“Do you think that was true?”
“I still don’t know. Not that it mattered.”
“No,hedidn’t matter.”
Though he hadn’t said he only cared about what happened to her and the girls, warmth spread in her chest, anyway. For one sneaky moment, she let it unfurl.
“Did you go home then?”
“You might have noticed that I’m stubborn.” She waited for his nod. “But after my clothes didn’t fit, and I got sick of not being able to scrounge up money for pesky things like food or shelter, I called Riley. Not Dad. Soon I was on a bus headed home to face my father’s disappointment.”
“And his support, right?”
That same angry expression he’d directed at her ex-boyfriend was back, but this time she felt compelled to defend the target.
“Dad came around, particularly after the girls were born. They wrapped him around their tiny fingers.” She paused, smiling at the memory. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without him and Riley for those first few years. But it was important to me to finish my degree, get my own place and support the twins on my own.”
“You had something to prove.”
“I guess. But why did you say it like that?”
“Because you and I have a lot in common,” he said, chuckling. “I was a disappointment to my family, too.”
“You mean because of the divorce?”
“Before that. I dropped out as a second-year law student at Loyola to become a firefighter. My dad will never forgive me for it. I was supposed to be a third-generation attorney at Prentiss Law.”
Rachel’s arms crossed. “Anyone who thinks being a first responder isn’t a higher calling is just plain wrong. There’s more honor in that than for some dumb lawyer, who—”
“You don’t have to say it. I’ve heard all the jokes. Told most of them.”
“Still, what you’re suggesting isn’t the same thing at all.”
“Tell that to my dad.”
He was going for a laugh this time, but she wasn’t biting.
“You chose a different career. You didn’t desert your family when they needed you, return with two kids and still want nothing but to get out again.”
She scanned the living room she’d been so proud of, the sofa cover looking dingy, the bookshelves shouting secondhand. “What I wouldn’t give now for a few more days of living with Dad and Riley, even with whiskers in the sink and Dad’s two chicken recipes. Dry and drier.”
Her throat thickened as she caught Mick watching her, his eyes filled with compassion. Normally, she would have been offended by a reaction like his, reading pity into it, but she sensed that he could understand at least some of her regrets.
“I refused to believe it at first, you know. That Dad died by suicide. I knew he kept a rifle to handle occasional pests. But I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that—” She shook her head over a reality that would never make sense to her. “Even after the county medical examiner put it in her report, I resisted.”
She brushed her fingers over the tabletop, watching her bare nails catch the light. “I didn’t even know he was sad.”
“Some people are good at hiding what they’re going through.”
The softness in Mick’s eyes showed he knew something about masking pain.
“Because I couldn’t accept it, I convinced Riley to take a closer look into Dad’s death, even though he was the one who found his body. I needed answers. Why did he do it? Why didn’t he come to us? If I’d known that Riley was in such a vulnerable place himself, I wouldn’t have asked. His setback with his addiction is on me. It’sallmy fault.”
“No, Rachel. You’ve said that before, but it isn’t.”
“You don’t know—”
She stopped as Mick’s hand came to rest across hers, his fingers and thumb curling over her skin. Her heart pounded so hard as she stared at their point of contact that Mick had to feel it. She knew she should pull away. But his touch was warm. Comforting. She couldn’t resist lingering a little longer.
