The Real Thing

by Lizzie Shane

  Her mother had left. She hadn’t been taken away from them by fate like her grandfather had. She knew that. And no matter how much he’d tried to do to show her she was loved and valued and chosen over the years, it had to suck knowing that her mother’d had a choice and she’d chosen to leave.

  It had certainly fucked Maggie up, knowing that her father had abandoned her on purpose. How could it not? He’d hoped Sadie had escaped that feeling. She’d been so young when Scarlett left. She didn’t even really remember her. And her life had been good, hadn’t it? They were a team, weren’t they?

  But he wasn’t her mother. And as she was becoming a teenager that was going to be more and more apparent. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised by the lie. Maybe he should have been surprised she wasn’t telling it sooner.

  But how was he supposed to fix this?

  “Sadie, come here for a second.” He pulled out a stool at the breakfast bar, nodding her toward it and taking the one facing it.

  “What?” his daughter asked suspiciously, though she took the offered stool. “Am I in trouble? It’s not like telling people she’s dead hurts anyone. She isn’t coming back.”

  “You’re not in trouble,” Ian assured her, then paused, the right words abandoning him. He wanted to say the right thing. The thing that would let her know that she was loved. That she was more than enough just the way she was. That she didn’t have to lie. “Your mom leaving…that had nothing to do with you. You know that, right? It was about her. Her baggage. Her issues. Do you understand that? You didn’t do anything wrong. You couldn’t have done anything to change it.”

  Those were the words he’d tried telling himself. That it wasn’t his fault. That he couldn’t have changed it. He only hoped Sadie had an easier time believing them than he had.

  “Okay.”

  The word was too easy. So simple it rang false. He tried again. “Her leaving. It’s not something you need to be ashamed of, because it had nothing to do with you. Understand?”

  He studied her face, the ever-present dimple that was so like her mother’s, the curls that were her mother’s curls. He waited for her to say something, something that would let him know she’d heard him, that she wouldn’t let herself be hurt by Scarlett’s carelessness, but she just looked back toward the counter. “Can I grill the fish myself?”

  Ian smothered a sigh, hoping he’d said the right thing even if she didn’t acknowledge it now, hoping he’d said enough. It was all he could do. “Sure. I’ll show you how.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Maggie brought Cecil B. DeMille—which Ian supposed he should have expected since the dog seemed to go everywhere with her, but the shrill barking still startled him when Sadie and his mom led Maggie and the furball onto the sun-drenched deck.

  They’d set up the outdoor table to take advantage of the unusually warm day and he stood at the grill, putting the finishing touches on the tacos. Edgar looked up from his place sprawled in the sun when Cecil raced toward him, yapping his heart out. The big idiot lumbered to his feet and sniffed at Cecil, who continued to try to intimidate Edgar with his ferocious bark while the larger dog looked up at Ian, confused by the yappy rat.

  “Just go with it,” Ian told the dog.

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie said as she approached the snarling fluff-ball. “I didn’t want to leave him alone.”

  “He’s fine,” Ian assured her, as Cecil darted behind Maggie’s legs, using her as a human shield as he continued to snarl intermittently in Edgar’s direction.

  “This is quite a spread,” Maggie commented, her gaze on the table.

  “Do you like it?” Sadie bounced on her toes, beaming.

  She’d gone all out setting the table with a bright blue table runner and grey placemats beneath each plate, a rustic vase of tulips, and a bottle of white wine she’d found in the back of the pantry—recently retrieved from the freezer after having been shoved there when her grandmother mentioned white wine was served chilled.

  “We don’t eat like this all the time,” Ian told Maggie. “But when you have a movie star coming to dinner you’ve got to pull out all the stops.”

  She flushed, as if embarrassed by the reminder of her status, and his mother stepped forward to cover the awkward moment. “You sit right here, hon. It’s got the best view.”

  “Thank you,” Maggie murmured. “You really didn’t have to go to so much trouble.”

  “Nonsense. We enjoyed it. And Ian’s fish tacos really are worth the build-up. Never underestimate the value of a man who knows his way around a kitchen.” His mother winked as she poured the wine.

  Ian gave his mother a look, frowning at the comment, but she didn’t notice as she and Sadie quickly took the chairs with their backs to the beach, leaving him to sit next to Maggie when he placed the last of the warm corn tortillas on the table.

  They all dug in—the meal accompanied by a running soundtrack of over-the-top praise for his culinary skills. And if he’d thought the bragging was going to be isolated to his cooking, he was quickly disabused of that notion as his mother and daughter proceeded to play a tag-team game of singing his praises.

  “Did you know Ian built this table with his own hands?” was quickly followed by “My dad helps me with my homework every night, not like the other dads.”

  What his family lacked in subtlety they made up for in gusto. He felt a little like livestock at auction. Or the subject of two very enthusiastic, but not terribly effective matchmakers. The only person who appeared more uncomfortable than he was at the heavy-handed romantic hints was Maggie.

  Ian tried to change the subject away from his virtues—and to remind his mother and daughter that Maggie was leaving—by asking her how things were going at Lolly’s.

  “It’s fine,” Maggie murmured, drawing into herself even more. She held her wine glass in front of her mouth and he found himself remembering suddenly how she’d always hidden her mouth when she wanted to hide her feelings—as if she didn’t know how incredibly expressive her turquoise eyes were. There were volumes she wasn’t saying.

  “There’s more to do than I thought there would be,” she admitted. “Though I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. It’s her whole life, but it kind of makes you think about all the clutter we gather and how much of it really means anything. I cleared out the loft this afternoon and it was mostly broken lamps and bent ski poles. I need to find out if the dump will send someone to pick it all up.”

  “Ian can help you,” his mother instantly offered. “He has his truck. I bet you could make it all in one trip.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t ask—”

  “No, it makes sense,” he interrupted before Maggie could finish her protest. “I’m happy to help and you don’t want to be hauling that stuff around in your car. The dump’s closed on Sunday, but I can come by on Monday and pick up whatever you want and get rid of it for you. It’s no trouble.”

  She opened her mouth to argue then appeared to change her mind. “Thank you.”

  “Dad is super helpful like that,” Sadie bragged—and Ian resisted the urge to groan aloud as the matchmaking resumed.

  When the meal ended, Sadie and his mother insisted that they would clean up, his mother refilling Maggie’s and his wine glasses to “get rid of” the last of the wine before the two conspirators retreated inside, leaving him alone with Maggie and the sunset.

  “Sorry about that,” he murmured as the glass door closed behind them. “I didn’t realize they had an arranged marriage planned or I would have warned you.”

  She smiled softly, uncomfortably. “It’s fine. They’re sweet. And they obviously think the world of you.”

  “Lucky thing, since we’re stuck with each other,” he joked and something shifted in Maggie’s eyes before she looked out toward the sun painting the water.

  Edgar had gone back to sleep, and even Cecil had calmed down, sprawled out on his belly in a superman pose, snoring softly. The flowers, the
sunset, the wine—even the snoring dogs—it was a romantic scene, but awkwardness saturated the air.

  “Your mom said Lolly used to come over a lot,” Maggie said after a long silence. “Did you guys eat out here with her like this?”

  “Sometimes. She used to help out with Sadie when she was little and then when my dad died, I think she knew how lonely my mom was. How much she needed us. So Lolly started saying she couldn’t keep Sadie anymore by herself and asking my mom to come down and help out. I think she knew how much my mom needed to be needed.”

  “I can’t picture them as friends,” Maggie admitted, shaking her head. “They’re so different. It’s like June Cleaver and Gloria Steinem going for margaritas.”

  “I wouldn’t have predicted it,” he agreed. “When we were little they always seemed to just kind of tolerate each other. But I think they both valued kindness and compassion, even if they went about it in completely different ways, and I think they really were friends, at the end. I used to hear them out here, laughing for hours, after Sadie and I had gone to bed. When Lolly was diagnosed, I think I worried about my mom almost as much as I worried about Sadie. She’s had a rough couple years. And now this malpractice mess is stirring it all up again.”

  “Malpractice?”

  Ian grimaced. He hadn’t meant to mention it, but he seemed to keep confiding in her. “She’s suing the hospital,” he explained. “Saying they should have been able to save my father. Which means essentially she’s reliving the whole thing.”

  “How did he…? I’m sorry. Do you mind me asking?”

  “He was supposed to have a routine back surgery and something went wrong while he was in recovery.” Ian took another drink of his wine, looking out over the rapidly darkening beach. “Sometimes there isn’t a good explanation. There isn’t an easy reason why.”

  “Amen,” Maggie murmured, and he looked over at her. The shadows were deepening, but he could still see her profile and the blonde curls loose down her back shone in the light coming through the window behind them. She’d always been gorgeous, but her years of fame had polished that beauty until it lost all its rawness and shone like a pearl.

  The sight of her hit him in the gut, shortening his breath, and Ian cleared his throat roughly. He shouldn’t kiss her. He knew that, but he had that feeling again, like something was stretching taut in the air between them, some subtext he didn’t know how to read.

  “I should probably…” He didn’t know what he’d been planning to say. Go inside? Kiss you?

  Maggie glanced over. When she saw the expression on his face her eyes widened, her chest lifting on an indrawn breath.

  * * * * *

  It was back. That awareness. That tension that seemed to crackle in the air. Maggie felt it on her skin and in the breath that filled her lungs as everything seemed to slow down.

  If this were a movie, he’d kiss her right now. The camera would hold on each of their faces and then he would reach for her…

  She shouldn’t get involved with him. She was a train wreck. A one woman emotional wrecking crew. In spite of Sadie and Mrs. Summer’s oh-so-subtle matchmaking efforts tonight, it would be better for all of them if Maggie stayed far away from Ian Summer.

  But his dark eyes were so soft, so freaking vulnerable after everything he’d said about his father. She’d always trusted him. It would be so easy to trust him again. He knew her, in a way it felt like no one had known her in a long time. Beneath the act.

  Impulse control had never been her strong suit. Maggie was a kiss-first-ask-questions-later kind of girl—but she was trying so hard to be good. To make the right choices. And she knew, no matter how badly she might want to kiss him, that the right choice was not getting involved with Ian Summer.

  She was a scandal grenade, waiting to go off, and she liked him too much to let him and Sadie and his mother be collateral damage.

  Maggie pulled her gaze away, setting down her wine. “I should get back. Lots to do.”

  She was already pushing back her chair and he rose with her, not trying to stop her. “I’ll walk you back.”

  Maybe she’d misread the moment, imagined the potential for a kiss. She flicked a quick glance at him as he set his wine glass beside hers on the table and caught him rubbing his free hand on the back of his neck, looking…what? Chagrined? Disappointed? Definitely handsome. He’d always been pretty, but he’d grown into himself over the years—like one of those obnoxious male actors who only got more attractive as they aged. The beard didn’t hurt. She’d never really thought of herself as a facial hair person, but on him it was sexy as hell.

  It was a short walk, a hundred yards, if that, but she didn’t protest the need for an escort as he held the door for her, Cecil padding sleepily along with them. Sadie and his mom had oh-so-conveniently vanished upstairs, so they didn’t see anyone as they made their way through the house and out the front door, down the steps and across the driveway to the path.

  Neither of them spoke until they were deep into the trees, the heavy shadows concealing both of their faces when Maggie found herself confessing, “I found another letter today.”

  “From Lolly?” he asked.

  She nodded, even though he couldn’t possibly see the movement in the dark. “I guess she hid them all over the house. Though I don’t know why. Or what she was hoping would happen when I found them.”

  “Maybe just that you would know…whatever it is she had to tell you. I’m not sure I’d know what to say, if I had to leave letters for Sadie. How do you know what would help? How do you know what would make a difference?”

  Maggie frowned, thinking of her aunt again. Lolly had always seemed so certain, so sure of herself. Was it possible she hadn’t known what to say?

  They walked in silence for a few more steps before Ian said, “I talked to Sadie earlier. About lying about her mom. I thought maybe she was doing it because she was ashamed of the truth, so I told her it wasn’t her fault that her mom had left, but…”

  “How do you make her believe it?” Maggie finished the question for him.

  “Yeah.” She felt as much as saw him glance over at her in the darkness, felt his hesitation before he asked softly, “Was there anything someone could have said to you that would have convinced you?”

  “That it wasn’t my fault my father left and my mother overdosed?” In the light of day, she would have felt exposed by the question, but something about the night seemed to make any confession safe. It was so dark he couldn’t see her face—and this was Ian. “Probably not,” she admitted. “But Sadie isn’t me. She has one thing that makes a huge difference.” They came out into the clearing behind Lolly’s house, the moonlight beyond the trees surprisingly bright after the pitch black of the forest path. Maggie glanced up at Ian, reading the confusion on his face. “You, Ian. You love that girl like crazy. Anyone can see it.”

  “Your grandparents loved you like that.”

  “Yeah, but I always knew they only took me in because they had to.”

  He frowned. “I’m sure that isn’t—”

  “No, it is,” she interrupted. “I know I tell everyone I had this super happy childhood with them, a normal childhood, and I did, in a way. My grandparents were amazing, and they would always say they never regretted taking me in, but that isn’t the same thing as wanting me. I always knew the difference. I would overhear them sometimes, when they thought I was asleep, saying they hadn’t wanted to start over—that they wanted to be the grandparents, not parents again. I know they loved me. I know they were proud of me. But a kid knows the difference between someone who wants you and someone who loves you because they have to. Sadie knows. She has you.” Maggie looked away, glancing toward the house. Lolly’s house. “Sometimes it felt like Lolly was the only one who loved me when she didn’t have to. My deadbeat dad’s aunt didn’t have to be responsible for me, but she asked me to come here. She wanted me.”

  Maggie studied Lolly’s house, watchin
g Cecil sniffing around the edge of the porch before slipping between the frayed edges of the torn screen. “I wish I’d done more for her,” she murmured. “I feel guilty every time I see a crack in the paint or that damn torn screen.”

  “You know I could have fixed it for her,” Ian said. “I could have fixed anything she wanted, but she always said no when I offered. She liked that rickety old house just the way it was. She said it had character—and that they matched, both of them a little worse for their years.”

  “But if she’d had the money—”

  “Lolly had a little tucked away,” he assured her. “You weren’t here for the reading of the will, but she gave a chunk of money to Sadie’s college fund and a bunch of charities around town. She’d done all right for herself. She could have fixed up this house if she wanted to.”

  Maggie frowned, studying the listing shack. “You know I don’t think I ever knew what she did. For a living.”

  “Advice columns. She wrote advice columns.”

  Maggie turned to look at him, a wry smile pulling at her lips. “Really?”

  “Yeah. She’d started out as a reporter, but the editor she worked for thought women should be doing puff pieces. She fought him on it for a while, but then realized she was really good at it and it just sort of stuck.”

  Maggie shook her head. “You know that fits. She never could keep her nose out of other people’s business.”

  Ian’s smile was dry. “I can’t argue with that. It didn’t always make her popular in town.”

  “No. It wouldn’t.”

  “I meant it. My offer.” He nodded toward the house. “Let me know if you want any help getting things fixed up.”

  She sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t even know what I would change at this point.”

  “Fair enough. Take your time. I’ll still be here when you figure it out.”

  She glanced up at him—and the words seemed to take on another meaning. Ian was always here. Reliable Ian. The kind of man she could count on. If only she didn’t like him too well to want to tangle him up in her drama.