“Your parents still sent you to boarding school? I wouldn’t have wanted to let you out of my sight.”
“It was our family’s way. Will had started the year before he died. Then it was my turn.”
“Was it as horrible as people say?”
“Not really. Parts of it were. I missed my mom.”
“Not your dad?”
Andrew thought of his brusque, distant father who seemed to become even more so after his brother’s death.
“We didn’t have a close relationship.” Or one at all, really. “He was very busy with work. He was an investment banker with a lot of important clients. His work responsibilities didn’t leave much time for him to play catch in the backyard.”
She gave him a long look, as if his words explained something she’d been trying to piece together in her mind.
“So you turned to books.”
Nailed it. “Yeah. Will was the gregarious one. I was happier curled up with a stack of library books.”
“Same. I don’t have the trauma of losing a sibling in my past, but I think I told you my family moved around a lot when I was young. I wasn’t great at making friends but it’s hard to feel lonely when you’ve got a world of book characters to keep you company.”
Oh, he liked this woman. He could easily see himself falling hard for her if he wasn’t careful.
“I think it’s even more remarkable, then, that you’ve chosen to be an entirely different kind of dad than your own.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was thinking this afternoon what a great father you are. From my perspective, everything you do seems to be aimed at ensuring you’re making the right choice for your kids.”
Andrew knew he did not deserve her praise. Most of the time, he felt he was completely fumbling through this single father thing, like a sailor navigating through uncharted water with a broken compass. Every day brought new challenges, unexpected storms and hidden reefs that threatened to sink the whole damn thing.
Still, it was nice of her to say.
“I try. My kids are my greatest gift.”
“I get that. Emma was mine. We tried for about five years to have a second child with no success. I wish I had done what Shara and John are doing and gone the adoption route.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Multiple reasons. We tried all the fertility treatments without success. I had a couple of miscarriages that were devastating for both of us. We finally decided around the time Emma turned seven that we were spending so much time and energy trying for another child that we were wasting our chance to savor the one we already had.”
“Sounds very wise.”
“I don’t know about that. But I don’t really regret it,” she said as she pulled up to a house in a secluded cove he never would have been able to find on his own.
When he saw the line of other cars parked in the neighborhood, Andrew was annoyed to feel a quiver of nerves again. He knew he had absolutely no reason to be nervous. Readers were his people. Even if they weren’t huge fans of his books, they all shared an appreciation for the power of the written word.
Too late to back out now. He might as well roll with it. As he climbed out, Rosie opened the rear door, reached in and emerged with a bottle of wine as well as the covered tray he had noticed earlier.
“My lemon bars,” she informed him. “We sign up each month to bring either appetizers or desserts.”
“I didn’t realize there was food.”
“Small bites, mostly. Though I’ve had a busy day and I didn’t have time for dinner. Or much lunch, come to think of it. I hope I can nibble enough through the evening that my stomach won’t growl in the middle of the book club.”
“Let me carry something for you,” he said.
She handed over the tray of lemon bars and led the way to the front door of what looked like a large, modern beach house with soaring windows and elegant landscaping.
