His phone buzzed and displayed a picture of a pretty brunette with green eyes. Emma. At least once a day, every day.
Though Emma’s call never irritated him, today he wanted to watch Annika. “Hey, Em.”
“Did you eat?” The beauty of siblings was that you could forgo the niceties, likeHello. How are you?Or so Emma believed.
“I’m eating now.” He glanced toward the kitchen. He would be eating soon.
“Great.” Pause. “So, Daniel, how about coming up this weekend, taking Charlie fishing? Michael’s away and I don’t know anything about fishing.”
“Sorry. I can’t. Working.” He cringed inwardly at his lie. Whatever, he’d pick up another shift and then it would be true.
“Yeah, okay.” She sighed deeply. She knew he was lying, but Daniel knew she wouldn’t press it. “Make sure you eat.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Call Mom sometime.”
“I just talked to her.” Big sisters were so bossy.
Annika was laughing at something Bobby said. That green monster reared its head in Daniel’s belly. He barely registered Emma’s voice.
“Last week.”
“Mmm. Okay. I’ll call them.”
“Love you.” She hung up.
It wasn’t unusual or even unexpected that Emma was concerned about his eating, since he had gone a period where he routinely forgot to do even that. She also believed that Daniel would heal if he spent some time with his nephew. But even seeing Charlie once or twice a year at a family function that he forced himself to go to was too hard. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Charlie. Was it last year or maybe the year before? Jeez. He was a crappy uncle.
Charlie had been born a week before his Sara. The little boy was like a little clock, marking the passage of time. Right now, Charlie’s clock had wound through ten years. Sara’s clock had stopped five years ago.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANNIKA
ANNIKAPUTINthe soup order, then tended to her regulars. They didn’t study her; they were so involved in escaping their own sad lives they couldn’t be bothered to pay any more attention to her than was required.
She refilled drinks and wiped off tables, her head filled with so many thoughts that she didn’t hear Mrs. P. banging the bell to indicate the soup was ready. It wasn’t until Phil was standing in front of her that she looked up.
“What’s going on, Anni? Still letting that bigoted parent get to you?”
No one called her Anni. Her name was Annika, and she always insisted people take the extra millisecond to say the last syllable. But when Phil said it, he filled those two syllables with so much affection that Annika couldn’t yell at him. Though right now it made her want to cry.
“No.” She forced a smile. It had been a few weeks since all that, but it still got to her from time to time. “Maybe a little. Just everything.”
“You need some extra time off?” Phil shook his head.
“No, Phil. Really, I need to come in. Besides, it’s been five months since...” She trailed off. She still couldn’t say it. What kind of wimp wallowed for five months? She hadn’t been pregnant that long, just under three months, though she had been with Steven for close to a year. Her pregnancy had been thoroughly unexpected, and to say that it had caused uproar in her family was an understatement.
Despite her family’s lack of enthusiasm, Annika had allowed herself to become excited at the prospect of being a mother. She had been in love, she was getting married and she was having a baby. Her path may not have been straight, but she was happy. Her family had been in the midst of quickly throwing together a wedding until blinding cramps had her in the ER in the middle of the night, changing her life again.
“I need to work.”
Phil grinned at her. “Well, then, let’s get out of your head and back to work, eh? That new guy’s waiting to stare into his soup.”
Annika let out a small chuckle. Even though she had tried not to, she’d been watching Chopper Guy while she worked. He hadn’t so much as sipped his bourbon as he had stared at it. And from time to time, he scanned the room and rested his gaze on her. Though she pretended not to notice, every time those green eyes found her, a little thrill went through her body.
“Got it, boss.”
