I stride to the living room, where I find my father worrying over the tree we bought the other day. The three lines of tinsel wrapped around the girth of it glitter in the afternoon sunset.
“You okay?” I ask, coming to his side as he rubs a hand over his sweater, his head shaking.
“No, this tree is . . .”
“It’s lovely.”
He gives me a deadpan look.
“Come on; it’s fine. We barely even do Christmas, anyway.”
His mouth opens in something like shock.
“Daddy . . .”
Confusion floods his face.
Shit.
I will never get used to this. I scramble to think of something to fix this. “My daddy is, ah, coming with more decorations next week. It’ll be beautiful then.”
“What day is he coming? I need everything to be perfect for Tish this year, after all that happened last year.”
Last year?
I rack my brain, trying to think of something bad that happened to my mother besides her dying when I was seven. But we were so young, and Dad didn’t talk to us about her much after she died. We figured it was because it was just too painful.
Now?
“Is she okay now?” I ask, hoping his memories are clear enough to be understood. Desperate to know more about my mother.
“She will be, lass. Marie will make sure of it.”
Marie?
He turns his attention back to the tree, his jaw feathering. “This Christmas has to be a good one. It just has to be.”
Oh, Daddy.
The front screen door whines and then slaps closed. Oh shoot, I forgot about Maisey. Leaving Dad to the tree, I walk toward the sound of heavy footsteps now thundering down my hallway.
Not Maisey, then.
Chapter
Eight
QUINTON
The sunset illuminates Celeste’s hair, setting her against the world’s most beautiful time of day, only to pale in comparison.
Nope, not here to gawk at the new neighbor.
“Maisey here?” I snap out.
Hell, if I’m friendly right now, I’m not only the creep that was watching her the other night, but I may as well say goodbye to my gonads. Because despite my attempts at keeping this woman out of my damn head, she’s lodged in there.
Her face twists in annoyance.
