When Doves Lament (Love Birds #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all had clearly never been divorced. The moment Max McAllister signed the divorce papers his ex-wife’s lawyer had drawn up, he’d sworn off love for good.

Well, romantic love at least. His love for his children was apparent in the way he hoped each of them would have a more successful marriage than he’d had. As his son danced with his new bride, Max sent up a short prayer that the next generation of McAllisters wouldn’t screw things up the way he had.

“Your mother would have loved this,” he whispered to his daughter, Lanie, as they stood on the sidelines.

“I’m sure she’s here in spirit.” Lanie’s hazel eyes glistened.

It’d been over a year since his ex-wife had died. Despite being divorced for more than a decade, he’d been by her side at the end.

“And I’m sure she’s anxious to see you join your brother in marital bliss.” Max slid his arm around his daughter and squeezed her shoulders. Her eyebrows rose in apparent surprise, and he pulled away gruffly. He supposed he deserved her reaction. They’d never been particularly close, a reality he was working to rectify since she’d moved back in with him. Besides, as far as affectionate parents went, that had been more Melody’s area than his.

“What about you, Dad? Are you sure you don’t want to give marriage another try?”

He snorted. “Definitely not. Once burnt twice shy, as they say.”

“I believe the saying is once bitten .”

“Sentiment’s the same,” he grumbled.

“The bride and groom invite everyone to join them on the dance floor,” the DJ announced.

“Want to practice for the father–daughter dance?” Lanie lifted her arms, but Max waved a hand.

“I don’t need to practice. I’ve been dancing since before you were born.” As he spoke, his daughter’s fiancé, Nate, walked up behind them. “This one, on the other hand, could probably use all the help he could get.”

“Thanks for that,” Nate muttered, pushing his dark-brown hair out of his face.

“You’re better company, anyway,” Lanie stage-whispered as she slid her hand through Nate’s arm and led him away.

Max crossed his arms and leaned back against the pillar, surveying the reception. The wedding almost hadn’t happened. His son, Steven, had suffered a heart attack a few months before. The doctors and Steven’s nurse fiancée, Rose, had warned him to take it easy, but Steven hadn’t heeded their advice. When he ended up back in the hospital, a frustrated Rose had broken their engagement.

Thankfully, Steven had seen the light and made choices that saved not only his relationship and the wedding but also his life. While he still had a long road to recovery, Max trusted his son would get there in the end.

Watching his children dance with their partners took him back to his own wedding. He and Melody were barely more than children themselves, having married when they were only nineteen. They’d been together since they were thirteen and hadn’t seen the point in waiting any longer. But on reflection, he wished they had. Maybe if they’d left the small town of Cedar Haven and gone away to college, gained more life experience, things might have been different.

Well, no point dwelling on it now. Max ordered a soda at the bar. The bartender raised an eyebrow.

“Not much of a drinker,” Max said, though he wasn’t sure why he felt the need to explain himself. Still, he was probably the only person at the wedding who wasn’t imbibing.

Drink in hand, he headed to his seat. Steven and Rose had opted for a sweetheart table, which meant Max had been seated with Nate, Lanie, and—his jaw clenched—that blasted wedding coordinator, Carissa. But as he approached his chair, he breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the empty table.

If he never saw that woman again after the wedding, it would be too soon. After she’d vetoed every one of his suggestions for a rehearsal dinner spot, he’d appealed to his son in hopes that someone would be on his side. In the end, they’d compromised on an elegant restaurant on the edge of town. The cost was more than Max had expected to pay, but he was glad a local establishment had won over one of the many overused chains Carissa had suggested.

He checked his watch, relieved it was half past seven in the evening. About an hour to go before the bride and groom would make their grand escape, then he hoped to make his own. Weddings weren’t really his thing, and he was already dreading going through it all over again in a couple of months with Lanie. Two kids married. Who would have thought he would be the only parent to witness it?

“Ah, Melody,” he whispered. “They’ve done you proud.”

A few hours later, the hall was clean. Max and Lanie walked outside, and Max took a deep breath of late-August evening air. Soon, the torturous hot and humid days typical of a Maryland summer would give way to the crisp, cool autumn he preferred.

When they reached the car, Max handed Lanie the keys. At her questioning look, he shrugged. “I’m too tired to drive.”

She climbed into the driver’s side. As they drove home from the church, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. In a few months, she would be married as well and leave his home for good. Despite his love of solitude, he wasn’t sure what he might do with himself when he was alone again. She’d been living with him for about six months, since her mother’s house had sold in March, and he’d gotten used to having her around.

“I can practically smell the smoke from whatever has your head spinning,” she joked, turning down Main Street and passing Bea’s Diner.

He laughed. “Nothing in particular.” The last thing he wanted to do was make her worry about him. Besides, she would only be moving a few streets over. Much better than across the country to California, which was where she’d originally planned to go after settling her mom’s estate.

“Could have fooled me,” she murmured as she pulled into his driveway.

With a sigh, he unbuckled his seat belt. “I’m going to miss your cooking when you move out.” He gave her a wry smile. “Stouffer’s has nothing on you.”

“I’m sure Nate and I will invite you over all the time.” She climbed out of the car, opened the trunk, and grabbed her suitcase after spending the night before with Rose. “And it’s not like you don’t know how to cook.”

“Nate told me you called my burgers hockey pucks once.”

A laugh bubbled out of her throat. “Well, he’s one to talk. His cooking isn’t much better than yours.”

“But it is better?” Max followed her up the driveway to the house.

“Only marginally.” With a wink, she unlocked the front door and flicked on the light. They both sighed simultaneously, relieved to be home.

“I’m glad that’s over.” Lanie kicked off her shoes and flung herself into a recliner. “Now, I understand why people only get married once.” Realizing what she’d said, she bit her lip and glanced at him. “Er, I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean?—”

He waved a hand. “Bah, don’t worry about me.” After sinking into his chair, he propped his feet up. “Besides, I did only get married once.”

“Thus far.” She nudged his foot with her toe.

As if she hadn’t spoken, he asked, “How are the plans going for your wedding?”

“Better now we’ve switched the date to around Christmas.”

“I never saw you as a Christmas bride.”

“I didn’t expect to be one either,” she admitted. “But we wanted to get married by the end of the year.”

“Why the rush?”

Her eyes took on a distant look, and a small smile lifted her lips. “Have you ever heard that saying, ‘When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start right now?’” At his head shake, she sighed. “Nate has always been my person. It just took me a few years to realize it. And now that I have, I can’t wait to make up for lost time by building a life with him.”

Max stared at his hands, unsure how to respond. It brought up memories he would rather forget, like how he’d felt much the same way when he’d proposed to Lanie’s mother. How she’d enthusiastically agreed to be his wife. And how those strong feelings his daughter described had led to a marriage for which neither one of them was prepared.

But Lanie was different. For starters, she wasn’t nineteen. She’d finished a master’s degree, had seen more of the world than he had at her age, and unlike Max and Melody, she’d dated other people.

Still, there was a reason Melody had opposed Lanie’s relationship with Nate. Her worst fear was that Lanie would follow in their footsteps, sinking into the same mistakes and patterns that led to their divorce. Melody had wanted a better life for Lanie and made her daughter promise to leave Cedar Haven and never look back.

Then Melody got sick, and Lanie dropped everything to come home to care for her. During that time, Melody had come to regret the promise she’d extracted from Lanie. It was as if the reality of her own demise had caused her to reevaluate her past choices. She’d gone so far as contacting Nate, but in true Melody fashion, she’d taken a situation that required nothing more than a simple apology and explanation and complicated it.

Max shook the thoughts from his head. “I don’t want you to rush into anything. You’ve just started your career.”

“We’re not rushing into it.” She tilted her head. “Like I said, we lost so much time in the intervening years after I left for college.”

“But you have your whole life ahead of you.”

Lanie took a deep breath, and Max started to worry he’d said the wrong thing—again. The tense silence that followed reminded him of their phone call around the same time the previous year. Lanie had told him she planned to move to California with James, her boyfriend at the time. In the heat of the moment, Max had called her decision a disappointment, which had led to a huge misunderstanding.

“I want what’s best for you.”

His daughter’s face softened. “I know you do. I only wish you’d trust me. Nate and I have discussed the future a lot.” A flush crept over her cheeks. “And the past. But, Daddy, I’ve loved him since before I truly understood what that meant.”

It was the way she said “Daddy” that stopped Max in his tracks. She might not be a child anymore, but somehow, she would always be his little girl. Even though she was twenty-four, he still wanted to step in and protect her from the consequences of her decisions.

The conversation was getting too emotional for his tastes. “I’m going to bed.” With a grunt, he hoisted himself off the chair and headed toward the stairs.

“Good night, Dad.” The disappointment in Lanie’s tone caused a pang in his chest.

Their relationship had never been easy. His job required him to work long hours away from home, and he’d missed a lot of her childhood. While he tried to make it up to her with extravagant gifts, making sure she wanted for nothing, his efforts never seemed to be enough.

Then their arguments over the last year about her choice to move to California had exacerbated the cracks in their relationship. He’d pushed her to her breaking point by trying to convince her to stay in Cedar Haven, not because he couldn’t bear life without her but because he thought it was best for her. In the end, she’d come around but at a price. Max worried the reason she was in such a rush to marry Nate had less to do with love and more to do with desperation to get away from him .

The next morning, Max awoke to the delectable scent of fried bacon wafting up from the kitchen. It reminded him of Sunday mornings during his marriage, when his wife would make breakfast for the whole family. Was his daughter trying to recreate those happier days?

When he entered the kitchen, Lanie thrust a plate of scrambled eggs and toast into his hands before returning to the stove. It wasn’t the warm greeting he’d hoped for, but she’d made him breakfast, so he kept his thoughts to himself. Still, he couldn’t help the way his face scrunched up in disappointment at the lack of bacon on his plate.

“What are your plans for the day?” He pulled out his chair at the end of the table and sat, subtly reaching for the salt shaker.

But Lanie got there first and replaced it with pepper. “Don’t even think about it. Your blood pressure can’t handle it.”

With a harrumph, he sprinkled pepper on his eggs. Maybe her moving out wouldn’t be so bad after all. At least then, he could eat whatever he wanted in peace.

“That’s the last time you accompany me to a doctor’s appointment.” He scooped up a bite of eggs and closed his eyes. At least she’d added cheese and a dash of hot sauce, just the way he liked them.

To his surprise, she laughed. “You forget, you signed a HIPAA waiver for me to view your medical records. And I already told Dr. Carson to keep me informed if your blood pressure continues to skyrocket.” Before he could respond, she added, “Anyway, to answer your earlier question, Nate and I are meeting with a potential caterer this afternoon.”

That caught his attention. He’d been trying to figure out a way to discreetly become more involved in her wedding and thus spend more time with her, but she’d resisted his help. “Mind if I join you?”

She turned from the stove with a raised eyebrow. “Are you only going for the free lunch?”

“Of course not,” he retorted, though as he thought about it, that sounded a lot more appetizing than trying to find anything edible on the special diet his doctor had recommended.

“Mm-hmm,” Lanie muttered, clearly not convinced.

“I want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth.” He took a bite of his toast. “Not that you’ll let me help you with that.”

His daughter visibly stiffened. “Dad, we’ve been over this.” Her voice sounded strained, and she took a deep breath. “Nate and I want to pay for this ourselves. It’s important to us to have the wedding we want and remain within the budget we set.”

Though she didn’t say it outright, he could hear the underlying meaning in her words, and he resented them. “I know what Rose told you, but I did not insist their wedding had to be done my way. All I asked that crazy wedding planner for was a say in the rehearsal dinner, which is trad?—”

“Traditionally hosted by the groom’s family,” Lanie finished in a poor attempt at imitating him as she glanced over her shoulder. “And in their situation, I understand why you stepped in. After Steven’s accident, they needed the financial assistance. We don’t.”

Apparently, he’d made that argument too many times before. Perhaps he needed to try a different tactic. He scooped up another mouthful of eggs and chewed to buy him time. When he failed to come up with anything she wouldn’t immediately counter, he decided to try honesty.

“Look, I want to spend some time with you. You’ve been gone for most of the last six years, and even when you were home with your mother, you were busy taking care of her. I barely saw you.”

“Okay, you can come today.” Then she pointed the spatula at him. “But you better behave.”

“I’m not a child,” he protested.

As she slid an omelet onto her plate, she mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like she was asking whether he was sure about that.