Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
I shoved a hand back through my close-cropped hair and exhaled a long breath.
I’d planned on dealing with my dad’s shop without any emotion—without feeling one way or another about wrapping things up, but just staying focused and getting it done. From the moment I’d walked in, though, all I’d done was feel—first about my mom, then my dad… and now Joanne.
And all those unwelcome feelings only served to make me aware of how much I’d lost over the years.
I’d lost my parents, obviously, and thought I’d made peace with that. But now? Finding out about a whole new side of my dad that I’d thought had been extinguished when my mom had passed away? It almost felt like I’d lost both of them all over again.
For a moment, when I’d first walked through that door and saw Joanne smiling at me, it had felt like I’d been gifted some long-forgotten warmth back into my life. But now that had been taken away, too.
No, not just “taken away”—damaged… both by my thoughtless words and by my own conflicted thoughts and memories of my father.
It had been wrong of me to put Joanne in the middle of all that. I felt like a complete ass because of it. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut, the way I usually did. But I hadn’t, so… how in the hell was I supposed to fix it now?
Joanne stared at me for several long seconds without replying to my fumbling attempt to undo the damage I’d caused. Then she finally seemed to relax a little.
She sat down in the creaky office chair. Even though she didn’t seem to be mad, she still wasn’t smiling… or even looking in my direction.
Obviously, I was going to have to choose my words a little more carefully now that I was out in the civilian world.
I’d become accustomed to communicating with a bunch of loud, crude football players, but I could tell that Joanne was neither loud nor crude. She definitely didn’t have a problem sticking up for herself, though. I just hated that I’d made Joanne feel like she needed to be on the defensive.
“What were you expecting, anyway?” she asked after a minute, finally making eye contact again.
I hesitated. I wanted—needed—to do a better job of choosing my words. I might not know how to make things better with Joanne, but I damn sure didn’t want to make them worse.
“I don’t know. Someone who was older man, I guess. And more… I don’t know. More like…”
“More like your dad.”
Joanne said the words flatly, arms crossed over her chest. It wasn’t really a question, but I nodded anyway.
That was exactly the kind of person I would have thought Henry would’ve hired—someone who shared his beliefs, his opinions, someone who understood his gruff and grumpy demeanor. Not this cute, nice little wisp of a woman whose personality and smile lit up the whole shop and made it feel welcoming and bright.
I literally couldn’t picture the two of them working together and getting along. My brain just couldn’t fit those pieces together in any way that made sense.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I admitted. “But you seem about as different from him as a person could get.” I paused to give Joanne a tentative smile, a peace offering. “It’s at least one thing that we probably have in common.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged, clearly not convinced. “Maybe not so much. I got along with your dad really well, and I had—have—a tremendous amount of respect for him. He always had a way of knowing just what I needed to hear, even if I didn’t always like hearing it. He was like a fa—” She looked away, swallowing back the word she’d been about to say. After a moment, she looked back at me and continued, “Henry was like family. As much a friend as a boss. And I miss him.”
Now it was my turn to be surprised.
It seemed like Joanne had admired—and now even missed—some of the very qualities about Dad that I had never been able to tolerate.
I didn’t know how to respond to her full-throated defense of Henry. It was almost mind-boggling.
And maybe I was just biased by my own childhood experiences, but… how? How had this sharp, sexy, radiant woman managed to be friends with the sour old guy that I remembered from my childhood? Even if I discounted the huge age difference, what on earth could the two of them have possibly had in common? Just… flowers?
Really?
“We are talking about the same Henry Davis, right?” I asked, a weak attempt to make light of the subject. “The same guy who told me to walk it off when I fell out of a tree and broke my arm? When I was seven years old? That’s the Henry who was your friend?”