mildly offended. He felt as if he’d been bending over backward to get Carys to open up to him but she’d rebuffed his every attempt. “You know if you ever want to talk—”
“What if I want to talk about Mom?” she queried sharply and he shifted in discomfort.
He knew he needed to tread carefully but talking about Charlotte... It was so painful for them both so why would he want to encourage that? “Your mom would’ve wanted us to go on with our lives, not wallow in sadness. You know that, right?”
“When people die it’s sad,” Carys countered bluntly. “Lindy said it’s good to talk about it. Somehow it makes you less sad.”
He drew back, freshly irritated. “Talking isn’t going to bring Mom back,” he told Carys firmly. “Of course we miss her. But the best way to honor her spirit is to move on with our lives in a positive manner.” At that Carys’s eyes flashed and she shoved a fry in her mouth. He was losing her again. Damn it. “Carys, you know I loved Mom more than anything, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she answered, shrugging.
“What do you mean, you guess?”
Carys glared. “If you loved her like you say you did I don’t understand why you won’t ever let me talk about her. You never even mention her name. It’s like you’re trying to erase that she ever existed.”
“That’s not true,” he said, stung. “I just don’t want to get stuck in an unhealthy pattern of emotional pain. And I don’t want that for you, either.”
“What are you talking about?” Carys asked, confused and annoyed. “I don’t even know what that means. Emotional pain? What else are you supposed to feel when someone you love dies? I guess I didn’t get that memo on what’s supposed to be healthy and whatever.”
Somehow, once again, their conversation had eroded into an angry standoff and he was bewildered how they got there. He sighed and gestured at her cooling food. “Eat your burger.”
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Fine. Then we’ll take it with us. You can eat it later.”
“Whatever.”
“Can we not do this?” he asked, hating that he was pleading with his daughter.
“Do what?”
“Fight.”
“I want to talk to Lindy,” she said, folding her arms across her small chest.
“What?”
“I want to talk to her.”
“About what?” he asked, incredulous. Carys’s mouth tightened, telling him he wasn’t going to get an answer. He signaled for the check with a brusque motion. “This is getting ridiculous, Carys. I’ve tried to be understanding. I’ve tried to be accommodating but you’ve stonewalled me at every turn. What does Lindy Bell—a stranger, I might add—offer you that I haven’t?”
“You wouldn’t understand because you don’t listen,” she muttered, glancing away. “She understands because she lost her mom, too. And she says it’s good to talk about it.”
Gabe stared, hit by the knowledge that in one conversation Lindy had managed to reach his daughter when he had failed repeatedly. He also realized that Lindy had forged a tenuous bond with Carys through a similar experience. But Lindy wasn’t the kind of person Gabe would like his daughter hanging out with on a regular basis. From what he could tell, it was likely Lindy didn’t care about the things he felt were important and hoped to instill in his daughter. Maybe it was unfair to judge a book by its cover but he didn’t have the luxury of getting past the surface when his daughter was involved. “I’m sorry, Carys. I don’t think that’s a good idea. We don’t know Lindy very well and she might seem like a very nice person but I’d rather not invite strangers into our business.”
Once again he was the bad guy, he thought with an unhappy sigh. But he had broad shoulders. He could take it. Carys would realize someday that he was only doing what was best for her.
He just hoped their relationship didn’t sustain irreparable damage between now and then.
CHAPTER FIVE
LINDY RETURNED FROM the marina and went in search of something to eat. She found her grandfather puttering around in the kitchen, fixing himself a sandwich. She slid onto the barstool and smiled with love in her heart for the old guy. He hadn’t changed much physically. Maybe his hair had a bit more gray and he wasn’t as robust as he once was but he still had that same indescribable quality about him that made him Pops. Even if he was slowly losing his grip on reality.
“Whatcha got there, Pops?” Lindy asked, bending to take a sniff of his plate and opening her mouth as if she were going to gobble it down right there in front of him.
“Hey now, get your own,” he warned and pulled the plate from the snap of her jaws. “There’s plenty. Celly just stocked the pantries.”
Lindy cocked her head. “Celly?” she asked, curious. “She does the shopping now?”
“Well, your grams...she’s hard to find these days for the little stuff, like grocery shopping and whatnot, so Celly offered to do the shopping. She’s also a great cook. Have you tried her boiled bananas yet? Damn near as good as anything they sell at The Wild Donkey.”
“The Wild Donkey,” Lindy murmured, remembering the popular local hangout. “I can’t believe they’re still in business.”
“Nothing much changes around here, just the people,” Pops remarked, taking a hefty bite of what appeared to be a turkey and cranberry sandwich with lots of sprouts. “Mmm...that’s good,” he said with a grunt of approval. “Your grams talked Celly into all this healthy stuff and at first I was skeptical, but damn if she doesn’t have me eating like a rabbit and liking it, besides. Wonders never cease, huh?”
Lindy smiled as she pulled the fixings for her own sandwich. “So...Pops...how is Grams feeling these days?” she asked, feeling out the framework of Pops’s elaborate fantasy. “She okay?”
“Fit as a fiddle,” Pops answered with a faint scowl as if he were annoyed that Lindy had even asked. “Why? She say something to you?”
Lindy’s mouth curved in a faint smile as sadness brushed across her thoughts. She’d been fifteen when Grams had gotten sick. It’d been a horrible time. Sometimes she wished she could forget, too. Lindy blinked back the sudden moisture in her eyes and focused on her sandwich. “Nope,” she answered brightly, slathering mayo on her bread. “Just making sure everyone’s good and healthy. I’ve been gone awhile so you know, just want to make sure I haven’t missed anything important.”
“Everything’s fine, sugar bird,” he assured her with a smile, biting into his sandwich. “Everything’s just fine.”
“Good.” She dumped a handful of turkey on her bread with a little more force than necessary. Pops looked up with a quizzical expression and she forced a laugh. “Oops. My bad.”
Pops switched subjects without her needing to, saying, “Lindy...I’m
