Chapter Eleven
Gard helped Lia into his truck and then they started to drive out to Fairmont. Lia asked how dropping off Sammy at the party had gone, and Gard asked about her day at the bakery. Conversation was easy, even if there was a strange layer of nerves over it.
He didn’t generally get nervous about dates, but it was easy to realize why he was in this moment.
Gard had never really entertained serious before.
He realized in this moment that even when he’d been a kid, there’d always been something else that required his attention—good grades, getting into law school, then Dani and Sammy.
Even when Dani had her life together, his demanding, ever-changing work schedule that sometimes required overtime at the drop of the hat often caused relationships to peter out.
Dating was easy. Relationships weren’t. Particularly when he devoted so much time to his job and Dani and Sammy.
Lia was hardly just a date. And still, somehow everything felt easy with her. Even working around Sammy’s schedule. It wasn’t like Lia was some separate part to be added on top of everything else. It was like she slotted right in.
Gard could admit it wasn’t the most comfortable realization. If he thought too hard on it, he got a little nervous. Like every little step with Lia was stamping his future in stone.
But that was silly. Life was full of choices—including ones that could change everything at the drop of the hat. He knew that better than most. There was no avoiding it. Choices came at you whether you wanted them to or not.
Besides, he hadn’t been lying about the wow. Sure, Lia always looked pretty. He’d been attracted to her from the start, but her hair down softened…something. It added to this layer of vulnerable he’d seen under that tough outer mask she wore.
Maybe there was something twisted in him, but he liked the dichotomy. He thought it spoke to courage. He respected the hell out of courage.
The restaurant wasn’t upscale exactly—he didn’t think Lia would have been comfortable with that any more than he would be—but it was a few steps up from HJs.
She sat across from him in the dim light, studying the menu. “Sammy told me she was disappointed in my palate. Which made me think I should try something new, but…”
“Have you been having nightmares about the cheese sauce like I have?”
She laughed, grinning up at him over her menu. “That and the peas in the potpie. They might be my two food archnemeses.”
“Peas and bad cheese sauce. Mushrooms and fishy pizza toppings. Got it.”
Her grin faded a little bit, but not in a bad way. Like she was surprised he remembered what she’d said at the pizza place about what toppings she liked.
Which hadn’t even been a conscious choice. Just like he’d been telling himself before. Lia just…slotted right in.
They ordered and settled into an easy conversation that mostly revolved around Sammy. Her interests at the bakery. And the things she wasn’t interested in. Like cleaning. Gard didn’t mind focusing on Sammy to ease their way in, but it meant he wasn’t quite expecting it when Lia changed the subject.
“Why did you decide not to go to law school?” she asked, like that was a question that had been sitting in her head since Sammy had told her about it last weekend. “Was it because of Sammy?”
Gard considered. He knew all the reasons. He’d had to mine them in family therapy. But he wasn’t always sure he knew how to articulate them. “Yes, but not quite in the way you mean. It wasn’t just to…support them. It was a choice I made for me too.”
“You didn’t want to be a lawyer?”
“I’m honestly not sure. It was just always a given.
Dad’s a lawyer. Grandpa’s a judge. Great-Grandpa was a lawyer, judge, and state senator.
And so on. So it was just always…expected.
I probably would have been good at it. I might have even liked it, but…
more than what I liked or would have been good at, Dani getting pregnant was the turning point of me realizing I needed to do something on my own.
Without the Fairhurst name or Dad’s interference. ”
“You said Dani was good at debate. Was she planning on law school too?”
Gard shook his head. “No. There were expectations for Dani too, but…well, they were different for the female Fairhurst. Her role wasn’t to be anybody. It was to look perfect and find the right husband.”
Lia got a little still at that, so he hurried on so she didn’t think he subscribed to that way of thinking.
“Even back then, I thought they were a little old-fashioned, but I was also young and selfish and thought Dani was…overreacting when she complained about the difference. Being a baby or a girl or whatever insult worked. When she’d complain about that stuff, I didn’t really listen. My life was just fine, you know.”
Lia nodded, but of course she didn’t know. She’d run away from home at fifteen. A story he really wanted to hear. Which probably meant laying his out there. It was only fair.
“Dani always…rebelled against their expectations, but it got pretty bad in high school. I was off at college in Michigan. I didn’t consider what she was doing addiction-wise then.
So she drank socially and underage? I had.
The pot was a little bit of a concern, but I just figured she was trying to shock our parents.
And I knew me telling her not to wasn’t going to accomplish anything. I thought she’d…grow out of it.”
It still sat with the weight of guilt that he’d been so…self-absorbed. That he hadn’t answered Dani’s calls for help until…
“When she found out she was pregnant, I was the first person she told. Well, aside from the asshole boyfriend of hers. She wanted to run away but needed help. I sure as hell didn’t know what to do, but I really thought running away wasn’t the answer.
So, I convinced her to tell our parents.
We planned it for when I was home on break, so I could go with her.
I knew they’d be furious, but I thought…
I really thought I could reason with them.
Maybe they wouldn’t listen to her, but they always listened to me. ”
“But not this time?”
He shook his head. “They gave her two choices. Have an abortion or never step foot in their home again.”
Lia’s breath caught, clearly commiserating with Dani. So Gard kept going.
“They were so…cold in that moment. Here Dani was, crying and scared and just…a kid. And they were treating her like an employee who’d stolen from them.
” Gard shook his head. “It was like watching their masks get stripped off in real time. All these things I’d never paid attention to, never poked at, just let slide…
I couldn’t pretend anymore for the sake of peace or ease or whatever. ”
He blew out a breath. He supposed it was heavy stuff for a first date, but these weren’t exactly normal first-date protocols when Lia had been wrapped up in his and Sammy’s life for the past two months now.
“After that, I told Dani I was going to take care of everything. Because she was young and scared. She needed someone to be an adult. I didn’t decide not to go to law school in the fall just because I couldn’t really help Dani if I was in school.
It was bigger than that. My parents’ behavior in that moment opened my eyes to who they really were and who I would be if I followed the plan they set out for me.
It was like wearing blinders my whole life and having them ripped off.
I wanted to be there for Dani, but more…
I didn’t want to be the kind of man who let his sister suffer because he’d had it all right.
Who fell in line with parents who could be so cruel to their own daughter. ”
“So from there on out it was you and Dani against the world?”
“Pretty much. Even that… It was all easier on me. The police academy was a good fit. Challenging, but it felt…right. After Sammy was born, Dani suffered from postpartum depression, and we didn’t really have the resources to know what that was at the time.
I was busy trying to get through the academy, so when she fell into harder drugs…
Well, it was just a tough time. I got her into rehab about the time I got my job at county. ”
“It seems to fit you. Police work, that is. Franny said Royal says you’re great. Do you—”
He could see she was letting him off the hook from having to get too deep into Dani’s drug addiction, but he wasn’t about to keep talking about himself. Not when he knew she had stories of her own.
“Before we get into my job, it’s your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
“To tell me your story. Why’d you run away and never go back?”
Lia blinked at him. She’d been so wrapped up in his story—his honesty—she hadn’t prepared herself for the turnaround.
She should have. She should have been protecting herself, because she couldn’t be as honest as he was being. Of course, she’d given Sammy pieces of her childhood, hadn’t she? She could give him those pieces at least.
The hard part was…actually wanting to give him the whole. He’d been so open and honest—she knew, because he hadn’t painted himself as Dani’s savior. She could see the way he felt guilty, even if he shouldn’t, for being a bit of a self-absorbed brother before Dani had gotten pregnant.
But he’d stepped up when he’d realized. And for Sammy’s whole life, he’d been there. Being the hero, whether he saw it that way or not. Lia did, and she knew Sammy did too—even when she was mad at him and not wanting to be grateful for him.
So, even though it gave her pause, Lia told him what she’d told Sammy.
About never really knowing her parents because of their drug problem.
How she’d been raised mostly by her aunt and uncle.
But since Gard knew she had run away, and he wasn’t a vulnerable teen she was afraid of influencing, she figured she could give him a few details into that too.