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She heard her dad sigh, then he walked back to her.
“I’m sorry, Sash.” He tousled her hair. “I’ve been up all night, and I haven’t had an easy time of it. Of course you can go see the llamas, but not today. Let’s give them all a chance to settle in, okay?”
“Sure.” Sasha took her waffle and sat on a stool at the counter. “Do you want a waffle, Daddy?”
“No, thanks, sugarplum. I ate at Dot’s, before you were even out of bed. But I’ll sit with you, if that’s okay.”
“Okay. Wait! Let me go get my essay that I’m handing in today. You can read it over for me.” Sasha ran up the back stairs to her room. She heard Aunt Ginny laugh at her excitement.
What were they going to do when Aunt Ginny wasn’t there to calm Dad down?
GINNY TURNED to Dutch, before Sasha bounded back into the kitchen.
“How’d it go?”
Dutch screwed up his face and frowned at his baby sister, who looked so innocent with her widened eyes and lifted brows. But he knew she wasn’t asking about the llamas, not really.
“Fine. Awful. I hated it. I’m glad I saved the twin and, I hope, the dam.” He stared down at the floor.
“I can’t look at that woman without remembering, without seeing the pain on Natalie’s face when her calls weren’t returned.”
“I know.” Ginny’s voice was soft. She’d seen it, too. Claire and Natalie had been closer than sisters through grade school and high school. The only thing that had ever come between them was a boy.
Dutch.
“I don’t get it, Ginny. How someone so smart can be so stupid, especially with her friend, her family.” He couldn’t believe he was sharing so much with Ginny, but he blamed it on exhaustion.
“Sounds like she’s learned something,” Ginny said, giving him a level gaze. “She quit the press corps when her mom got sick, helped her mother through her heart surgery, and she’s stayed here even though she doesn’t need to anymore. She’s serious about making a go of it, Dutch. It’s been two years already.”
“Trust me, Ginny, if Claire Renquist has stayed in Dovetail, or anywhere, it’s for her benefit and hers alone. Claire doesn’t do anything solely for others. That part of her died a long time ago.” He snorted.
If it ever existed.
Ginny laughed, but not with any hint of sarcasm.
“Do you want some lemon with those bitters? Jeeze, Dutch, let it go. Some people do change.”
He grunted. He wanted to say “not Claire” but Ginny had a point. He’d turned into a crusty old man at the age of thirty-four.
Ginny had been a kid when Dutch and Claire dated, and not much older when they broke up. Dutch had married Natalie right out of college. He’d only recently told Ginny that he and Natalie had a pregnancy scare way back in high school after that fateful night during senior year. The night that ended any remaining relationship he’d had with Claire and permanently ruined Natalie and Claire’s childhood bond.
“Look, Daddy.” Sasha, back downstairs, slid onto the stool next to Dutch. He read her essay with one arm around her. He loved the fact that she still snuggled close, their two heads bent over the paper, the comfortable intimacy between daughter and dad.
Dutch knew he needed to learn to be comfortable with other people, too. It was more than three years now—Natalie was at peace, and he wanted to find some peace for himself.
He looked up at Ginny as she watched him and Sasha. He could read her mind.
They’d been alone too long, he and Sasha.
“Don’t get any ideas, Ginny.” He tried to act as if he was focused on Sasha’s essay, but few knew him better than Ginny.
“What kind of ideas?” Sasha piped in.
“Matchmaking ideas, honey.” Ginny sipped her coffee. “Your dad’s worried I’ll try to set him up with someone.” Ginny rolled her eyes.
“Do you mean like on a date?” Sasha’s interested was piqued.
“This is adult conversation, Sasha.” Dutch stared hard at Ginny. He loved his kid sister, but she was like every other female when it came to romance.
She thought everyone needed it.
Ginny, of course, ignored him. “Yes, Sasha, like a date,” she said. “Your dad could benefit from adult female companionship.”
“Ginny!” Dutch growled, but the edge in his voice masked the nervous twist in his gut. What did he have to be anxious about? Ginny was the one acting weird.
“Don’t ‘Ginny’ me, Dutch. Sasha’s old enough to understand this conversation, aren’t you, honey?”
“Yup!” Sasha’s head bobbed enthusiastically. She looked sideways at Dutch. The female gleam in her eyes made him laugh in spite of himself.
“Aunt Ginny’s right, Dad. You need a woman.”
CHAPTER THREE
“SHE’S DOING as well as I could hope. It could still go either way, but she’s a tough gal, aren’t you, Stormy?”
Dutch patted the llama’s side and his voice lowered to a soft lilt. He kept his gaze on the llama. Claire’s breath caught.
Here was the Dutch she’d known as a teen. Caring, assured, comfortable with his intelligence and ability. She watched his hands stroke Stormy and couldn’t stop the memory of how those hands had felt on her when they were lovesick teenagers.
On that hot, breezy summer afternoon in Ocean City. When all that mattered was Dutch and the love they’d discovered, the love that went beyond their childhood friendship. When she knew she’d never love anyone as much as she loved him at that moment.
Dutch must have felt her stare just now as he looked up and their eyes met. She saw his recognition of her, not as the girl who’d run out of town, not as the woman who’d broken her best friend’s heart, but as Claire.
It was Dutch and Claire. That connection still seared her thoughts. Her awareness belied the notion that the energy between them was a mere relic of their past. Whatever their connection, it was real and alive. Today.
The heat between them caught her off guard.
Dutch blinked and she watched the immediate judgment flood back into his expression. How many layers of disgust toward her did he harbor?
Not more than she harbored toward herself.
“Thanks, Dutch.” She broke the silence abruptly.
“No thanks needed. I’ll check on her again tonight.” Dutch gave the cria a quick exam and straightened up.
“She seems to be doing fine.” She offered up the observation in an attempt to mask her awareness of him.
Dutch glanced at her for the briefest of moments. “Yeah, I’m not worried about her. You were smart to have the heater on hand.” His grudging expression reflected his sincerity.
“At least I did one thing right.”
“Spare me the martyr act, Claire.”
He put his hat on and picked up his bags. “I’ll come by before dinnertime.”
He turned and strode out of the barn. Claire was glad he didn’t look back at her. She wasn’t sure she was keeping the sorrow off her face.
She had to force herself to focus on the positive. Claire had thought she’d already done that when she started this new venture. It wasn’t easy, beginning a llama fiber business. Once she had the llamas, she’d needed to find someone to spin the fleece into yarn. She’d been lucky to come across a small business that spun yarn commercially and by hand, so she could please her future customers.
Other aspects of running the farm had also fallen into place, and Claire’s confidence had bloomed.
Until Dutch walked into the barn to save her llamas that dark night.
DUTCH WAITED for Sasha in front of the middle school. She’d entered sixth grade this past autumn and, with it, middle school. When he’d been growing up he sure didn’t recall the girls looking the way Sasha wanted to dress. She was eleven going on twenty-five, and it scared the hell out of him.
Sasha’s face lit up when she saw him standing there, and he turned to get into the truck ahead of her. A couple of years ago he’d wait for her, hugging her when she grabbed him in a fierce greeting. But now she didn’t like him to be visible if she was in public. He knew from what Ginny told him that this was all normal, but it still gave him a punch in the gut.
Sasha was all he had. Ginny was getting ready to leave; she’d been accepted into law school. And she should leave, she had every right to—she had her own life to lead. But with Sasha entering puberty and adolescence, he knew he was going to miss Ginny’s steady presence. The security she provided as an adult woman in Sasha’s life. What was he going to do without Ginny when Sasha got her period?
He could call his mother, but he didn’t see Sasha as willing to talk to her grandmother Archer about her body’s changes. His parents had been a fantastic support for Sasha and him through the grieving, but they were active seniors now, with lives of their own. He couldn’t ask them to help raise another child.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, honey.” He leaned over and gave her a quick peck on the cheek, which she reciprocated. When was this going to end? He hoped never.
“How was school?”
“Fine. Mr. Ignacio wore this really weird sweater today—it had frogs on it.”
“Frogs?” Mr. Ignacio was the sixth-grade science teacher and he marched to his own formula, from what Sasha told him.
“Yeah. Then Joey said it looked dumb, and Mr. Ignacio said, ‘Yeah, well, I think wearing a company’s advertising for them is dumb.’”
“Was Joey wearing a logo shirt?”
“Yeah, and these really expensive sneakers, too.” Sasha chattered the entire way home. Most of the time he ended up tuning some of it out. How on earth did she keep such detailed but inconsequential information about her teachers and friends in her brain, much less repeat it over and over?
“Dad? Daaad!”
“Oops. Sorry, honey.” His attention had been on the road.
“So can I?”
“Can you what?”
“Sleep over at Naomi’s? Maddie might be able to go, too, and it would give you a break.”
“Uh, no, not tonight.” Not any night, not since he’d heard that Naomi’s mother was picked up for a DUI. He had to award Sasha points on the manipulation attempt, though.
“Come on, Dad.”
“No.” He was grateful that Natalie had taught him to be consistent with Sasha since she was a toddler. She pretty much accepted “no” without too much resistance. For the most part.
“Fine.” She sighed, the weight of it bearing resignation and youthful angst.
I’m such a mean parent.
“What’s for dinner?”
“What do you want?” Fridays were their evenings together, another reason Dutch didn’t want Sasha going to a friend’s house. He enjoyed their movie and popcorn nights and was reluctant to let go of them.
“Can we have tacos?”
He groaned inside. His stomach couldn’t take much fast food anymore. But Sasha loved the drive-through, and he could get himself a salad.
“Why don’t we go now and pick them up? It’s a little early, but that’ll give us room for popcorn and ice cream later on.”
“All right!” Sasha nodded her approval, the missed sleepover apparently forgotten.
THEY ATE FROM the wrappers at the kitchen table, both devouring the early meal. Dutch looked up at the clock.
“I have to go check on some patients, but I’ll only be gone a half an hour or so. Think you can keep yourself out of trouble for that long?”
He’d been trusting her alone a little at a time, since she was approaching her twelfth birthday. Ginny had gone to her usual weekend prelaw study night in Baltimore, and he still had to visit the llamas.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to take a quick look at the llamas.”
As soon as the words left his mouth he knew he’d made a mistake. Sasha homed in for the kill.
“Daddy, you promised I could go the next time you visit a llama farm. And it’s only fair ’cause you didn’t let me go to the sleepover.”
His jaw tightened. He didn’t want Sasha anywhere near Claire.
Too dangerous. Too many questions.
The answers are what you’re afraid of.
“I don’t think so, Sasha, not tonight.”
He heard the unreasonable tone in his voice, but it was too late to soften his delivery. Sasha’s face fell, then reddened with emotion.
“Stop treating me like a baby, Dad! I won’t get in the way or cause you any problems.”
“I know that, sweetheart.” He expelled a breath, giving in. “Okay, you can come along. But it’s going to be a quick visit, so don’t think you’re staying with the llamas all night.”
“I won’t.” She pulled on her hat and gloves as she spoke and he felt the dread gather inside him.
