“Could we pause for a few minutes?” Amy asked, once it seemed everyone had finished stuffing their bellies with pizza.
“Sure,” Trent answered without hesitation. “Liv, take your things to the kitchen, then go wash up.”
When it seemed they were both occupied, Amy ran out to her car and grabbed the duffel bag she’d stashed in her trunk earlier.
“What have you got there?” Trent asked, tilting his head in curiosity. While Amy had told him most of her plan for tonight, she’d kept this part a secret.
Glancing toward Olivia, who’d resumed her place on the couch, she put on her best smile and said, “I love Tinker Bell’s little house so much, I thought maybe we could build one for us, too.”
She set her bag on the seat beside Olivia and showed her the gossamer green fabric she’d gotten from Hazel and the Christmas lights she’d brought from her own personal stash.
“Oh, that sounds fun!” Trent said, helping her pull everything from the bag.
“We’re going to need more blankets and sheets to make it work and some comfy pillows to put inside. Do you think you could help with that, Olivia?”
Olivia bobbed her head, then ran upstairs to get to work.
“Good idea,” Trent said. “I don’t think we’ve made a fort in forever.”
“Then it’s high time.”
When Olivia returned, she set her blankets and pillows on the floor, then climbed back onto the couch to see what the adults would do next. Amy wanted to ask Trent whether the little girl was always this quiet, even when it was just the two of them, but she knew better than to talk about Olivia as if she weren’t in the room.
While Olivia watched from her perch, Amy and Trent worked together to set up a foundation for the fort with chairs from the kitchen, then got to work draping all the blankets and fabrics to create their life-size fairy house. Once that was done, Amy scrambled in on her hands and knees, and strung the lights around the edges, then crawled out backward, making sure to bump into Trent in the process.
“Oof,” she cried, rubbing her backside and pretending the collision had hurt.
When Olivia giggled softly, Amy felt as if she’d just won a comedy competition. She smiled at the little girl before pushing herself back to her feet and connecting the Christmas lights to the extension cord Trent had fetched for this purpose.
“There we go,” she said triumphantly as the lights flashed to life. “One custom-made fairy house, just for Tinker Bell’s biggest fan.” She craned her neck to one side, then the other, searching the whole house before her eyes landed back on Olivia. “Wait, is that you, Olivia?” she cried in mock surprise.
Olivia nodded and giggled.
“Well, then get in there, you!” she said.
Olivia jumped up and pitched herself headfirst into the fort.
Trent caught Amy’s eye and whispered, “Thank you.” Again she felt like she’d won something special. Both father and daughter were growing on her fast—worryingly fast.
“Okay, you goober,” Trent called, still keeping his eyes glued on Amy as he spoke to his daughter. “Ready for more Tinker Bell?”
“Yes, Daddy!” Olivia shouted, laughing still. Her voice came out loud, clear, happy. Amy had never heard it like that before.
And from the look on Trent’s face, he hadn’t heard it lately, either.
Amy decided to take a chance and called, “How’s your new fairy house?”
“It’s good,” Olivia said. Softly now. But still, the little girl had said something directly to her. Progress!
“Thank you, Ms. Shannon,” Olivia mumbled before falling quiet again.
“Yes, thank you,” Trent said, his eyes dancing with tender amusement as he switched the movie back on.
When he joined Amy on the couch, he sat a little closer than he had before. She wondered if he noticed, if he liked being near to her as much as she liked being near to him.
Being here with Trent and Olivia now felt good. It felt right.
How could she be so enamored of them both already?
She doubted the answer lay in Tinker Bell’s magic, but she was afraid to admit that another kind of magic had begun to take hold of her heart.
Chapter 15
When their movie finished about an hour later, Trent clicked the television off and put a finger to his lips. “I think she might have drifted off in there,” he whispered, then bent down to peek into the fairy house they’d erected in the middle of the living room.
A smile spread over his face as he nodded and gave her the thumbs-up.
At his invitation, Amy rose to look in on Olivia as well. Inside, the little girl lay cuddled in a nest of pillows with a stuffed rabbit clutched tightly to her chest. Her hair fanned out around her in soft tendrils, and a relaxed smile had crept across her face as she slept.
Amy placed a hand on her chest and sighed. Such a sweet sight and one she so rarely got to see, since she had no nieces or nephews to dote on and her students were too old for a school-sanctioned naptime.
“I should go,” she mouthed, not wanting to overstay her welcome. This moment already seemed far too intimate, considering they’d only met for the first time this past week. It didn’t feel like she was a teacher helping her student, or a friend helping a friend. This felt like family, and she didn’t belong.
With this realization, she swallowed hard. Saliva caught in Amy’s throat, and she had to run out of the room to avoid having a noisy coughing fit right next to the angelic, sleeping child.
Olivia already had hard days. She deserved a peaceful night.
Trent followed Amy into the kitchen and offered her a bottle of water. “Everything okay?” he asked while she coughed and sputtered until her throat burned.
“I should go,” she said hoarsely between taking huge, healing gulps of water. “I can come back for my things another time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Trent argued. “We hardly got to talk at all. Let me carry Liv up to bed; then you and I can have a cup of tea.”
“Tea?” she asked, raising one eyebrow in his direction.
“Yes, tea. Don’t you like it?”
“Tea sounds perfect,” she said, even though she’d never much cared for the drink. “Show me where everything is, and I can get it started while you tuck her in.”
Trent opened the cupboard beside the stove to reveal dozens of boxes of tea and a water-stained kettle. “Be back in a jiff,” he promised, letting his eyes drop from her face to her hands before turning away. What did he see there? Why did he turn away from her so quickly?
Amy filled the kettle and set it on the glass stovetop, then riffled through the collection of teas, finally settling on an English Breakfast blend. It was the only one she knew well enough to prepare. Cream, sugar, cookies. She wished she’d baked something to nibble on with their tea, but she’d also reined herself back a bit while preparing for tonight. If she overwhelmed Olivia with too much at once, she might never get another chance.
The next time they got together, maybe Amy could invite Olivia to bake and decorate sugar cookies with her. After all, that was one of Amy’s most beloved memories with her mother. Or would recreating her own childhood memories be too intimate? Amy certainly didn’t want to take the place of Olivia’s mother, but she also knew the little girl desperately needed some kind of positive female figure in her life.
The entire situation was incredibly delicate. Precarious, even.
What would happen when the semester ended, and Olivia was no longer in Amy’s class? Would Amy still be welcome in her life? Might Olivia’s graduating from the second grade and having to acclimate to a new teacher and new classmates undo all the progress she’d already begun to make?
“Hey,” Trent said, padding back into the kitchen to join her. “She’s out like a light.”
Amy nodded as she tried to push her worries away—not just to the back of her mind, but clear out of it. What she was doing here was good. If she questioned things too muc
h, she could ruin it. Olivia needed someone to help fix her life, not complicate it further.
“The water’s almost at a boil,” she said softly.
Trent briefly glanced toward the stovetop, then returned his eyes to rest on Amy’s. “How are you so perfect?” he murmured.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he blanched and rushed to correct himself. “I meant, tonight. You planned the perfect night. How did you know just what to do?”
She shrugged, feeling heat rise to her own cheeks from his residual embarrassment. Did he really think she was perfect? Did he feel the strange, intriguing, inappropriate thoughts she did, too?
No, it was obviously a slip of the tongue. She was trying too hard, reading too much into everything that transpired here tonight.
Trent had just lost his wife. The last thing he needed was to have Amy secretly pining for him when he should still be in mourning. Then again, he’d lost his wife around the same time Amy had lost her mother, and she’d long since told herself it was time to move on. Was she creating this double standard as an excuse not to get close? Or was mourning different depending on whom you lost and how much life they should have had left to live?
“I just got lucky, I guess,” she mumbled, moving away from him, hoping that a bit of distance would help her get her head back on straight.
“We all did,” Trent said, holding her in his gaze still.
The tea kettle whistled, breaking the spell that had descended upon the kitchen. Amy surged forward to get it, but so did Trent. They bumped into each other before either could grab hold of the kettle.
“Maybe I should go,” she said, hating the way she couldn’t keep her eyes off his lips. He stood so close—too close. It wasn’t right. She’d come here to help Olivia, not to help herself to the poor girl’s father.
“Stay.” Trent brought a hand up to squeeze her shoulder, keeping it there longer than he should have. “I’ve been so lonely,” he admitted. “I haven’t had anyone to really talk to since we moved, and tonight wasn’t just perfect for Olivia, it was the best night I’ve had in a long time, too.”
Amy bit her lip and turned away. She wanted to be there for Trent, but she didn’t trust herself not to hurt them both in the process. She hardly knew him, and yet . . .
Even if he might somehow be the right man for her, this wasn’t the right time for either of them. Life’s circumstances had led them down different paths. Sure, their journeys had merged for the time being, but they were still headed in opposite directions.
She couldn’t allow herself to fall for a widower, a student’s father, a man she hardly knew. There were so many reasons to end this now before it ever fully had a chance to begin. She could refer Trent and Olivia to Nichole, to somebody else who could help.
They didn’t need Amy.
But what if she was already starting to need them?
It made no sense. Maybe this wasn’t even about them specifically. Perhaps Trent and Olivia were just the first people she’d found that fit neatly into the family-shaped hole in her heart.
“Okay,” she said at last, offering him a shy smile. “I’ll stay for tea.”
He sighed with relief. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said, at last drawing the strength she needed to cross the kitchen and put some distance between them. “I’m not sure I’m the best company.”
“Well, I think you’re wrong about that,” he answered as he fixed a cup of tea for each of them.
Wrong. Yes, she was wrong. Wrong to want him. Wrong to stay when she knew how dangerous it could be for both of their hearts.
Chapter 16
Amy sat across from Trent at his kitchen table and silently sipped her tea. He’d begged her to stay and keep him company, but now that they were sitting together, it seemed neither knew what to say.
He smiled at her over the brim of his mug, then set his cup down and laughed. “I’m making this really awkward. Aren’t I?”
“I think that’s on both of us,” she said before setting her cup down as well.
“Nope, it’s totally on me.” When Trent shook his head, his dark hair fell over his eyebrows in messy little spikes. She wanted to reach forward and sweep it back into place, so that nothing would hide those intense, beautiful eyes of his.
“We were having a perfectly nice evening, until I went and made it weird,” he said with a defeated shrug. “What were you supposed to do when I begged you to stay because I’m lonely? Pathetic.”
Amy reached across the table to place her hand on his. She knew she shouldn’t, but it was impossible to resist an opportunity to draw close to him again. Besides, he seemed to need the reassurance.
“Not pathetic.” She squeezed his hand and smiled. “Honest.”
“Maybe a bit of both,” Trent decided, returning her smile with one of his own. “It’s a habit Olivia and I got into while her mom was sick. Saying what you need. No apologies.”
“But you apologized,” Amy pointed out with a grin.
“I’m a bit out of practice,” he admitted, taking another long slurp of tea.
“What was she like?” Amy asked. Suddenly, she had to know. What amazing woman had stolen this wonderful man’s heart?
“Funny,” Trent said without hesitation. He didn’t even need Amy to specify whom she meant, and seemed eager to share, though his eyes drifted to a spot over Amy’s shoulder as he spoke. “Kind. Beautiful. And a bit weird, if I’m being honest.”
“Sounds like my friend Bridget.” Amy laughed, though inwardly it stung, hearing how different Trent’s lost love was from Amy herself. Why would she have assumed her budding feelings were mutual when she had no reason to believe they could be?
Trent chuckled, too. “Oh, yeah? Bridget, huh? Tell me about her.”
So, Amy did. Starting with a brief history of the Sunday Potluck Club all the way up to Bridget’s mission to save all the shelter dogs by Valentine’s Day.
“She sounds nice,” he said. “Definitely a lot in common with Julie.”
“Julie?” Amy asked at the same time she realized exactly who Julie must be.
“My wife,” Trent answered, unable to hide the new frown that tugged at the edges of his mouth.
“Oh.” She needed to think more carefully before she spoke, before she did anything else with either Trent or Olivia. Her social skills were a bit off, after all the time she’d spent caring for her mother, being surrounded by cancer, discussing topics that were generally avoided in polite company.
They sipped at their tea in silence again. The brew had already neared room temperature, making it less appetizing.
“I could introduce you to her sometime, if you want,” she offered when she felt the silence had stretched on too long. “Bridget, I mean.”
“Why?” Trent said, pushing his tea aside. “I like spending time with you, and so does Olivia.”
Amy hid her smile behind her teacup.
“Those are beautiful earrings,” he said when she at last gave up on finishing her drink. “My mother used to have a pair just like them.”
“These were my mom’s.” Amy reached up to run her fingers across the slippery pink pearls.
“How long ago did you lose her?”
“Almost three months.” She pictured her mother’s face—how it had been when she was healthy, how it looked in the end. The worst part wasn’t her sunken cheeks but rather her shaved head and the angry red scar where the doctors had attempted—and failed—to remove the tumor.
“It’s been about five months for us,” Trent said, and she wondered if he was picturing something similar in his mind.
“Has Olivia been like this the whole time?” she asked gently, hating that they had this horrible thing in common.
“It’s mostly just since we moved.” Trent ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back away from his eyes, then glanced toward the stairs in the direction of his daughter’s bedroom. “Before, she had all her favorite, familiar place
s, people—then suddenly it was just all gone.”
“What made you decide to leave?” She worried she was pushing him too far, but Trent seemed eager to share with someone who understood, and she found it easier to focus on his pain than her own.
He sighed. “Because we had all these favorite, familiar old places that would never be the same again without Julie. I thought it would help Olivia—help both of us—to go someplace new, where we wouldn’t have to constantly face the memories of what we’d lost. I realize now that may not have been the best idea.”
“Kids bounce back fast,” Amy assured him. “I’m sure she’ll be back to her old self soon enough.”
Trent shook his head, upsetting his hair once again. “Some things have a way of changing you forever,” he mumbled.
“Maybe, but it doesn’t have to be in a bad way.”
He glanced up at her. “How do you have it so together when you only recently lost someone you love, too?”
Amy didn’t mean to laugh, but once she started it was hard to stop. “I’ve had all the same thoughts you’re sharing with me now and then some. I only started feeling like myself again recently.”
He studied her with suspicion. “How’d you manage that?”
“By returning to my old familiar routine, by meeting you and Olivia and realizing I could still do some good in this world.”
He chuckled sadly. “Man, I really messed that one up, huh?” “Everyone grieves differently. Everyone heals differently. That’s one of our rules at the Sunday Potluck Club.”
Now he looked intrigued. “The Sunday Potluck Club?”
“Oh, shoot. I thought I told you about that. It’s when my friends and I get together each Sunday to—”
“To share a meal and support one another,” Trent finished for her. “I remember. I just didn’t realize it had a snazzy name.”
“Well, originally we called it the Cancer Cafeteria Club, because we used to meet for coffee while our parents were getting chemo.” She grimaced, thinking back to that time. They’d all been battling for a while then, and it had felt good to be able to joke about it—no matter how inappropriate that seemed in hindsight.
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