Marrying the Single Dad Read online

  She quit Miss Deborah’s dance studio, much to Reggie and their mother’s dismay. She quit spending so much time on what she wore, although she still didn’t go anywhere without makeup. She quit worrying so much about things that she couldn’t control, like whether or not a boy liked her.

  Despite this split, the twins remained close. But they went to different colleges—Reggie to study business, Brit to study art. In a reversal of Mom’s expectations, Reggie had supported herself by working in a hotel, while Brit had supported herself by working in a beauty salon. Did Brit miss sparkly costumes, fancy hair and dance recitals? Sometimes. Did she miss propping up the wall at all those school dances she refused to go to? Not at all.

  What she did miss was her dad. He’d died last year of heart disease after a series of heart attacks and surgeries that robbed him of his strength and spirit. It was a painful and scary end to a man she’d once thought would live forever. And his absence left a chasm between Brit’s artistic dreams and her ability to create art. In a word, she was blocked. She hoped this move was a new beginning.

  “She’s beautiful, Brit.” Reggie touched a spun, floating aluminum tress of red mermaid hair and then met Brit’s gaze in the beer mirror, a gentle smile on her face. “And so are you.”

  Brit’s throat crowded with love for her sister.

  “And don’t give me any of that ugly-duckling crap. Joe thought you were beautiful, too.” Reggie’s smile turned wicked. “He couldn’t keep his eyes off you.”

  Heat rushed to Brit’s cheeks. “From his perspective, I was trespassing and looting. He wanted to put the fear of God in me.” That wasn’t lust in those cold eyes of his.

  Brit gestured that they pick up the bike and lean it against the shampoo sink in the corner.

  “It ticked Joe off that he didn’t succeed in shaking you.” Reggie was still grinning. “Guys like a challenge.”

  “Correction.” Brit peeked behind the beer mirror to see how it was hung, glad to find a thick wire and two big hooks. “You like a guy who’s a challenge. I like nice guys.” Ones who didn’t suck the emotional energy—the lifeblood of Brit’s creativity—out of her. “Grab the other side of the mirror and lift.”

  “Hanging your sculpture here worries me.” Despite her reservations, Reggie did as asked and helped Brit store the mirror in the back room. She returned to stare at the mermaid. “Don’t put this up. It’s a barbershop, Brit. There’s no future for you here.”

  “Agreed. But that doesn’t mean I want to work in a plain box, or give up hair and go halfsies on the B and B with you.” Brit pulled two utility hooks from her coverall pockets and considered where to put them in the wall. “This is just to fill the gap until my art career takes off.”

  “Do you know how many artists are self-sufficient?” Reggie, being Miss Glass-Half-Empty, said. “You wouldn’t be on your feet all day if you owned half the B and B. You’d have plenty of energy and time to make more pieces like this.” Was that a hint of desperation in her voice?

  Impossible. Reggie had emotional shock absorbers to take life’s bumps in the road effortlessly. She planned her future like an airline pilot planned the route to his next destination. She’d never be desperate. Besides, she’d been talking about running the B and B for years. It had been her favorite topic with Dad.

  Brit studied Keira’s flowing lines. The effortless wave to her hair had taken days to achieve, with Dad on the sidelines cheering her on. She’d never sell Keira because she’d never create anything as perfect as the mermaid again. If she created anything ever again. Geez. Now, that’s maudlin. And Reggie was waiting for an answer. She tossed her a question instead. “Do you know how many B and Bs make a profit?”

  “Touché,” Reggie murmured. That didn’t stop her from presenting her case. “But owning the only rooms for rent in this town will be profitable when the winery becomes more popular.” Wine-thirsty tourists were already making the trek to this far-flung corner of Sonoma County. “Can’t you see that?”

  “The only thing I can see is a blank wall. You know white space bugs me.” Brit walked to the truck for a drill and a hammer.

  A few minutes later, Keira hung on the wall. Her aluminum hands held the handlebars and the rest of her swam whimsically above the bike as if she was riding underwater.

  Reggie stepped back to view the piece. “People will want their hair cut just to get a look at her.”

  “My wallet hopes you’re right.” Regardless, there was something about the mermaid’s balanced, carefree movement that made her breathe easier. “This sculpture... It’s the first one I’ve created that made me feel like a real artist.” One that other artists could respect. One that Dad could be proud of.

  Before Keira, people had looked at her creations and said, “How nice.” Which was their polite way of covering their real opinion: What is that supposed to be? Brit could always sense the truth by their carefully modulated tone of voice. Which made her resentful of their need to try to be kind. Which made her hate anything other than the truth in all aspects of her life.

  Reggie hugged her. “Leona wants you to come to dinner tonight. And I want you to be my partner in the bed-and-breakfast, but if you become the next art world sensation, I won’t complain.”

  “Much.” Brit smiled at her twin. “Lighten up. You’ll buy out Grandmother Leona and be a success without me.”

  Reggie didn’t look so sure.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “YOU SHOULD’VE SOLD the lady the grille.” Sam spoke with the gravitas of an eleven-year-old who knew everything as she washed her hands in the chipped kitchen sink in the apartment over their repair shop.

  Joe couldn’t smile like a good dad should’ve at his daughter’s wisdom. His smile had gone the way of cement shoes off the end of a deepwater pier. “She wasn’t serious about paying.” If Brittany had been, she would’ve gotten out her cash then and there.

  “We don’t work on wrecks,” Sam said. “We work on performance machines.”

  Oh, for the luxury of ego.

  Gone were the days of big-screen TVs in every room, recliners with heating massage and vehicles with air-conditioned leather seats. Joe took in the neglected bachelor pad. The brown couch with wooden arms must be from the 1950s. The small Formica table in the cramped dining area didn’t seem any newer. And he’d bet no amount of scrubbing would remove the scuff marks in the gray linoleum.

  Joe had traded in the good life. In return, he hadn’t been arrested and had kept custody of Sam. He’d get used to the lack of finer things. He might never get used to being forced to choose between the uncle who’d saved him half a lifetime ago and Sam.

  Sam, who needed to understand this was their new reality. Uncle Turo and his larger-than-life lifestyle was no longer an option.

  “Those cars in the field?” Joe pointed out the window. “Those are the kinds of cars I used to work on when I lived here as a kid.” The kinds of cars that were going to provide for him and Sam for the next five to ten years. Less for good behavior.

  “Ew.” She’d said that the first time they’d entered the apartment this morning. And again when she’d seen the hard-water stains in the toilet. And once more when she’d spotted a garden snake slither into a hole in the wall of the garage office.

  That had made Joe want to say ew, too.

  Once they were rid of the trespassers, they’d finished unloading the truck and trailer that had their beds and few belongings—the possessions the FBI let them keep. Only then had he spared a glance to the house he’d grown up in. The one he refused to live in.

  Besides bad memories, there’d be too much square footage to heat or cool for it to make sense for him and Sam to move in there. He’d barely looked at the barn in back where the family had once kept their personal vehicles. It was practically drowning in blackberry bushes and would probably have more
spiders and snakes than either he or Sam was comfortable with.

  Instead, he’d chosen the apartment his grandfather, and later his Uncle Turo, had lived in. He focused on being thankful that he hadn’t done anything illegal, and concentrated on rebuilding his life and his daughter’s.

  “We’ll inventory the cars in the field later and find out which ones we own.” He wouldn’t sell a car he didn’t have the legal title to. He led Sam downstairs, noting midway he needed to repair a soft tread. “We’ll start work on whichever one’s in the best shape once we get some paying customers.”

  “Dad,” Sam said with lawyerly seriousness. “There is no best shape in that field.”

  There was no best shape in his memories of this place either. Everywhere he looked he saw Uncle Turo. Around the field there were still remnants of the dirt track Uncle Turo had made for him and his brothers to race their motorcycles. In the kitchen cupboard he’d found an old container of Uncle Turo’s favorite spice, and his business cards were stacked behind the service counter. Everywhere he looked there was a memory of how Uncle Turo had shown up and held the family together after Mom left and Dad fell apart. It made Joe’s decision all the more painful.

  He’d made the right choice, the only choice, a father’s choice. That didn’t mean he didn’t feel the consequences of his decision in the guilt rooted in his throat, the anger planted on his shoulders or the regret twined around his heart.

  For Sam’s sake, he’d bound his guilt, his anger and his regret deep inside him. Only occasionally did the bindings unravel, crowding the air out of his lungs.

  He pushed through the office door to the parking lot and unhitched the trailer he’d towed from LA. What would the trailer be worth? Enough for car parts to restore a wreck in the field? Doubtful. But doubtful was better than nothing. “Let’s go into town and pass out some flyers.” He’d typed them up and had them printed at one of those office-supply stores in Santa Rosa. “Who knows? We might get lucky and find someone with car trouble.”

  “Sell the grille,” Sam repeated, opening the passenger door of their pickup. The hinges sounded like a wire brush being dragged over rusty sheet metal. “This truck is pathetic.”

  “It’s a classic.” Joe tried to believe it, tried to infuse his words with optimism. “Even a pathetic truck can be the best of a bygone era.”

  He’d bought the cheap red pickup last week. After a bit of work, the big block engine ran with race-car precision. The rest of it wouldn’t have been out of place in the field behind their garage.

  The women picking their field for treasures had been driving a similar “vintage” truck, which was surprising. They’d looked like sensible sedan drivers. Although...

  Maybe not Brittany. Stained coveralls and scuffed work boots said one thing. Short, black, polka-dot-painted fingernails and carefully applied makeup said another. Something about her didn’t add up. She didn’t look like she knew how an engine worked, much less how to pop the hood. But she’d held the socket wrench with confidence and had tucked it into a full toolbox, one lacking pink-handled tools.

  Athena would’ve liked her. Athena would’ve taken Brittany’s money for the grille. Or the promise of it.

  His wife had always been too trusting in others.

  Joe’s head throbbed. Memories flashed. The wet road. The unexpected turn. The smell of a hot engine and cold blood.

  It was better to focus on the here and now.

  Joe took in the peeling paint on the garage’s outer walls, the small cracked-asphalt parking lot, the roof shingles that looked as if a gusting wind would blow them free. He needed something new to focus on. The here and now was demoralizing. He wasn’t in Beverly Hills anymore. There were no luxury cars waiting to be fixed. No roar of precision machines in service bays. No rumble of commands left in Uncle Turo’s wake.

  Uncle Turo would’ve liked Brittany, too. But he would’ve sold her the entire BMW plus an expensive service plan.

  Joe’s phone rang, playing the opening notes of “Jailhouse Rock.” He’d programmed the main number from the Los Angeles County jail.

  Joe’s head hammered harder, the pain moving behind his eyes as he let the call roll to voicemail.

  He tossed a short stack of flyers advertising the opening of their business on the bench seat and climbed behind the large white plastic steering wheel.

  “I miss Uncle Turo.” Sam turned a too-innocent gaze toward him. “Do you think he’s okay?”

  “Yes,” Joe lied, because eleven-year-olds shouldn’t worry. “Forget Uncle Turo. Now it’s you and me.” That’s what his brothers, Gabe and Vince, had told him when the law finally caught up to Turo. Get out. Get away. Protect Sam.

  “So...this is our home?” Sam sighed with all the melodrama of a silent film heroine.

  Joe didn’t know what angle Sam was working, but he needed to keep her on the straight and narrow. “This is the end of the road. Home sweet home.” He started the engine, listening for any inconsistencies, which was challenging given his pounding head. Hearing none, he put the truck in gear.

  “We should send Uncle Turo our address.”

  A muscle in Joe’s eye twitched. He drove past neat rows of vineyards, which were serene and picturesque, but he missed the frenetic pace of LA and the kaleidoscope of vehicles of every make, cost and color.

  Sam sighed again, perhaps upset that her request to communicate with Uncle Turo had fallen on deaf ears. “Do I have to start school on Monday? I can wait until fall to go back. You can’t run the garage on your own.”

  Or perhaps they were revisiting the argument about how this move had made her realize she didn’t need school.

  Their arrival coincided with spring break. The school in Harmony Valley was minuscule, nothing like her old school with hundreds of kids. Or what Joe had experienced growing up here.

  More than a decade ago, the mill—the biggest employer in town back then—had exploded and shut down, causing a mass exodus of young families in need of regular paychecks. Joe’s family had been among them. Eventually, the schools had closed as more people left. Now, after nearly becoming a ghost town, Harmony Valley was poised to thrive. Joe intended to take advantage of being the first repair shop to resume business. And Sam could take advantage of the low teacher-student ratio. The Harmony Valley School District had just reopened and had one teacher for a handful of elementary school children.

  “Dad.” Sam’s voice shrunk to the level of wistfully made wishes. “Remember when Mom used to buy me new clothes before school started?”

  With his head pounding and his eye twitching, Joe felt as worn-out as a tire on its third retread. “It’s April, Sam.” And they didn’t have money for new clothes. Uncle Turo had seen to that.

  “Yes, but...” Sam turned to look at him, a petite version of Athena’s classic features with puppy-dog brown eyes. He might have been won over if not for the hint of dogged determination in the set of Sam’s mouth. That came from his side of the family. “Dad, it’s a new school.”

  “Sam, you’ll be in class with a handful of elementary girls. They won’t care if your clothes aren’t new.” People in Harmony Valley were different. Or so Uncle Turo used to say. Joe didn’t remember if that was true. When last he’d lived here, he’d been a hell-raising, angry teenager, more concerned with rebelling against authority than being accepted.

  At sixteen, he’d viewed everyone over the age of thirty as the enemy. They’d either driven too slow or complained he drove too fast. They’d lived happily within the boundaries of society, while he’d felt rules weren’t for him. He hadn’t appreciated that the very things he resented about Harmony Valley had protected him as a child. Not until he’d needed a safe harbor for Sam.

  Now he hoped what Uncle Turo said was true, because he wanted to provide his kid with an environment that didn’t judge her for her great uncle
being a crook.

  Joe drew a steadying breath, willing his eye to stop twitching and his head to stop pounding. Starting over wasn’t supposed to be so hard. “Why don’t we put up flyers at the bakery first?” Sugar. It was just the distraction Sam needed. They could afford a little sugar, couldn’t they?

  Sam slumped, staring out the window as Joe turned onto Main Street and down memory lane.

  At first it seemed nothing had changed. The cobbled sidewalks, window awnings and old-fashioned gaslights remained. There was the pawn shop and the pizzeria. There was the barbershop where he’d gotten his hair cut. There was the bakery, and farther down, the Mexican restaurant.

  A second glance showed him that time hadn’t stood still. The corner grocery was dark. The ice-cream parlor where kids used to go after school was vacant. The stationery store had been taken over by something called Mae’s Pretty Things.

  Main Street had been the heartbeat of town. Bustling. Never an empty storefront or an empty parking space. Now it felt deserted, despite a few scattered cars.

  They parked, grabbed the flyers and went inside Martin’s Bakery. Again, there was a sense of time standing still. The same mismatched wooden tables and chairs, framed yellowed photos from the bakery’s past on the wall, fresh sweets in the glass case. The smell of rich coffee was new. And the place was surprisingly crowded with retirees—which was great. They’d drive dated cars that didn’t require expensive diagnostic equipment that rivaled the cost of sending a man to the moon.