Was she looking down wondering how the heck her daughter had managed to screw up her life—again?
“I’m going to get it together, Mom,” she said, in case Mom was listening. “I’m working on it.”
Mom laughed. Okay, it was only her imagination, but she knew if Mom was here, she would laugh. After gardening, Mom’s second favorite hobby was her daughter. “I’m going to find you the perfect man, don’t you worry,” she’d say.
Lucy groaned, remembering. Her mom’s idea of Mr. Perfect and hers hadn’t quite meshed. Lucy wanted men who flirted with danger. Bad boys who made her pulse race and her heart pound. Her oh-so-conventional childhood had made her long for darkly handsome rebels.
“Lucy! Where are you?”
“Back here, Dad.”
Her father appeared in the doorway, the ailing ficus in his arms. “I think this is the last of it,” he said.
“Thanks, Dad.” She stood and set the ficus by the window, then stepped back to survey her home-away-from-home. Except for the tree and the DVD player, it looked like she’d never left.
“So where are you working these days?” Her father took her place on the end of the bed.
“Um, I’m still doing temp work until I can find something more permanent.” She began unpacking her suitcase.
Dad made a noise that could have been a grunt. “I didn’t send you to college so you could do temp work.”
She gave herself credit for not rolling her eyes. “I’m an English major, Dad. Houston is full of English majors waiting tables and tending bar. There just aren’t that many jobs that call for quoting Emily Dickinson and analyzing Thomas Wolfe.”
“You ought to let me talk to the guys down at the hiring hall. They could get you into an apprenticeship program.” Dad was an electrician. “There are lots of single guys down at the hall,” he said. “You might meet somebody nice.”
“I don’t want to meet somebody nice.” She deposited an armful of T-shirts in the dresser and reached for the next stack.
“You want to meet somebody rotten?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t want to meet anybody.” Not anyone her father would introduce her to. His idea of Mr. Right was probably even more straitlaced than her mom’s.
He leaned forward, worry lines etched on his forehead. “Honey, is there something you’re not telling me?”
“What do you mean?” She moved over and unzipped her garment bag.
“You say you don’t want to meet men. That doesn’t mean you want to meet women, do you?”
She dropped an armload of dresses. “No! Jeez, Dad!”
“I mean, not that I would care or anything. Not that I understand that sort of thing, but—”
“Daddy, I am not a lesbian.” She blushed. This was not the sort of conversation she ever pictured herself having with her father. She slid back the closet door and the scent of White Shoulders engulfed her. She blinked at the familiar houndstooth jacket in front of her. “What are Mom’s clothes doing in my closet?”
The bed creaked as he stood and came to stand behind her. “She started keeping some of her things in here after you moved out.” He cleared his throat. “Guess I haven’t gotten around to cleaning them out yet. I can move them into the attic if you want.”
He reached for the jacket, but she stopped him. “No, that’s okay.” She shoved the jacket and the clothes behind it to one side and hung her things on the rod. “There’s still room for mine. It’ll be okay.”
She looked at her cropped, red leather jacket next to her mom’s old houndstooth. Mom had never liked that jacket much, but now Lucy thought the two of them looked right at home together.
“Let me call the hall.” Daddy interrupted her reverie. “At least you could get a decent job out of it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be an electrician.”
“Why not? It’s good, honest work. Kept a roof over your head and food in your mouth for plenty of years.”
She turned away and rolled her eyes. Looked like she was in for lecture number seven on Dad’s top ten hits. So much for thinking the rent here was free. She’d forgotten about the listening tax.
She made a show of looking at her watch. “Gosh, look at the time.” She smiled brightly. “What should we have for dinner?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m going out.” He turned toward the door. “I’d better get a move on or I’ll be late.”
She followed him down the hall. Her first night home and he was going out? “I thought we were going to go through the potting shed tonight.”
“You do it, hon. I’m going out.” He disappeared into the bathroom at the end of the hall.
Out? Her dad? She shrugged and wandered into the kitchen. The refrigerator held a quart of milk, a wedge of green cheese, half a package of sliced ham that was drying out around the edges, a jar of pickles, a twelve-pack of Bud and three Diet Sprites. The cabinets yielded some crackers, a can of tomato soup, a box of Lucky Charms and a jar of peanut butter. Lucky Charms? She hadn’t eaten those since junior high.
She was digging into a big bowl of sugar-frosted oats and marshmallows when Dad came out of the bathroom. A cloud of Brut preceded him down the hall. She let out a whistle when he appeared. He’d traded in the khakis and bowling shirt for starched jeans and a striped western shirt with pearl snaps and gold stitching around the yoke. Light bounced off the glossy surface of his boots. “So what do you think?” he asked.
“I haven’t seen you this dressed up since Aunt Edna’s third wedding.” Comprehension slowly stole over her sugar-charged brain. “You’re going out,” she gasped.
He reached for a western-cut sports coat. “That’s what I said.”
“I mean—you’re going out with a woman.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Don’t wait up for me.” He kissed her cheek, then left, the scent of Brut trailing after him.
She slumped in her chair, feeling as if she’d slipped into some alternate reality. Her dad? On a date? Mom had been gone only a year—wasn’t that a little soon? Only yesterday he’d been a grieving widower. Now he was all decked out like Garth Brooks, telling her not to wait up for him.
She carried her cereal bowl to the sink and dumped the contents down the drain. Who was this woman anyway? Some floozy he met in a bar? He’d been married to her mother for thirty years—what was he doing dating someone else?
Part of her realized she was being totally irrational. Her dad was a grown man. He had a perfect right to date.
The thought did nothing to make her feel better. This was her dad. Dads didn’t date. Okay, some did, but not her dad.
Then an even
