The Merry-Go-Round Page 10

  Lauren was learning that they had a lot in common.

  "So what's it like?" he asked her. "Living with your dad again."

  "It's not bad." She brushed fine grit sandpaper against the lion's nose. "I'm at the office or the courthouse a lot. So I don't see Dad all that much. At least, not through the work week, anyway. We're not stepping on each other's toes, if that's what you mean."

  Scott blew across the lion's back and a small cloud of wood dust billowed. "When did your parents divorce? Where's your mom?"

  Lauren stopped sanding.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to intrude."

  "No, no. It's okay," she assured him softly. "My mom. . .died when I was a kid." The smile she flashed was small and tight and looked more like a grimace, she was sure. "Even after all these years it's still difficult to talk about. She had cancer. The doctors weren't sure where it started, but by the time they discovered it, it had metastasized to her bones." Lauren let her gaze trail to the far side of the barn. "She suffered a lot near the end. It was hard. For all of us."

  She felt the penetrating warmth of him when he covered her hand with his. Their eyes met.

  "I really am sorry." He gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

  Lauren looked away. "It's okay." She liked the way he didn't hesitate to comfort her. A lot of men would have felt awkward with the discussion. Inhaling deeply, she went back to sanding.

  "Your dad ever remarry?"

  She shook her head. "He's never even dated."

  Surprise flickered across his face. "That's a lot of years to be alone."

  Lauren had tried to broach the subject of dating Norma Jean with her father, but she hadn't completed the first sentence before he had twisted the 'relationship' conversation she'd planned into a knotted lecture about kicking Greg out of the barn. Scoldings were hard to swallow when you were thirty-eight. She'd let the matter drop, but she did plan to bring it up again when he was feeling less crotchety.

  She glided her fingertips over the lion's smooth nose. "How about your parents?"

  "They're snowbirds," Scott told her. "They spend summers in Maryland at their place on Deep Creek Lake, and they winter in the Keys. When Scotty was young, we used to fly down for a couple long weekends in Florida every summer. Having the place to ourselves was great." He cocked his head. "I hadn't realized it until now, but we haven't been in several years." Then he frowned. "Speaking of my kid—" he glanced toward the door "—I wonder where he is."

  Lauren stood, clapping the dust from her palms. "He's a teenager." She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and saw that she and Scott had been working and chatting for nearly forty minutes. "Probably got caught up with his friends."

  Scott pressed his palm against the lion's muscular hunch and pushed himself to a stand. "Well, if he told you he'd be here, he should be here. I'll speak to him about it."

  She chuckled at his stern tone and he looked chagrinned.

  "You think I'm too hard on him, don't you?" he asked.

  Lauren shook her head and held up her hands. "I'm certainly not the person to tell you how to raise your kid."

  "No, seriously. I'd like your opinion. Scotty doesn't see much of his mother, so I've been left on my own."

  Teetering on a tight rope twenty feet in the air would be less dangerous than criticizing a man's parenting skills.

  "As far as I can see, you're doing a good job," she told him. "Your son is as polite and respectful as any other college freshman I've met."

  Scott captured her forearm and let his hand slide to her wrist. "And that was a nice, innocuous answer." He looked into her eyes. "Now tell me what you really think."

  "Oh, come on." She rolled her eyes. But when she saw that he meant to get an answer out of her, she turned thoughtful. "Well, he does need to mature a little, I guess. Think before he acts. But that comes at different ages for different people. At least, it does from what I've seen. However, I think you could help him along if you would stop calling him Scotty. Makes him sound like a twelve-year-old."

  He blinked several times, and his lips parted slightly. "Whoa," he breathed. "I never realized."

  Sensing that the moment was about to turn unwieldy, Lauren grinned and tried spinning the conversation in a different direction. "Where you a responsible teen?"

  Humor immediately shimmered in his gaze. "Are you kidding? I was ornery as they come."

  Lauren stepped off the platform. "Somehow, I don't have a problem imagining that."

  "I was the kind of kid who would break into a place like this." He looked from the door to the ceiling to the far side of the barn. "Not to do any vandalizing, of course. But I would have fiddled with this contraption until I got it working. And I'd have taken a free ride just for the bragging rights."

  Her smile broadened. "If you need bragging rights, feel free to take a ride."

  "It runs?"

  "Well, yes. . .if you don't mind riding backward."

  "Mind if I have a look?" He'd already turned away from her, making his way to the core of the carousel.

  She heard the panel hinges squeak, and then metal clanked against metal as he fiddled with the levers and switches.

  "Let's try this," he called.

  Some of the lights flashed on and the tinny sounds of organ music floated on the air as the merry-go-round slowly began to turn.

  Forward.

  Lauren clapped her hands and laughed with pure delight, watching Scott jump onboard and wave as he passed her by. He climbed atop the lion they had just been sanding. She pressed her fingertips against her lips, unable to stop grinning behind them.

  She had thought it best to avoid getting involved with Scott because she was his son's lawyer. But he was such a nice guy. Not to mention good looking. And they had much in common; they were both ambitious, hard-working and no-nonsense when it came to their careers.

  Lauren lifted her hand in a reciprocal wave when he circled around again, a silly grin lighting his handsome face.

  Maybe, just maybe, he was the man to get her life moving in the right direction.

  Chapter 10

  Nobody tells me. Nobody keeps me informed.

  I make it 17 days come Friday since anybody spoke to me.

  ~Eeyore, from the Gloomy Place

  in the Hundred Acre Wood

  "I hope none of this stuff is spicy. My reflux will have me burping stomach acid all night long."

  Lovely image to sit down to dinner with, Lauren thought as she watched her dad pick up his napkin and eye the take out containers dubiously.

  "Stay away from the chicken with garlic sauce," she warned. "There's roast pork with snow peas, beef with broccoli and shrimp with cashews. I bought both steamed and fried rice. You should probably stick with the steamed." She picked up a pair of chopsticks. "Oh, and I ordered you a spring roll. I know how you love those."

  He only grunted while he reached for the waxed paper bag housing the fried roll. "How about duck sauce?"

  "Right here. I remembered to ask for extra." She handed him several packets.

  Lauren used her chopsticks to serve herself a portion of fluffy, white rice and spicy chicken. She sighed. "This is nice, huh?"

  "It's a real treat."

  She glanced at her dad over the glistening morsel of chicken she balanced between her sticks unable to tell if he was being facetious. The chicken was tender, the slightly sweet sauce harmonizing perfectly with the bite of peppery heat.

  "I'm sorry I didn't cook," she told him. "That would have meant a trip to the grocery store, and I was already running late."

  "A career woman can't do it all."

  Was that a simple statement of fact or a criticism? Wanting the evening to go well, she decided to deem it non-antagonistic.

  "But—" he wiped a drip of duck sauce from the corner of his mouth, "—a phone call would have been nice. To let me know you were coming home."

  "I come home every night."

/>   "Not early enough for dinner." The crispy spring roll cracked when he sank his teeth into it.

  "Well, that's true," she admitted.

  "I don't like to complain. But I spent more time with you when I lived over in Holly Oaks."

  The apartment complex where he used to live was several miles outside of town and Lauren had made a special effort to visit him there at once a week for dinner or a movie outing.

  "Dad, I see you every morning."

  He snorted, crumpling his paper napkin in the palm of his hand. "Yeah, for two or three minutes. Long enough to say hello and good-bye."

  "That's not true." But even as she said the words, she knew it was. She forced all of the defensiveness out of her tone when she said, "Come on, Dad. Let's not fight."

  "Do you know it's been almost three weeks since we sat down to a meal together?"

  "No way—"

  "Has, too." He ripped open a second packet of duck sauce and squirted a liberal amount onto his roll. "You know what your problem is, Lauren? You're too independent. You don't need anyone. It isn't healthy to isolate yourself too much."

  Lauren nearly choked on a water chestnut. She'd finally gotten up the nerve to approach her dad about how he chose to live his life, brought home Chinese food for a nice, cozy dinner during which she planned to have her discussion with him, and she was the one being preached at.

  "You've never needed me," he said.

  Her knee-jerk reaction was to disagree, but before she could he barreled full-steam ahead.

  "You didn't need Greg, either. Not really."

  She lowered her hand. "Not needing Greg turned out to be a good thing, I'd say."

  "Honey, did you ever think that that might be why your marriage didn't work out?"

  His hazel eyes held not a hint of unkindness. But even though his words were soft, they jabbed at her as sharply as if he'd used his chopsticks.

  "Why does every conversation have to come down to Greg and our divorce? Dad, Greg and I are history. You're going to have to get used to that."

  "I am. I am," he assured her. "I'm just worried about you, is all. I'm afraid that if you keep up this—" he waved his hands in the air "—staunch independence, you're going to live the rest of your life alone."

  "'Staunch independence'?" She parroted him, sarcasm tinting the words ever so slightly. "You make me sound like a defecting country."

  "Don't be angry. I'm only trying to help you."

  For some reason that only annoyed her further. "Independence isn't a bad thing. Most fathers want to raise daughters who are self-reliant."

  He paused, the flaps of the rice box he'd picked up hanging open. "I didn't raise you, Lauren. Not really." He rested his forearms on the edge of the table and looked at her intently. "I was in the house, yes. I earned the money and paid the bills. But the day your mother died, you went from being a little girl to a grown woman."

  Lauren couldn't breathe. He had just described exactly how she had felt as a teen. But she'd never imagined that he had realized it.

  "You came home from school and cleaned the house. You shopped for groceries. You cooked the meals. You turned into the homemaker of the year. You attacked the job with such single-mindedness that I had to come up with some pretty inventive ways to get you away from it from time to time." His small smile was cut short by a deep, drawn-out sigh. "I guess it was my fault. I should have stepped up to the plate. I should have been the leader. But all that planning and organizing you did, I don't know. . .it gave you something to do. Gave you a place to focus your energy. I thought it was a good thing at the time. It helped you to, you know, get through the heartache of losing your mother."

  His shoulders rounded, and Lauren felt the tension inside her release. Sadness seemed to surround them any time they discussed the tragedy they have faced together all those years ago.

  As a teen in the steely grips of grief, she'd decided she couldn't ever depend on anyone besides herself. She could remember the day, the very moment, in fact, that she had come to the morbid conclusion. The house had been empty and deathly quiet when she had rushed in from school, gasping for breath, tears of humiliation streaming down her face. A group of 'popular' girls had teased her about her budding breasts showing through her t-shirt. You need a bra, a teacher had taken her aside and curtly advised. But Lauren knew nothing about bras, and the idea of talking to her father about buying underwear mortified her.

  That had been the instant that she realized she had to do for herself. She'd been so upset that her mother had been taken away from her, that she'd been left to deal with these problems on her own. It wasn't fair that her mom had gone away and left her to struggle with dirty dishes and dust bunnies and bra buying. But deal with them she would, she'd resolved.

  "Your mother was the strong one."

  Her dad's voice nudged her back to the present.

  "You know it and I know it. She held us together as a family, Lauren. I guess I should have stopped you from stepping into her shoes, but. . ." His voice trailed and he lifted a shoulder. Then he shook his head. "I'm afraid I did you a great disservice when I—"

  "Oh, Dad, no," she whispered. She leaned forward, slid her hand over his forearm. "Don't ever say that. Don't even think it. Your letting me take charge was good for me. That experience made me a very strong person."

  He nodded, but it wasn't in happy agreement. "Too strong to let anyone else into your life. Too strong to be half of a couple. You and Greg were married, but the two of you seemed to live separate lives." Worry clouded his gaze. "I know that you're through with Greg. I don't agree with it. Don't like it at all. But I can see what's in front of my face." He swallowed, looking miserable. "Lauren, honey, I don't want you to spend your whole life alone."

  Lauren had no idea he'd been troubled. That he'd been worried about her. All this time she'd thought he was angry with her. Disappointed in her that her marriage had failed.

  She didn't know how to appease his anxiety. But he'd given her an opening; an opportunity so good that not taking it would be plain wrong. She took the steamed rice from him and spooned some onto his plate. "Funny you should say that." She arranged the other take out containers so they were wide open and within his reach. "I've been thinking the same thing about you lately."

  Her dad sat back in his chair, his arms lowering to his sides, saying nothing.

  "Norma Jean's been coming around, I noticed," she began. "She happened to mention to me that she's been calling you."

  The tension in her father's expression eased. Then a smile shadowed the corners of his mouth, his eyes shining.

  "She said she asked you out. More than once."

  "Oh." He waved his hand. "She didn't mean anything." He reached for the box of beef. "She was just being nice to an old man."

  "That's not what I'm hearing. She's honestly interested."

  Her dad dipped his chin nearly to his chest, his cheeks flushing red. "Lauren, Norma Jean is a lovely lady, but she's too young for me."

  Lauren grinned. "She doesn't think so."

  He splashed soy sauce onto the beef and broccoli, then snapped the bottle closed and set it on the table. "Honey, your mother was the love of my life. She was perfect. In every way. And we were good together. Real good. Something like that doesn't come along but once in a lifetime."

  Hearing him voice his loyalty to her mother melted Lauren's heart. The love they had shared had been real and true. There had been a time when she would have used those very words to describe her relationship with Greg. Real and true love.

  "From the moment I met your mother," her father said softly, "I felt I couldn't live without her."

  Misty emotion sparkled in his eyes and Lauren reached over and curled her fingertips into his palm.

  It was odd that Greg would come into her mind so vividly now. When they had first begun dating, one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him was not because he couldn't live without her, but because he could. Greg had his own hopes and dreams and g
oals. He'd been working with his father in the hardware store back then, and he'd had his budding carpentry business, too. He'd seemed happy to give her the space she'd needed to finish her education. Even after they married, he hadn't been one to hover. She'd felt free to work whatever hours she felt necessary to get her practice going. There had been dinners with clients, networking meetings, seminars, conferences. And Greg had never given her any flak. He'd had his interests and she'd had hers, and it had worked for them.

  For a time, anyway.

  Lauren wondered about the charge her father had made about her being too independent, too strong. Could she have had it all wrong all those years? Could Greg have needed more from her? If she'd been more involved in her marriage, spent more time with her husband, could they have avoided the pitfalls that had tripped them up?

  "Don't go all melancholy on me, now."

  Her father squeezed her fingers affectionately, and she blinked her way out of the past. This show of tenderness was rare for Lew Hunkavic.

  "Does it make you unhappy when I talk about your mother?" he asked.

  "Oh, no," she assured him, straightening in the chair and picking up her chopsticks once again. "I love hearing how much the two of you loved each other." She poked at the vegetables on her plate, sorting through her cluttered thoughts to get back to the subject at hand. "Dad, going out to dinner with Norma Jean wouldn't mean you're betraying Mom, or what the two of you had together."

  "Aw, now Lauren." A piece of broccoli disappeared between his lips and he chewed.

  "Listen to me for a minute, would you? You need to get out of this house. You sit here day in and day out, doing nothing—"

  "I do plenty."

  "Don't get mad," she told him, smiling. Then she teased, "I listened to your observations about my life without giving you lip."