by Tracy Brogan
She didn’t giggle. “Libby?”
“Libby Hamilton. You know, from the talent show? I’m helping her and her dad with that ice-cream parlor.”
“Oh, you mean Mrs. Garner’s sister. Hey, did you hear Mrs. Garner had her baby on the night of the talent show?”
He choked a little on his soup. “I think I did hear something about that.”
“Is it true Hot Air Hamilton fell out of the bell tower and nearly broke his neck?”
Tom coughed outright at that. “Not exactly. He fell down some stairs and broke his ankle. Where did you hear that?”
Rachel shrugged. “Twitter. So what did you want to talk to me about?”
Tom set down his spoon and put his clammy hands in his lap. He shouldn’t be nervous talking to his own daughter, but he was. “I went through the boxes with Aunt Kristy.” He said it fast, like ripping off a bandage.
Rachel looked down at her soup, hovering her spoon over the bowl for a fraction of a second before dipping in. “And?”
“And I wanted you to know they’re all unpacked. I was planning to donate a lot of the stuff, but I wondered if you wanted to go through any of it first.” It all came out in a rush, as if he had to say it all before he lost his nerve.
But his daughter sat quiet, continuing with her soup. She seemed to take the news in stride. She was calm. Not sullen calm, or like the calm before the storm, but serene. “Donate it where?” she asked.
“Kristy has a place in mind, a homeless shelter, I think. She said that’s what your mom would have wanted me to do with it.” His heart went thud, and he waited.
Rachel’s lips trembled for a second before she took another bite. She swallowed the soup and met his eyes. “I think that’s what she’d want you to do with it, too. I already have a bunch of her stuff that I took when I moved to Grandma’s house, so I guess I don’t need to look through the rest. You should just get rid of it.”
And thud again. “Are you sure? Because I don’t want to get rid of anything you’re not okay with.”
She nodded. “I know that, Dad. Go ahead and donate it. Did you unpack all the boxes?”
“All of them.”
She set down her own spoon and straightened her shoulders. “Why now?”
“Why now what?”
“Why did you finally unpack them? I’ve been asking you for, like, ten months.”
“I don’t know.” He wished he had a better answer, but the truth was he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was Libby. But it had to be more than that. Maybe it was just time. He’d never be over Connie’s death, but he’d started to realize he could at least move past it.
Rachel twisted her scarf. “Well, thanks for doing that. Did it suck?”
“Yep. Pretty much. But now it’s done, so neither one of us has to worry about it. I did save this, though, and I thought you might want to have it.”
He pulled a charm bracelet from his pocket. Kristy had actually come across it in Connie’s jewelry box. It was made of silver beads and little blocks with letters on it. He handed it to his daughter.
She took it and looked it over. “It says ‘Rachel.’”
“I know. Your mom had it made when you were a baby. She used to wear it all the time. I’m not sure when she stopped.”
Rachel turned it over in her hands and pressed her lips together in a tight line. She sniffled, and his own eyes went moist.
“You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want it.”
“No, I want it.” She tried to hook it around her wrist but fumbled.
“Here, let me.” Tom reached over and hooked the clasp. Then he just couldn’t help it. He held her hand. He kept his voice low. “I love you very much, Rachel. You know that, don’t you? Even if you’re mad at me, and even if you hate me, I’m still always going to love you.”
She gently tugged her hand free and put it in her lap, staring down. “I don’t hate you. And I’m not sure who I’m mad at. I just know I’m mad.”
“Do you think Dr. Brandt is helping?”
Rachel nodded and dabbed at her nose with her napkin. “Yeah. And I like her.” She looked back at Tom. “I talked to Grandma about you after you showed up at the talent show.”
His stomach twisted in a knot. He’d rather Rachel not see how much he didn’t want to hear about that. “How’d that go?”
Rachel shrugged, and picked her spoon back up. “Not that bad. I don’t think she hates you either, but she won’t stand up to Grandpa.”
Not many people could. “Well, Grandpa’s got some strong opinions. Your mother didn’t agree with him very often.”
“She didn’t?” Rachel’s eyebrows arched.
Dr. Brandt’s comments about Rachel choosing a side and needing a safe place bounced around inside his mind just then. He shouldn’t push her into a corner anymore by criticizing George. “No, but now that I’m a father I can see his point of view a little better.”
Rachel took another bite of soup. “How?”
“Your grandfather loves you, Rachel, just as much as I do, but sometimes love makes us selfish. It shouldn’t, but it can. The point is we all want what’s best for you. Unfortunately we see that as something different.”
“I’m almost sixteen. Maybe it was time you all started listening to me, and let me decide what’s best for me.” Her voice didn’t have that usual sting of sarcasm.
Tom sat back in his seat. “You’re right.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I am?”
He smiled. “I am capable of compromise, you know. Maybe we’ve all been so busy trying to convince you of what we think is right, we haven’t given you a chance to decide what you think for yourself. I never meant to put you in this situation, Rach. I’m starting to see that the harder I push, the worse that makes it for you.”
She sat back, too, her shoulders sagging in obvious relief. “Yes, it does. Because just as hard as you’re pushing, so is Grandpa. I feel like I’m the rope in your tug-of-war.”
He had never looked at it that way. How had he missed it? “I’m sorry. I really am.”
She sighed. “I know.”
He’d made so many mistakes, but that wasn’t all there was to him. His intention was to be a good father, and so Tom Murphy said the hardest thing imaginable. He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing. But at least it was something. It was motion instead of stagnation.
“Rachel, the truth is, even when you are grown up and married, I will always, always want you to live with me because you’re my girl. But more than anything else in this world, I want you to be happy. So if staying at your grandparents’ house is what you want, I’m okay with it.”
“You are?”
He plowed ahead, following his gut. “I am. But I want you to decide for yourself. Don’t make your choice based on what Grandpa wants, or Grandma, or even me. There will always be a room for you at my house, but you can decide if you want to use it. And I do want to spend more time together. I want to have dinner, and watch movies and celebrate holidays, maybe go camping. And play backgammon. It’s all that little stuff that I miss. And honestly, honey, I’m just tired of us being angry.”
Rachel gazed around the restaurant, twirling her hair nervously and blinking fast. She finally looked back at him, her bright eyes sparkly with tears. “I’m pretty good at backgammon.”
That vise squeezing his lungs loosened by a millimeter. “I know you think you are. I let you win before because you were a little kid. We play now, I’m taking the gloves off. It’s game on.”
Rachel giggled, and his heart, so full of dents and splices, felt a little better.
“I don’t know what to say, Dad.”
He shrugged. “Just say… say you’re glad to be here with me now.”
“You’re glad to be here with me now.” Her dimples showed just then, and she looked so much like Connie he had to clear his throat.
“Very funny. But listen, there’s one other thing I’m going to ask. And it’s a big thing. I need y
ou to think about it.”
“What is it?”
Jumping from a plane without a parachute must feel very much like this. “I’d like for you to forgive me. I can’t forgive me until you do. It was an accident, Rachel, and I can’t fix it. I can’t undo it. So I need you to forgive me.”
Those sparkly tears slipped out and she whisked them away. “I do forgive you, Dad. I just really miss Mom.”
“I know, honey. So do I. We’re supposed to. Just not so much that it squeezes out everything else. And certainly not so much that we can’t remember to take care of each other. You have to know, deep down, that your mom would want you to be happy. So do I.”
“I know.” She picked up her spoon and paused. “Did you really let me win at backgammon?”
He could see her then, as she had been, with her hair in pigtails and braces on her teeth, bent over studying a game board. “Sometimes.” He nodded.
“Why?”
“Because I’m your dad.”
CHAPTER seventeen
“Watch your step, Dad Hamilton,” Dante said as he helped Libby’s father up to the porch of the ice-cream parlor.
The overcast November day was cool, but at least the rain held off as the Hamilton family walked from the tiny parking lot to the front door. Her dad had insisted they stop by his beloved establishment on their way home from the hospital. Against doctor’s orders, naturally. But he’d assured them he could manage with his crutches.
“Peter, be careful,” her mother warned. She held her hands out to catch him if he fell backward. He looked very much like he might.
“He’s fine, Beverly. Stop hovering,” said Nana, walking around all of them and going up the steps first.
“You can do it, Daddy.” Marti wrapped an arm around his waist.
The only ones missing were Ginny and Ben, since they were home, undoubtedly staring at baby Teddy, waiting to take another photo of his next adorable yawn.
Libby watched from behind the cluster of her family, squinting as her father teetered sideways. Every single one of them reached out to catch him before he righted himself and moved up another step.
Just breathe. Her pulse was all over the place, but she knew it wasn’t entirely concern over her dad that made her heart bouncy as a Ping-Pong ball. It was the thought of seeing Tom. It was late Sunday afternoon, so she hadn’t expected him to be here, but his truck was parked in its usual spot, making her quake with a hundred different emotions. Anticipation, hope, lust, and worry. Worry that he’d retreat again.
Last night had been ooh-la-la incredible. Everything she’d wondered about Tom Murphy had turned out to be true. He’d been skilled and intense, but sweet and vulnerable, too. A sexy, potent combination that turned her limbs to water and her lungs into overinflated balloons.
One deliciously wicked moment flashed in Libby’s mind and halted her feet.
“You okay?” Marti asked, looking over her shoulder at Libby.
Libby felt her cheeks go hot. “Yep.”
Tom was over near a window as they entered. His eyebrows rose in surprise at the sight of them, her father with his crutches and enormous plastic boot protecting his broken ankle, her mother looking pinched with worry, and little Nana in her cherry red raincoat. Libby lingered in the back, but she could tell the moment he spotted her. His face flushed red, and a tiny smile dipped at his mouth.
He set down the hammer in his hand and came their way. “Peter! It’s good to see you.” Tom reached out an arm and clasped her father by the shoulder. “You look good. How are you feeling?”
“A damn sight better than I felt the day they wheeled me out of here on that metal gurney.” He tried to shake Tom’s hand, but the crutches made that difficult. “I can’t thank you enough, Tom. What a blessing you’ve been to me and my family.”
The color rose in Tom’s face again. He pulled over a folding chair. “Here, sit down. I’m just grateful you’re doing so well. I’m amazed you’re up and walking.”
“He’s not supposed to be,” Libby’s mother said. “But he wanted to see his precious ice-cream parlor.”
“I don’t see any ice cream,” said Nana, looking this way and that.
“It’ll be along this wall here, Nana.” Libby pointed. “Come on, I’ll give you a little tour while Dad talks to Tom.”
It wouldn’t be much of a tour since there were only three rooms in the entire building. Plus the bell tower, but she didn’t think she’d show them that. She pulled her mother by the hand, and Nana followed. Marti and Dante stayed with her dad.
“All the ice-cream cases will go here,” she told them. “Tom’s designed them to look like old-fashioned cabinets. They’ll be gorgeous. Then over here is the cash register. I found an old one on eBay to sit here, but honestly, we probably won’t use it. It just looks cool. And then over on this side will go all the little bistro tables.”
Libby described to them all the details, the window seat Tom was building to go along the front, the vintage chairs she’d ordered, the porch swings they planned to hang out front, the window treatments, and the old-fashioned ice-cream dishes. Until that moment, she hadn’t really considered how much of herself she’d poured into this building. She was doing it for her dad, but somewhere along the line, it had become Libby’s vision, too. She was very proud of how she’d contributed, and she wanted to see it through all the way to the end.
She looked over at Tom on the other side of the room, sitting down next to her dad along with Dante and Marti. He wore his hat backward today, looking half his age, except for those big, broad shoulders that made him look every inch a full-grown man. He tipped his head and laughed at something her father said, and then he turned, as if he could feel her eyes on him. He held her gaze, not the least bit hesitant, and she stopped midsentence, forgetting everything she’d been about to say to her mother and Nana.
He smiled her way, relaxed and easy. He didn’t regret their night. No walls had gone back up. She felt a blush stealing up over her own cheeks and a warmth down low at the thought of his kiss. She wanted to march over there and demand another one right now, but she felt Nana at her elbow and resisted.
“Well, you certainly have done a lot, it seems,” Libby’s mother said, her tone reluctantly impressed.
Libby turned back to them. “We have done a lot. Dad’s been working really hard, Mom. I know you weren’t thrilled about this place. And he should have told you before he bought it. But it’s ours now, so I hope you can be excited.”
Her mother shook her head and let her gaze travel around the circumference of the room. “This place does have a certain charm. I can see why you like it. But, yes, Peter should have told me. And he shouldn’t have spent your wedding fund. That was unforgivable.”
Libby chuckled. “I don’t care about my wedding fund, Mom. I don’t need it.”
“You might,” Nana whispered, tipping her head in Tom’s direction, subtle as a brick through a window.
Libby smiled at her. “Anyway, let’s finish the tour. Here’s where we’ll keep the extra supplies.”
She showed them around for a few more minutes, sharing details until, at last, they rejoined Tom, her father, Marti, and Dante.
Tom stood up and gestured to Nana. “Please, sit here, Mrs. Hamilton.”
Nana settled into the chair, her vinyl coat squeaking. “Thank you, young man. What nice manners you have. Did you enjoy the pie I made for you?”
Tom stole a glance Libby’s way. She pressed her lips together, sealing off a smile as his cheeks flushed. He turned back to Nana.
“I can honestly say, Mrs. Hamilton, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a pie quite so much as I enjoyed that one.”
Libby turned away and coughed into her hand.
Nana waved a hand at him. “Oh, listen to you. It’s really all in the crust. If you make a decent crust, anything tastes good.”
It wasn’t the crust, or the filling, or the fact that it had arrived warm from the oven. It was the platter. He’d
eaten a bite of that pie right off Libby’s smooth belly, and in all his life he’d never imagined licking sweet, sticky peaches from a woman’s body. His mouth watered, and his blood shot to his groin like a bottle rocket. He cleared his throat and tried to think of something hideously unsexy. But Libby was standing right there. It was no use.
He pulled up a wooden crate and sat down. He should’ve offered the seat to Beverly, but considering the hard-on taking root in his pants, it was really best for everyone if he sat down.
“So, Beverly, what do you think of this place now that you’ve seen it firsthand?” he asked.
She wrapped her coat around herself a little tighter. “I think you’ve done a very impressive job, Tom. My husband is lucky to have found you. I’m wondering what happens now, though, since he won’t be able to lend a hand in the reconstruction.”
Peter not helping could only improve Tom’s pace. He’d be nearly finished by now if not for all the assistance he’d been getting. There was a lot that still needed doing to get this place ready for business, and Tom knew Peter was running low on funds. He’d do the best he could to speed the reconstruction along, although it might mean a financial hit on his end.
“Tom and I were just discussing that, Bev,” Peter answered. “We have a couple of options. Either we postpone our grand opening until after the holidays, or we could hire a few subcontractors and get back on schedule.”
Beverly turned to her husband and pressed her purse closer to her side. “Wouldn’t subcontractors cost more money?”
“Just a little.” Peter Hamilton would be no good at poker.
“I’m sure I can work a little faster,” Tom added. “And Dante here says he’s ready to lend a hand.”
“Anything you need.” Dante nodded. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with my jousting lessons and the banquets.”
Jousting. First a history teacher and a party planner, now a jouster. Tom smiled. Getting this place refurbished was taking quite an interesting assortment of unskilled labor.
Libby set her purse down on the floor and walked over toward the window. “Hey, it looks like it’s going to rain. Maybe we should get Dad home.”
