Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
When her doorbell rang two hours later, Erin opened it to find Remy holding two grocery bags and Sarah beside him with a pastry box. A lightning strike lit up the sky behind them, brightly illuminating the father and daughter for a moment.
“Welcome! Come in before you get soaked.” She held the door wide.
“Don’t worry, Erin,” Sarah hurried inside ahead of her dad. “I’m only here in a cooking capacity. I’m completely not elbowing my way into dinner.”
Erin looked to Remy for guidance on what she meant, but he just shrugged.
“I’m really looking forward to visiting with you, too,” Erin assured her. “Of course, you’ll join us. If anything, I’m the one elbowing my way into your family dinner.”
She gestured at the kitchen and Sarah moved toward it in a rush of ponytail and black poncho fringe. Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance.
“Your kitchen is so cute!” Sarah ran a hand over the rounded lines of a yellow Frigidaire refrigerator. “Everything is so clean and modern, but retro, too. Cool, isn’t it, Dad?”
Remy nodded. “Cool and cute. Definitely.”
He winked at Erin from behind Sarah’s back.
“But to answer your question, I only offered to come so I could cook for you both,” Sarah insisted. “I owe my dad a thank-you for being patient with me when I’ve been one headache after another for him this week.”
“I tried telling her we wanted her to stay and enjoy the food she cooks,” Remy explained, setting the bags on the pale yellow-tiled kitchen counter. “But she’s on a mission.”
“Wow.” Erin checked out the pile of produce Sarah pulled from one of the grocery sacks. “Maybe we should let her run with this mission. Whatever dinner is in the works looks like it’s going to be good.”
“We stopped at a farmer’s market and everything smelled so fresh.” Sarah passed Erin a quart of strawberries. “See?”
Dutifully, Erin inhaled while Remy withdrew a bottle of wine.
Father and daughter made an easy team together in this kitchen that Sarah had never set foot in before.
It was nice to see them both in a moment where they were relaxed.
Happy, even. Erin was curious about what had happened at the police station, but didn’t want to risk breaking the mood.
“I know right where you got them.” She found a colander and tried to wash some of the fruit, but Sarah shooed her away. “You must have stopped at the farm where Ally’s boyfriend, Ethan, lives.”
“Really?” Sarah’s expressive green eyes grew wide.
“Ally told me all about Ethan’s family and how they take farming really serious.
I guess they try to live like pioneers or something, doing everything themselves.
I think it’s neat to know you have the skills to like—run away and live off the grid. ”
Remy stilled, but Sarah didn’t notice as she moved around the kitchen, turning on the oven and pulling down a cutting board from an open shelf. Another lightning flash brightened the kitchen, making Erin reach into a cupboard for a flashlight, along with some candles and matches, just in case.
“Wouldn’t you miss modern conveniences, though?” Erin asked carefully. “Like good shopping or restaurants?”
“Maybe.” She looked over her shoulder at her father. “Dad, you grew up where it was so rural you were practically off the grid. Didn’t you like it in the bayou?”
She drawled the last word with Cajun flair, making Erin realize they’d come from different walks of life in Louisiana. While Sarah had a Southern lilt to her voice that sounded different than the Heartache locals, it also didn’t sound like Remy’s thicker drawl.
“I wanted a better life than fishing could provide.” He reached for the corkscrew and went about opening the wine.
His clipped answer made Erin realize how little she knew about him outside his history with his wife.
“Did you always know you wanted to go into TV production?” she asked, sneaking a peek at the recipe Sarah had open on the digital tablet she’d propped against the flour canister.
Grabbing the fruit while Sarah was busy putting together what looked like a quiche, Erin washed and sliced the berries for the strawberry salad recipe.
“No.”
“Dad was a photographer.” Sarah whisked eggs and chopped veggies as if she’d done it a hundred times before.
Remy helped a little, but it was clear he deferred to his daughter’s cooking wisdom, tackling the jobs she assigned, like slicing tomatoes and grating fresh mozzarella cheese.
“What made you change fields?” Erin found a big bowl for the strawberries and added mandarin oranges.
“I just followed the opportunities that came up,” he replied with a shrug.
“Mom always said it would have been hard to have two artists in the family, although I never understood why.” Sarah slid the quiche into the oven. Then, noticing that Erin had assembled the salad, she beamed. “Erin! You didn’t have to do all that.”
“Happy to help. The recipe looks great.” She tried to piece together Remy’s creative roots while the teen cleaned up the kitchen. Had his wife really discouraged his photography career because there couldn’t be two artists in a family?
Erin wondered why Liv had thought that? Did two similar temperaments clash? Or would two artists mean too little income?
But that was a cynical thought.
She tried to focus on Sarah’s chatter as she worked.
Erin didn’t think most eighteen-year-olds—even if they knew how to cook—took the time to wash the prep dishes and wipe down the countertops, but Sarah worked with smooth efficiency.
Because she was in a hurry to leave? Or was it simple practice from managing the household for her father?
“Okay, I’m out of here,” she announced when she was done. She kissed Remy on the cheek. “Ally will be here to pick me up any second. I just texted her.”
“You really can’t stay and share the feast?” Erin asked, genuinely disappointed. She appreciated the insights she’d gotten about Remy and was enjoying getting to know his daughter better.
“Ally and I are going to do our fingernails with some manicure art stuff she got at The Strand.” Sarah wriggled her bare digits for emphasis. “I guess her house is super nearby?”
She peered out the window into the dark.
“Right over there.” Erin pointed. There were fields between her house and her mother’s and Scott and Bethany’s, but they were still close enough to see lights in one another’s windows. “You could have jogged if it wasn’t starting to pour.”
“Oh, I see her taillights! She’s backing out now.” Sarah whirled around and gave Erin a hug, her hair silky smooth and apple scented. “Hope you like the quiche!”
“I’m going to love it. Thank you so much.” Erin walked her to the front door. Rain spattered through the screen despite the deep overhang on the porch. “Want an umbrella?”
“No. I’ll be fine. See you at the shoot tomorrow. And remind Dad that Ally’s taking me back to the B and B after?”
“Of course.” Erin waved at Ally as her niece pulled into the driveway. “Have fun.”
When she closed the door behind her, the house seemed unusually quiet. Remy stood in the dim hallway between her and the kitchen, his shoulders backlit in a way that put him in shadow.
Even the outline of him was handsome with his square shoulders and narrow hips. He wore a blue dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up and the collar unbuttoned.
“She sure fills a house, doesn’t she?” Erin accepted the glass of wine Remy held out to her, their fingers brushing briefly in the exchange.
“Always has.” Remy lifted his glass in the direction of the front door. “And cheers to her for that or I would have lost my mind long before now.”
Erin understood that now, having had the chance to see them together. While Remy obviously excelled at his job, Sarah had more than held her own on the home front. They seemed to have a good relationship, but when Erin thought about what they’d been through together, she ached for them both.
She nodded at the love seat in the front room and Remy followed her there, taking a seat beside her. She didn’t bother turning on the lights. The lightning outside the window provided a spectacular show.
“Where did she learn to cook like that?” Erin settled deeper into the leather cushions, making her feet comfortable on the rattan coffee table while they waited for their dinner to bake.
“Self-taught, I guess. She’s always had an interest in cuisine, but she truly started cooking with a vengeance once it was just her and me.”
Erin’s throat dried up as she pictured a grieving girl learning how to cook to feed herself and her father.
“She’s been very good to you,” she observed quietly before taking a sip of the pinot grigio Remy had brought. “I didn’t want to ask in front of her, but I’ve been wondering how things went at the police station.”
“They kept the letter. Initially, Sarah didn’t want to see what it said, but after I read it and the police did, too, we encouraged her to take a look.”
“You said it wasn’t threatening.” That’s as much as he’d offered in his text.
“No.” His jaw tensed. Even in the lightning flashes, she could see the hard set to his profile.
“He apologized for sharing anything about her mother with—” is hand fisted on the sofa beside her “—others. He said he didn’t expect her to ever forgive him, but he wanted her to know he was sorry for that and for not being a part of her life. ”
The words were halting as if each one stuck in his throat.
“It sounded sincere?” She tried to reconcile her vision of Liv Weldon—the artist for whom Remy had sacrificed his photography to provide her with more opportunities—with Sarah’s felon biological father.
Surely, the man must have some redeeming qualities to have wooed a woman like Liv in the first place.
“I thought so. And, as you can imagine, I searched for any turn of phrase that could be construed as malicious or remotely insensitive.”