bakery, and other friends. A whole, full life.” Sort of.
Sammy frowned a little, clearly considering for the first time Lia might have a life outside of when Sammy saw her. But then she looked over at Gard, who was still outside talking on his phone.
“What’s wrong with him?” Sammy asked.
“Nothing is wrong with him.” Like, literally nothing. And wasn’t that a problem? “I’m just not…big on dating.”
“Why not?”
Because I have a secret past and you can’t really build a relationship on lies.
“Sammy, this is sweet, but…”
“Just, if he asks, give him a chance. He needs someone. Maybe you’re not alone and lonely, but he is.”
“Did he say that?”
Sammy snorted. “He’s a guy, Lia. He doesn’t realize it yet.”
Lia studied the teen, knowing she couldn’t argue with that. Still… This was a lot. She reached across the table, put her hand over Sammy’s.
“Sammy, you mean a lot to me. I wouldn’t want to complicate…anything.”
“It’s not complicated. I like you both. You like each other.
If he’s a jerk, I’ll key his truck for you.
If you’re a jerk, I’ll switch all the sugar in the bakery out for salt.
” Sammy shrugged as if anything was that simple.
“Look, he’s coming. Don’t tell him I said anything. Just say yes if he asks, okay?”
But Lia couldn’t agree or disagree because Gard was back, sliding into his seat.
“You don’t have to go in to work, do you?” Sammy asked.
Gard smiled, but Lia saw some tension behind it. She figured Sammy did too. “No. Not heading into work.”