Cassie laughed. “I remember being that age, so much drama. So you see her on the weekends?”
Something softened in his face. “I have her all the time. Her mom’s not in the picture.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected that, a single dad raising a preteen daughter on his own. “That’s got to be challenging.”
He rubbed his jaw. When she’d first met him she’d assumed he needed a shave, then realized he probably kept it that way. She didn’t see a lot of scruff in her world. “Challenging is an understatement,” he said.
“I’m a single parent now too, although it’s easier since my son’s off at college.” She frowned. “Sort of easier. He just got suspended. You have to go out of your way to make that happen.”
He laughed, which eased the hard, knotty thing inside her.
“How long have you been divorced?” she asked.
“Eight years now.” He ground one of the small stones under his boot. They both looked at it.
“Lilah was little.”
“Four.”
“I’m coming up on a year,” she said. “Next month.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay. Some days I’m fine with it, other days I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. He’s about to get remarried.”
“Ouch.” He looked genuinely pained for her.
“Does it get easier, the whole being single thing?”
“Um…” He glanced up at the house, which she realized was her cue to get her dad. She’d gone and made him uncomfortable.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I’m new to all this, and I don’t seem to be doing it very well. The single parenting thing anyway.”
“That part’s hard,” he agreed.
“Is there an easy part?”
He smiled. “I’ll let you know.”
She turned toward the house. “Sorry to unload on you. Let me get my dad.”
“Do you like honey?” he said.
“Honey? Yeah sure.”
“I’ll bring you some. I’ve got a few jars left over from last summer. It was a good year.”
“I’d like that,” she said. They stood awkwardly for a moment, neither of them quite sure where to go with this.
“Okay then.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Okay. Well, thanks.” She headed up to the house with an unexpected lightness in her step.
She had a feeling Glenn Marsden made very good honey.
Chapter Eight
Lilah put fresh sheets on the bed in the spare room and snipped a few daffodils that appeared each spring at the edge of the woods, arranging them in a glass jar since they didn’t have a vase. She set the jar on the nightstand then moved it to the dresser, then back to the nightstand.
