“I meant to tell you,” she whispered.
“So why didn’t you?”
“I . . .” There was no excuse. None. “I was trying to find the right time.”
He gaped at her, hurt and disbelief in every line of his body. “The right time would’ve been the minute you boarded this boat. But you were too busy with that contraption that’s always glued to your ear.”
Yeah, and that contraption was going off as she stood there. The hearing was coming up in a few hours, but she kept her hand out of her pocket and her eyes on her dad. “You know that the only reason I got the time off from work to be here with you for Christmas was by promising my boss I’d work remotely to have her back on this case.”
“I didn’t want you on this boat for Christmas.” He pointed at her. “I wanted you for Christmas. I wanted to spend time like we used to, doing the things we both love. I’ve missed you, and I rarely get to see you.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Your mom was always too busy for me too, and I guess the apple never falls far from the tree, right?”
She’d been worried about falling once again for the sexy wanderlusting James, worried about her dad’s impending divorce pain, worried about keeping up with work . . . worried about everything but her own actions. As a result, her dad was right. She had been acting a lot like her mom, putting everything before the important stuff, such as caring for the people in her life.
Not that this epiphany did anything for the hurt now coursing through her at her dad’s harsh words. “I learned from both of my parents,” she told him. “Yes, Mom was so busy with her life that we rarely got time with her, but you were busy too, Dad, with the boat. I’m not sure exactly what you’re remembering, but I’m recalling your telling me to go be good and keep myself busy while you worked. From a young age, I had to keep myself occupied and out of your way. So really, there were two trees I didn’t fall far from.” With her phone still going off, she stood. “I’m sorry for all of it. I should have told you, but I wasn’t in all that much of a hurry to hurt you.” She pulled out her phone and looked at her screen. “Now I’ve got to get this.” Turning away, she answered Cynthia’s call.
“Hannah, thank god. The hearing’s on hold because there’s a problem. We’re missing two signed affidavits from the surgeon. There won’t be a ruling or a surgery unless we get those.”
Hannah frowned. “Right, but I talked about this with your assistant yesterday morning, who assured me she’d go get them.”
“I didn’t think we’d need them. I heard otherwise last night, and my assistant texted you, letting you know I needed you to handle this. You’re the only one who can get through to the surgeon that fast. So . . . where are we with that?”
Seemed like her entire world was going to crash in on itself today. “I didn’t get a text from her or I’d have reminded you both that someone needed to go in person. Ideally it’d be someone familiar enough with the surgeon and staff to expedite the process.”
“Yes, and that would be you.”
“Which would require my getting on a plane.”
“Perfect,” Cynthia said. “I’ll tell everyone you’re on it.”
Hannah let out a low, mirthless laugh. “You want me to fly back? I’m on a boat.”
“Your itinerary says you’ll be in Puerto Rico in a few hours. I’m going to have to get the hearing pushed until tomorrow. Plenty of time for you to get a red-eye back here.”
“But . . . Hello?” She stared at her phone. Perfect. Cynthia had hung up. Hannah looked up at her dad. “I suppose you caught the gist of that.”
He turned on his heel and walked away.
Awesome. Two for two today.
Five minutes later Cynthia’s assistant called her to facilitate flights and ground transportation. When she ended the call, she turned and found her dad once again standing there, hands in his pockets, face unusually solemn.
“I shouldn’t have walked away like that,” he said, surprising her. “I’m sorry. Do you have time to talk before you go?”
She nodded, and he led her across the deck to the sun chairs. They both sat and he looked at her. “I want you to know I heard what you said to me, and I’m sorry for a lot of things. Can I tell you about them?”
“Always.”
He nodded, looking grateful. “Sometimes it seems like the harder I try to get things right, the more I screw everything up.”
“Dad,” she said wearily, “you didn’t screw anything up.”
“Hold on, Smalls. Let me finish. A few days ago I told you that nothing’s free, but that wasn’t true. My love for you is free.”
Her throat tightened and her eyes stung. “Same,” she whispered.
His eyes looked shiny now as well, and he cleared his throat. “What I should’ve said to you is that I’m sorry your mom and I put you in a position where you had to be the one to deliver the news. And even more sorry that I always chose my boat over you.”
“You didn’t always.”
He smiled sadly and tugged on a loose strand of her hair. “You’re the sweetest thing in my life, do you know that?” He sighed. “The truth is that life’s about hard choices, about choosing what’s right over what’s fun, and we both know that’s never been my strong suit.” He put his elbows to his knees and leaned in, his eyes more serious than she’d ever seen them. “I got mad at you for putting your work ahead of me, when I’d done the exact same thing to you for years. Not putting you ahead of my boat is one of the two biggest regrets of my life. The other one is not picking you and your mom when she gave her ultimatum—her or the boat. I won’t ever do that to you again. I promise you.”
Sniffing back tears, she reached for his hand. “I told myself I was coming here for you, to be there for you when I had to tell you the news. But the truth is, I also came here for me. Once you sign those papers, I’m not your stepdaughter anymore, and I wasn’t ready for that to be true.”
With a rough sound of grief, he tugged her out of her chair and in for a hard hug. “A piece of paper isn’t what makes us family,” he whispered against her hair.
Unable to speak, she just nodded, wrapping her arms tight around him.
“You’re stuck with me, Hannah. More than just for Christmas.”
“More than just for Christmas,” she whispered, fiercely grateful for that, for him.
Pulling back, he quickly swiped a forearm over his wet eyes, then met her gaze. “There’re so many things I’ve neglected in bringing you up. I never even taught you how to ride a bike.”
“No, but thanks to you, I know how to make every different kind of knot under the sun, how to jury-rig anything with MacGyver-level skill, and how to handle a seventy-foot-long ship. How many people can say that?”
“But how practical is that? When you learned to drive a car, I should’ve made sure you knew how to change a tire.”
“I’ve got Triple A for that. But there’s no Triple A for mooring in a busy harbor without hitting anything. I can pull into a slip in a windstorm without so much as a scratch,” she said proudly. “I can do that and more.”