Dating a Single Dad (25 page)

It was probably nothing. It wasn’t like he’d been getting enough sleep lately to be working with a clear head. But until he had a better handle on it, he thought it might be smarter to avoid her.

Though when he spied the Saab sitting in his parking lot, he almost would have preferred Brynn.

Carter had his hands in his pockets and his head down as he picked his way through the tangle of sticks and wires.

“Careful,” Hank called. “You don’t want to fall someplace you have no right landing.”

Judging from the way Carter flushed, Hank’s meaning hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“I know you think I’m an ass—”

“Oh, I’d say it goes a lot further than just thinking.” Hank picked up a slab of limestone, eyed it critically. “Come to think of it,
ass
is a pretty mild description, too.”

“Believe it or not, Hank, there’s nothing you can say that’s worse than what I’ve said to myself every minute of the day for the past year.”

“A year?” He hadn’t expected that one. “But that was before Ian left.”

Carter placed a hand on the smooth hunk of stone that was currently on top of the portion in progress. “Probably longer, if you want to know the truth. There was always something special about Taylor, but the timing was never right—she was in school, then I was in law school, and there were other people in there. By the time I was done with law school and came back, she was with Ian.” He pressed down on the rock. “My God, Hank, you have to believe I never meant for this to happen. I tried to make it stop. I saw other women, I stayed away from her, I spent extra time with Ian when he was here to help me remember that he’s my brother.... I did everything I could except move, and I was even going to do that once Ian came back.”

“So what changed?” Hank didn’t want to feel sorry for Carter, but damn, if what he was saying was true, it was hard to keep him firmly in the villain camp.

“What changed was that I could see she wasn’t happy. Then Moxie sent me to that conference, and Taylor was doing her damnedest to avoid me and I decided I had to know.”

“You took a hell of a chance.” Hank wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or distressed by that gamble, so he opted to stick with confusion. “Did you think she would ditch Ian and run off with you, all from one little conversation?” At least, he hoped it was just a conversation.

“She had already decided to leave Ian. She said she was on the verge months ago, but Brynn talked her into giving it another shot.”

The worst thing she ever did was listen to me.

No. He couldn’t let Brynn into his head now.

“She went along with it because she thought maybe it would work and everyone could end up happy. Except she didn’t know that I...” He picked up a small bit of limestone and threw it hard, sending it sailing through the air.

“It sucks all around, Hank. I know that. I hated myself, called God some pretty sick names, let poor Jenny in Accounting think we were going somewhere when all I was doing was using her... If there was a good way to handle this, I didn’t find it. I’ve been such an ass that I don’t understand how anyone could even put up with me, but she does. She loves me, Hank. And believe it or not, knowing that is enough to make all the other shit worth it.”

Believe that one? Yeah. He did. After all, how many times had he himself found himself thinking that meetings and rehearsals were easier to get through because they gave him a chance to hang with Brynn? And that hadn’t even been love, just sex and laughs. The real thing would probably take over a life. Transform it. Make a man look at everything in a whole new way.

Kind of like what Moxie had said this morning about him.

Hank whirled around and blindly chose a piece of stone, glad for the ache in his arm when he lifted it too fast. It beat the hell out of thinking about what Moxie had been implying.

“So why are you here?”

“First, to apologize for last night. For being an ass in general and for what I said about you and Brynn. I know you were trying to keep that under wraps and—”

“Save your breath. There’s nothing to wrap or unwrap.”

“Really?”

“Really. And I have a lot of work to do, so if you have anything else to say, could you spit it out and move on?”

“I’m flying to Charlottetown tonight.”

Hank set the stone down too fast and narrowly missed pinching his fingers. “Son of a— What the hell, Car?”

“Moxie marched into my office and read me the riot act. She said... Well, to be honest, most of it didn’t make sense. She kept going on about splinters and infections and—anyway, she made me see that keeping quiet, pretending, could be worse in the long run than being honest.”

“Sure. I bet Ian would say so, too.”

“No, he didn’t.”

That one left Hank gaping. “You told him?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s my brother. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life resenting him for something that wasn’t his fault.”

“But why would you—” Hank began, then shook his head. “Let me guess. Moxie?”

“It made more sense when she said it.”

That, Hank could believe.

“How is he?”

Carter gave the limestone a shove, setting it wobbling. “About how you’d expect.”

“But you’re going to Charlottetown anyway?”

“Yeah. I am. And if I’m luckier than I deserve to be, I’ll be staying there with Taylor.”

Hank was getting tired of feeling like he’d just taken a fist to the gut.

“It’s the only way,” Carter continued. “We can’t be here, not with Ian. Nothing good could come of that. Maybe in a few years, once we’ve all had time to get past this...” Carter made a strangled sort of noise that Hank assumed was supposed to be a laugh. “Listen to me. Making plans when Taylor doesn’t even know I’m coming out there.”

“So help me, Carter, if you don’t stop dropping bombs on me, I’m gonna shove one of these rocks onto your foot. And I don’t think fancy lawyer shoes have steel toes.”

Carter’s grin was a mere shadow of its usual warmth, but it was familiar enough to set something a bit more securely inside Hank.

“Let me get this straight. You and Taylor have a thing—”

“It’s called love, little brother. We’re out of elementary school. You can say it.”

“Whatever. So you’ve had a thing for her, and you waited too long to man up and talk to her, but you finally did. She decided to do the honorable thing so she broke up with Ian and moved away. But now Moxie has a splinter and that means you had to spill it all on Ian, and you’re flying to Charlottetown to talk to a woman who doesn’t even know you’re on your way?”

Carter’s eyes flitted back and forth as if reading some internal script before he nodded. “In a nutshell.”

“Nutshell. Huh. That sounds pretty accurate.”

“Yeah, it does.”

They both fell silent. Hank squinted at the limestone in front of him, pretending to be noting its shape and size when all he wanted to do was grab it and hold on, because it sure as hell was the only solid thing about this day.

At last Carter spoke. “I know it’s a lot to take in. My head is still spinning, and I’ve gone over it more times than I care to count today, what with Moxie and Ian and Cash and Mom and Dad. But I just keep coming back to something Moxie said—something about, sometimes the only way out of something is to go straight through it.”

“Say what?”

“When Taylor and I decided that nothing could ever come of this—well, we were trying to go around the problem. We thought that if she left, if we kept quiet, then we—the North family—could move on. Except I still love her. That could turn into the elephant in the room someday, and God, Hank, I don’t want to lose Taylor but I don’t want to lose my brother, either. The only way we can get past this is to drag it out in the open, admit it’s there and then find the way through.”

Accept and move on.

Oh, God. Had she been right?

He inhaled, short and sharp. There was a difference between moving on from a bad situation and plain running away. Wasn’t there?

“I gotta be honest, Car. I don’t like any of this.” Especially the fact that he wasn’t sure if he were talking about Carter or himself. “But I think you have a point.”

“Thanks.”

“And I hope— Well, I hope I don’t see you soon. Know what I mean?”

A sad sort of grin split Carter’s face. “I think that’s one of the nicest things anyone has said to me all day.”

“Yeah, well, don’t let it go to your head.” Hank glanced up at the sun. “I’d better get back to work now. It’ll be time to get Millie pretty soon.”

“Yeah. Say goodbye to her for me?”

Oh, that was going to be a picnic. Millie was still trying to understand why Brynn had moved out and Taylor wasn’t going to be Auntie Taylor anymore, and now he was going to have to explain that the aunt thing might happen after all.

“I will. But the way things have been changing around here, I might start by telling her you’re on vacation.”

“Can’t blame you for that one.” Carter shifted. “I’ll get out of here, then. Bye, Hank. I’ll keep you posted.”

Hank nodded. “Have a safe flight.”

Carter stepped forward, hesitated and turned around. Hands in his pockets, he trudged back toward his car.

Hank looked from his brother to the wall taking shape beside him.

“Shit.”

He pulled off his work gloves and sprinted down the path. “Car! Wait up!”

When Carter turned around, the hope on his face was almost more than Hank could stand to see. He solved the problem by throwing his arms around Carter.

“Good luck.” He thumped Carter on the back, hard.

Carter nodded against his shoulder. Hank was pretty sure he knew why his well-spoken brother was staying silent.

After a moment, he stepped back, his hands still gripping Carter’s shoulders. “One piece of advice.”

Carter cleared his throat. “Yeah?”

“If you want to make this work, for the love of God, keep your hands off her Pop-Tarts.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I
T
WAS
THE
damned tulips that did her in.

Brynn was holding it together fairly well, all things considered, until she arrived at Sam and Libby’s on Sunday night for a quick visit. She had way too many tasks on her list to be paying a visit to anyone other than contractors, electricians or vendors, but apparently Casey had started believing she was gone again. She would be leaving soon enough. She didn’t need to cause her one and only nephew extra distress right now.

She rearranged her schedule, woke an extra hour early to deal with some of the never-ending emails, did a quick site check—taking care to time it for when she knew Hank and Millie would be at church—and then drove to Sam’s place. She pulled into her usual spot and hopped out of the car with a determined smile on her face. She would be cheerful, dammit. Cheerful and laughing and totally focused on Casey, who needed her.

Nice to know someone still did. Though if she were being honest, she would have to admit that Casey wasn’t the neediest one in this equation.

But as she walked down the rock-lined path to the house, her eye was caught by a burst of color beneath the leafy maple. The first tulips had opened. Fiery red, sunshine yellow, deep orange—they tugged at her, practically demanded that she wander over and drink them in.

Until she saw the purple ones. Double tulips, streaked with hints of pink, so fat and full they could easily be mistaken for peonies. And her brain decided to throw a memory in her path, just in time for her to stumble over it: her and Mom, the first spring after that terrifying fall and winter, when they were just starting to believe that Mom might beat the cancer after all. Mom had sat on a blanket in the mild May sunshine and instructed Brynn as she weeded around the purple tulips that had popped up that year.

Somehow they had drifted from discussions of weeds to talking about Brynn’s father.

“He was never a strong man,” Mom had said. “He was never good at coping with reality. That was why he had those drinking spells, and why he was forever taking a nap. And in the end, it was why he left. Because things got too intense and he got scared and he ran away.”

Things got too intense and he ran away.

Leaving is what you do best.

The flowers blurred before Brynn’s eyes as the tears she’d been pushing down came crashing back. All she could remember was waking up on Hank’s sofa to see him smiling down at her. For one moment her world had been so brimful of love that there had scarcely been room left to breathe.

Is that your answer to everything?

Then reality had caught up with her. And she realized she was heart-deep in something she couldn’t control, something too intense. And she had run.

Just like her father.

* * *

H
ANK
STILL
WASN
’
T
SURE
why Ian had asked for him to be the one to meet him at the airport, but he wasn’t about to debate protocol with a man who had been through four flights, God knew how many time zones and a double whammy to the heart. He rearranged his schedule, asked his mother to take Millie for the night and steered the truck toward the airport.

Even with months of frequent Skype calls, Hank wasn’t prepared for the changes in his oldest brother. Ian’s beard looked fuller and bushier than when they were talking via computer. He was thinner, too, his face more drawn and weary. Hank suspected that the flights could be blamed for only a part of that.

The biggest surprise came when Ian folded him into a bear hug that went on and on. Hank had a feeling that the hands clutching his shoulders were those of a man who was just now letting go of the rope that had been keeping him upright. He patted Ian’s back as he would to Millie and glared at the people casting them curious looks.

“You’re looking good, Hankie.” Ian peered behind him. “No shadow?”

“Not tonight. She wanted to come but I figured it was even odds you’d be delayed, and it’s a school night, so she’s with Ma.”

Ian’s grin was almost like the one Hank remembered, but a little slower, a little less enthusiastic. “You’re such a Mr. Responsible now.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the good part about being the youngest. All the sense and brains trickled down to me.”

Ian needed to stop at the first coffee stand they passed, and his moaning over the half-and-half made Hank feel like a voyeur. Steaming large drink in hand, they staked out a place at the baggage carousel, making small talk about the flights, the people they saw, the overwhelming brightness of the fluorescent lights after months in a country where brownouts were the way of life. Hank figured they could get into the serious stuff once they were in the car. Not even then if Ian wasn’t up to it. But he’d forgotten that his brother had never been one for laying low.

“So Heather is back, huh? How’s that going?”

Well, hell. Hank hadn’t anticipated that he might be the one under the microscope. “It’s easier than I expected, at least so far. I think... Yeah. I think if we had tried this when she first left, it would have been a miserable flop. Too close, too soon, all that. But now, you know, the worst is behind us. We can do the water-under-the-bridge thing and focus on what’s best for Millie.”

“Guess that’s how it should be.” The hollow sound of Ian’s voice told Hank which direction his brother’s thoughts had veered. He held his breath, staring very intently at the gray rubber flap where the baggage would appear, as if wishing fervently for a wild African animal to come through the opening.

Thank God the first bags started popping through at that point. The crowd moved forward and conversation became limited to such important questions as, “That blue one yours?” There were times when routine and small talk were a hell of a savior.

It wasn’t until they were in the car, with a drive-thru behind them—apparently, Tanzania had neither McDonald’s nor Tim Hortons, judging from the way Ian was slobbering over his food—and an hour of quiet road ahead, that Hank dared to really talk again.

“So you’re staying with Moxie and the folks?”

“Yeah. That seemed like the best option, all things considered.”

Hank could understand Ian not wanting to go back to his own place yet. Too many memories, too many plans. Yet another experience he wished they didn’t have to share.

Ian crumpled the take-out paper and tossed it in the bag. “I’m going to regret that meal in about a half hour, but damn, it was good.”

That sounded like the brother he remembered. Maybe Ian would come out of this okay after all.

“I figure I’ll stick around for the festival, let Moxie feed me a bit, spend some time with all of you. But then, I think... I haven’t told anyone yet, so keep this quiet, okay?”

Hank’s hands tightened on the wheel.

“I sent Carter an email. Told him that since folks at the dairy were already used to me being gone, and I don’t feel like being everyone’s pity project, I’m gonna move on. Carter and...and her... They can come back here.”

For as many times as he’d been smacked by reality the past couple of weeks, Hank still wasn’t used to it.

Nor was he ready to have this conversation while he was driving.

“I knew there was a reason I took the back road instead of the highway,” he said as he cranked the wheel and steered into the parking lot of a farm supply store. He slammed into Park, killed the engine and twisted to face Ian.

“You’re going to leave again.” Didn’t anybody ever stay put anymore?

“That’s right.”

“So they can come back here and get off scot-free?”

“I’m not doing it for them, Hank. Trust me. There’s no martyr complex here.”

“Then why—”

“I told you. I don’t want to spend the next two years walking around, knowing everyone is whispering about how sad it was that my brother ran off with my fiancée. And you know God damned well that’s what’ll happen.” He glanced out the window. “Let
them
hear the whispers. That’s fine with me.”

“But...shit, Ian. It’s not right.”

“You want to tell me any part of this that is?”

There was no good answer for that.

Ian slumped in the seat and closed his eyes, reminding Hank just how tired his brother must be in so many different ways. He reached for the key, intending to get home as fast as possible, but Ian’s voice stopped him.

“I was already thinking about leaving the dairy.”

“You?”

“Yeah, me. The stuff I was doing in Tanzania—it worked for me. The dairy did, too. I was glad to be there, but when I was in Africa, I knew I was making a difference.”

“You’re not thinking about going back there, are you?”

One eye cracked open. “Did you miss the part where I said I wasn’t a martyr?”

“Must have forgot it in all the excitement.”

“I have some ideas. Nothing definite yet. I’m gonna take my time and do this right. As long as I end up doing good, and not doing it here, I’ll call it a win.”

“So are you looking at this as a permanent move?”

“I’m looking at this as... I don’t know. Coping. Making the best of a lousy situation.” He waved in the general direction of the steering wheel. “Moving on.”

Accept what’s happened and move on.

Dammit!

Hank fumbled for the key and cranked the engine, wondering if he could rev it loud enough to block out the memory of Brynn’s voice, the hollow hurt that grabbed him every time he thought of her leaving. No luck.

“Hey, Hank?”

“Yeah?”

“How long does it take?”

Hank chanced a sideways glance. “How long does what take?”

“For it to stop hurting.”

“You’re asking me?” He shook his head. Like he was any expert. All it took was a mention of a yoga class, the sight of a woman pushing her hair from her face and he was back to aching for Brynn in a way he could never have imagined. He felt like he was one of those idiots in the circus who stands up against a target while someone throws knives at them. Every word, every thought was another blade headed his way, and most of the time he forgot to duck.

Though maybe that was because he would rather feel the hurt than lose the memories.

“Yeah, I’m asking you. I don’t— I mean, I didn’t think you were still holding a torch for Heather....”

Heather?
When had she come into this conversation?

Hank stared through the windshield. Replayed the conversation. Then hit the brakes and turned into yet another parking lot as the truth slapped him in the face.

Ian had asked him how to get past the hurt and his first—
only
—thought had been for Brynn. Not for the ex-wife who had borne his child and walked out, but for the woman who had danced into his life mere months ago, rearranged it and turned it into something he barely recognized but knew deep down was the one he was supposed to be living.

Hank couldn’t tell Ian how to get over the loss of the woman he loved because he had never done that. He’d gone on without his child’s mother, yes.

But he had no idea how he was supposed to get over losing Brynn.

* * *

T
WO
DAYS
BEFORE
the festival, Brynn looked up from a stolen moment of peace by the river to see Moxie striding toward her.

“What fresh hell is this?” she muttered as she scurried to meet Moxie at the intersection of Insane and Exhausted. Which actually was a place she welcomed, as it made it easier to push away her appointment at the corner of Heartbroken and Lonely.

“Hey, Mox— Mrs. North. Everything’s proceeding as expected. A couple of last-minute snags, nothing I can’t deal with, but we’re on schedule and should be in great shape for the kick-off Friday night.”

“’Course we will.” Moxie glanced around the site, her gaze lingering over the stage, the trees, the cabins.

“And we got lucky with the weather. Have you seen the latest forecast? Clear skies, warm with a light breeze on Saturday, slightly cool at nights. We won’t have to worry about postponing the fireworks or moving any of the events.”

“No surprise there—not after all the time I spent reminding my Gordon that half the reason he’s up there in Heaven without me is so’s he can do the things I can’t do down here.” She shrugged. “’Course, I guess the bacon had something to do with it, too. Now, who did you find to do the wagon rides?”

For a few minutes they went over the final details, Brynn bringing Moxie up to speed on some of the more recent developments, Moxie putting things in historical and priority perspective. There were tweaks to be made, of course, but, again, nothing Brynn couldn’t handle.

“Sounds like everything is under control.” Moxie nodded as she looked around. “You never can tell what’s coming down the pike, but so far, so good.”

As far as Brynn was concerned, that pike had already handled more than enough.

Moxie pointed downriver. “You know what you’ll find if you go that way a mile or so?”

“What?”

“The cove. The one this town is named for. Comeback Cove.”

“Was it a fishing village in its early days?”

“Nah. Well, maybe. But it really took off because of the rumrunners.”

Well,
that
was a welcome distraction. “Seriously?”

Moxie nodded. “My uncle Bart made a pretty penny running hooch to the States during Prohibition. He said they used to carry blocks of salt with them when they were making their runs. If they thought the law was after them, they would tie the bottles to the blocks, toss ’em overboard in the cove and let the Feds catch them.”

Laughter bubbled inside Brynn, light and welcome. “Let me guess. Then they would come back when the salt had dissolved and harvest the bottles where they floated?”

“You got it.”

“A town built on illegal booze. I love it.”

“Well, there was a lot more that went into it over the years. But it just goes to show—sometimes, good things can grow out of something you would never believe could bring any—”

Her words were interrupted by the beeping of Brynn’s phone, signaling an incoming text.