Ember #2
Darby had an assessing look in her eyes that looked startlingly familiar. She had her father’s sharp mind, that was for sure. She walked up beside me and peeked into the pot. “Smells good.”
“Should be ready in a minute or two.”
“Set the table, Darbs,” Jack said before approaching me. He nodded at the food. “You didn’t have to do that. Or that,” he said, nodding to the kitchen at large. “I was going to clean up as soon as I was done talking to Darby.”
“You had more important things to deal with,” I said, forking a spaghetti noodle out of the pot to test it for doneness.
He grunted, watching me, then flicked his gaze to his daughter.
She had the cutlery out, so he grabbed some plates from the cupboard and set them beside me.
He dipped out of my way as I moved to drain the pasta in the colander I’d set in the sink, then grabbed a serving spoon while I dealt with the noodles.
It was easy, I realized. Easy to be around the two of them. Easy to move in the kitchen without a word. Easy to sit down at the table and watch them take their first bites.
Darby was the first to speak. She reached for the parmesan and started sprinkling as she told me, “This is really good. You can stay.”
I couldn’t help the snort that escaped me. “Well. Thank you.”
Jack shot his daughter a fond, exasperated glance, then met my gaze. His expression was guarded but warm. “Thanks for cooking.”
I shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. “I enjoy it. I don’t get to cook for other people very often, so it’s no trouble.”
“Is that why you signed up for the arranged marriage thing my great-grandma set up?” Darby asked before stuffing her face with noodles. She chewed a bit and added, “Because you have no friends?”
“Darby,” her father warned.
She swallowed and gave him big eyes. “What?”
“No, it’s a fair question,” I interrupted when Jack opened his mouth to say something else. “What… What did your dad tell you about our arrangement?”
Darby shot me a quick glance, then looked at her plate again. “That it isn’t real, but he’s doing it to keep Grandma happy.”
“Right.”
“And that you’re paying him lots of money to marry him because you’re desperate.”
“…right.”
“That’s not exactly what I told you, Darbs,” Jack cut in.
“Close enough!” the teen shot back. “Am I wrong?”
She looked at me, challenging. I blinked, then glanced at Jack, who was pinching the bridge of his nose. He dropped his palms to the table and stood. “Wine?” he asked me.
“Um. Sure.”
Jack’s chair rattled on the tiles as he pushed it back and stalked across the kitchen to the corner cabinet.
I turned back to Darby. “Your father and I have a contract,” I said. “And no matter what Nurse Doris or anyone else says, you absolutely don’t have to call me your stepmom or anything.”
I very nearly shuddered. There wasn’t a motherly bone in my body. I was not signing up to be this girl’s replacement mom, no matter how many times I’d wished for one when I was her age.
Darby’s gaze shuttered, and she dropped it to her food. She didn’t say anything, and I cringed, glancing up when Jack set a wine glass beside me. The red liquid glugged out of the bottle and splashed up the sides as he filled it up way past the point where proper wine drinkers usually stopped.
“Thanks,” I said, staring at the vat of red wine he’d just poured me.
He nodded, pouring himself a similar glass. We ate in relative silence, and then Darby got up, put her plate in the dishwasher, and left the kitchen.
“Darby,” Jack called, waiting for her to pause halfway down the hallway. “Have you practiced today?”
She let out an almighty groan, then stomped to the living room, leaving Jack and me alone.
A moment later, the sounds of a piano began to echo in the house.
Darby started with major and minor scales, playing them so loudly it felt like a message.
After a few minutes, a classical piece began to filter down the hallway, coming to us in stops and starts with stumbles every few moments, punctuated by teenage sighs.
I took a sip of wine, shocked to realize I was almost at the bottom of my glass.
It was dry but not puckeringly so. Surprisingly easy to drink, even though I knew I shouldn’t have been drinking anything at all.
I’d be back on the road tomorrow, probably, and it would be three more days of driving. Not fun to do with a hangover.
Jack refilled my glass and, in a low voice that wouldn’t be heard by Darby over the sound of the piano, he said, “I’m not sure this arrangement is a good idea.”
Despite the fact that I agreed, my heart sank. Rejection was familiar, but it still hurt. I nodded. “I understand.”
“Darby seems like a tough kid, but she’s sensitive.”
I glanced at the door where his daughter had disappeared, a pinch forming in the center of my chest. I knew what it felt like to hide behind a hard exterior.
Most people thought I was cold. Frigid. Emotionless.
But the truth was, I’d learned to hide. My gaze slid back to Jack, and I wondered if his daughter was having the same experience I’d had with my dad.
If her household was as emotionally repressed and steeped in resentment as mine had been.
Then I looked around the kitchen again, and I knew it wasn’t. Jack loved her in a way my father had never loved me.
“If this is going to work, she can’t get attached to you.”
I blinked. That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. “You still want to move forward with this?” I gestured between us.