Right now, she was the world’s best girlfriend. Theo couldn’t think of one person he’d rather be sitting with at this moment.
Well, one. But that person was fourteen years and 2,629 miles away, and he had learned a long time ago how to carry on with a good life despite the ever-present memory of her in the back of his mind.
Ashleigh glanced up from the menu and caught his gaze. Her lips, pink as the roses decorating the tables, parted slightly. Her cheeks warmed as her eyes slipped back to the menu, no doubt attempting to hide similar thoughts behind her long black lashes. But the secret was out, had been out for a few dates now. She was enjoying herself as much as he was, and neither of them was interested in playing games.
At this rate, they’d be shopping for rings by June.
“You know,” Theo said, placing the menu and its lines of French descriptions on the crisp white linen tablecloth. “Fiddler on the Roof is opening on Saturday. I wondered if we could watch the performance, take Bree and Chip out after the show to celebrate her role as Golde—”
“You mean voluntarily sit beside our exes so we can reexperience at what precise moment Chip lost interest in me?”
Ashleigh delivered her polished words with nothing but serenity as she gazed at the menu, although he could’ve sworn he saw her left eye twitch.
She set her menu down and reached out to give his hand a lighthearted squeeze. “I will be forever grateful to those two for setting us up, Theo, but that doesn’t mean I can forget so easily. You, however, are a wonder.”
She held his hand until he bowed his head with a nod.
“Of course. My apologies. I brought it up too soon.”
He hadn’t lied. By soon, he just meant relative to the life span of a two-hundred-year-old bowhead whale.
It had been more than a year since Chip and Bree had said their “I dos,” almost two since Theo and Ashleigh each had to endure “the talk” with their former significant others. Despite the unpleasant conversation, Theo had understood Bree, both then and now. The heart wanted what it wanted. Openness to heartache, unfortunately, came with the dating landscape. Through it all, Theo had maintained a friendship with both Bree and Chip. The weekend prior he even celebrated with them at their baby shower.
Baby steps. Ashleigh just needed to take baby steps.
Like removing the framed photographs of her entwining her arm with someone else’s quite-possibly-photoshopped husband. That would be a good start, particularly before any unfortunate incident whereby Chip or Bree happened to see it one day.
Theo’s pocket vibrated just as the waiter stepped up to the table. The man gave a short dip of the head. “Good evening, ma’am. Sir. Are you ready to order?”
“You go ahead, Ashleigh,” Theo said as he slipped his hand into his pocket and peeked discreetly at his phone. His occupation often leaked into his life after hours, but he did his best to remain courteous in the company of others. Especially Ashleigh.
But one glance at his phone and he paused.
The name hovering on his screen wasn’t from Harris, calling about the upcoming company merger, or from gubernatorial candidate Lee, wanting reassurance about how the investment into Quicken would affect his future and reputation. It wasn’t even his frequent after-hours caller, multimillionaire Hardy, announcing he’d “accidentally” purchased another Jaguar while on vacation and needed to hide the diminutive expense on the account report from his wife.
No, it was a name much more important. One that caused him to do something he’d never done in the middle of their meals—slip from his seat with a “Forgive me, I have to take this” to Ashleigh and the waiter.
The caretaker of his family’s Christmas tree farm.
The caretaker himself.
Skye’s father.
Chapter 2
Skye
“You have to go to the hospital.” Skye struggled to keep hold of her father without hurting him further as she eased him into his recliner. Carefully she undraped her arm from his shoulders. “This is going to be one of those nonnegotiables. Like paying taxes. Stopping at crosswalks.” She waved a hand at his slumped shoulder. “Seeing a doctor when part of your body has been crushed into a thousand tiny fragments.”
He looked at her as though she’d just pushed a three-weeks-expired crab cake into his mouth. “Nonsense. It’ll heal itself—”
Skye glanced down to his shirt. “Is there something poking out of your arm right now—”
“My arm’s just like a starfish—” her father continued.
“Dad? Is your bone coming out of your body?”
“It’s made to grow back on its own.”
“That is incredibly inaccurate. You are welcome to look at any amputee as a living example—”
“Just need to give it time.” He exhaled sharply as he pulled the lever with his good arm and the recliner popped back. He nodded to her. “You go look it up, honey. You’ll see. I’ll not be wasting my time on a bureaucratic system trying to take my money.” He picked up the remote and flicked on the television. “Won’t fall into their trap . . .”
Skye threw her hands out as she spoke over the television. “Sure. I bet all those doctors hard up for money were just lying in wait to push your tractor over while you weren’t looking. It’s probably some grand ploy happening all over the country. The headlines will be splashed across the news tomorrow: ‘Desperate Surgeons Discovered Hiding in Cornfields from Sea to Sea.’”
He nodded, his eyes on the TV. “Now you’re starting to think.”
Skye bit her bottom lip to keep from wasting her breath on a fruitless response. It was time to get her mother.
She’d been inside her parents’ house almost every day for the past three months; before that, years had passed since she left her childhood home. The strangest thing about being gone and coming back, however, wasn’t how much things had changed. It was how much things hadn’t.
The blue-and-white wallpaper, the pale-pink couches, the old flamingo table lamps—these were all as they had been when she left for Seattle fourteen years ago. The same lemony Pine-Sol smell permeated the air. Even the flickering television, boxy and crying out to be used as a prop on some set for an I Love Lucy musical, was the one she had watched through high school. Everything in Skye’s life had changed in the past fourteen years. But for her parents? Nothing.
Well, nothing except for the dozen landscape oil paintings covering every square inch of wall space above the couch.
Skye’s eyes drifted to the glimmer of a poker chip on the shag carpet, now visible beneath her father’s reclined chair. She frowned. Frowned deeper as she picked it up and the words Bristol Casino glinted against the lamplight. A one-hundred-dollar chip.
Terrrrrific.
Nothing here had changed at all.
Her father’s attention and expression shifted as he realized what she held. He started to reach for it, winced, and settled back again.
“Now how’d that get there?” he said gruffly, eyeing it as if it had slithered in like a lizard and taken post beneath the chair of its own accord. “Must’ve slipped out of my pocket and been stuck in this chair for ages.”
Sure. Because her mother—tidiest woman in all of Appalachia—would’ve let a single day go by without vacuuming under the furniture.