few weeks, maybe,” Sabrina said, sitting across from him and spearing the smallest burger. “Until I...get my bearings again. That okay?”
“Like you have to ask. As long as I still have the house, anyway.” He glanced over again. “No bun?”
“Carbs, Pop.”
Shaking his head, he took a bite of his own burger, his gaze drifting out to the yard. Sabrina could probably guess what he was thinking. Or rather, who he was thinking about. Not looking at Pop, she slowly pulled off a piece of pineapple from her skewer and asked, “You ever think about dating again?”
After a long moment, she looked up to meet his glare. Bingo.
“And what would be the point of that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How’s about going to a movie or out to dinner with someone not related to you? Might be fun. You should try it.”
One side of his mouth pulled up. Sort of. “This you not wanting to whine about your own problems?”
“You bet. So?”
Her father took another bite of his burger. “Seems like it’d be more trouble than it’s worth. Especially at my age.”
“So what’re you going to do with the next twenty or thirty years, Methuselah? Watch TV all day?”
“And maybe after all those years of taking care of everybody else, all I want to do is watch TV.”
“Not buying it. Sorry.”
“I’m good with things the way they are, thank you. Once I get out of this house...”
His voice once more trailing off, Pop glanced around, almost as if he didn’t recognize the place, before facing Sabrina again...and she saw in his eyes the depth of his loss in a way she never had before, prompting her to lean over to lay her hand on his wrist. Pushing out a sigh, Pop covered her hand with his own.
“You know, I lost track of how many times we moved, when I was on active duty. The number of places we lived. Far as I was concerned they were only places to sleep, way stations between assignments. But this...” He looked around again. “This was home. Where we raised all you kids. I know I don’t need it anymore. Have known for some time. And I plunked down my deposit on a one-bedroom unit at Sunridge last month—”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Nobody does. Didn’t want you all hounding me.”
“Pop. You decided to sell. Months ago—”
“And at the time, I thought I was good with that decision. And in here,” he said, tapping his head, “I still am.” Then he palmed his heart. “In here is another story.”
“Which is why, I assume, you’re dragging your heels about giving the place a face-lift.”
“Jeannie picked out every paint color, every stick of furniture in the place. What somebody does with it after I’m gone is none of my concern. But as long as I’m still here, it’s my home. And damned if I’m going to spend whatever time I have left in the house feeling like I’m in somebody else’s.”
“So why’d you redo the kitchen?”
He huffed a breath through his nose. “Because even I had to admit it was falling apart. Half the drawers didn’t even close anymore. And the old range was down to two functioning burners. So I caved, let some kitchen designer convince me that an upgrade would add value to the house.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“Except I hate it. Looks like a damn showroom. Or a commercial kitchen. Not like someplace a family wants to hang out. Frankly, I’d change it all back if I could. Except they tell me you can’t even get those green appliances anymore.”
“And thank God for that,” Sabrina said, and her father humphed. “Pop...you need to make a decision here. A real one, I mean, not this half-assed thing. Otherwise you’re wasting both the Realtor’s time and yours. If you don’t want to sell, then don’t. I mean it,” she said at her father’s startled look. “Take the place off the market, tell Sunridge you changed your mind—”
“And forfeit my deposit?”
“If it comes down to that, yes. For heaven’s sake—for once in your life, go with your gut, not only your head. If it doesn’t feel right to leave, don’t. It’s your house, your life. Your right to reverse course. But don’t move forward with something only to save face, or because that’s what everyone’s expecting—”
Her gaze lowered, her uneaten food a blur. She felt her father’s touch on her wrist, as gentle-rough as his words. “Why do I get the feeling we’re not talking about me anymore?”
She jerked her hand away, even as she laughed. Hyenaesque though it may have been. Because she had seen the writing on the wall with Chad. Like neon-hued graffiti, actually. But in spite of the troubles with Robbie, she’d clung to the relationship for far longer than she should have. Because she was so, so tired of...
Of failing.
“Hey,” she said, smiling. “You’re the one who can’t decide whether to sell his house or not.”
But after she’d retreated once more to the room that still bore the scars of her youth—a hundred tiny pushpin pricks from long-gone posters, a red stain on the windowsill where a candle had melted and overflowed—the cold, hard truth came right with her, that she’d fallen into the very trap she’d sworn to avoid.
Of letting desperation make a fool of her.
Exactly like she had with Cole, all those years ago.
She hurled her old teddy bear across the room, where it bounced off the closet door with a pathetic little squeak.
* * *
“So Sabrina’s back?” Cole’s sister said, stretching plastic wrap over the leftover salad.
Yeah, he wondered how long it’d take before she brought up that particular subject. Figuring it best to jump the gun before the kids said something at dinner, he’d casually mentioned she’d been at the Colonel’s.
“Yep,” Cole said, warring with himself about having a second piece of chocolate cake. With caramel filling. Sitting there on the counter, taunting him like some barely clad sex kitten in an X-rated dream. Squelching a sigh, he looked back at Diana, while in the family room beyond, her youngest and Cole’s two were watching some zombie flick, the expressions on their faces not a whole lot different than the characters on the screen. “Visiting, or something. Had no idea she was going to be there. Or she, us. What’re the odds, right?”
“How is she?” Diana asked stiffly, and Cole smiled, even as he silently cussed out his brother-in-law for abandoning him to the she-wolf that was his sister. Some flimsy excuse about a crisis at his restaurant.
“Down, sis. That was a long time ago.”
Her eyes cut to his, then away again when she turned to grab the cake cover and rattle it over
