As he walked to his truck, he couldn’t help but think that while he might be drawn to her, Emma had never looked at him as anything other than the local screwup class clown. That was where he was stuck with her, forever the dumb, goofy kid who couldn’t get his act together.
Maybe it was for the best.
He didn’t have room in his life right now for anything else, not when his mom’s early-onset dementia required so much of his time and emotional energy.
Still, a small part of him couldn’t help but wonder what might have been, what might still be, if only things were different.
Chapter Four
Andrew
“I hope there’s a bathroom at the bookstore.”
At the slightly strangled voice of his seven-year-old son, Finn, coming from the back seat, Andrew Morgan flashed a quick look in the rearview mirror.
“I’m sure there is. Hang on, bud. We’ll get you taken care of.”
“Why didn’t you go before we left?” Zara demanded. At ten, she considered herself superior to her younger brother in all things.
“Because I didn’t need to go then. Now I do. Anyway, I don’t like that bathroom much.”
You and me both, kid, Andrew wanted to say.
“It is nasty,” Zara agreed. “I can’t believe we only have one bathroom with a toilet that actually flushes. I feel like we’re camping or something.”
When they finally moved out of the carriage house apartment and into Stormhaven, they would have five bathrooms but as of now they were all unfinished.
His entire house was unfinished. Like his current manuscript. And, hell, the rest of his life.
“I liked our old bathroom,” Finn muttered.
“Me, too,” Zara said. “Wood Briar blows and our house is creepy.”
“I’m sorry you feel like that. I hope once we’ve been here awhile, you’ll like it better.”
“I liked our old house,” his daughter muttered. “And our old school and our old neighborhood.”
“So did I,” Finn said. “But then our house burned down and so did our school.”
The lingering sadness in his voice made Andrew’s heart ache. Those damn Santa Ana winds. Hadn’t his kids lost enough already in their short lives? Their mother had only been gone three years. They were finally beginning to find their way after Tracy’s death when the wind-fueled firestorm had decimated their house, their neighborhood and the life they had been trying to rebuild.
“We all needed a change,” he said, trying to inject a cheery note in his voice. “And your grandma is here. Won’t it be fun to be near her?”
“I guess,” Zara said.
“And we’re close to the ocean.”
“We were close to the ocean in LA,” she retorted. “And it was warmer there. Grandma said you can’t swim here in Oregon unless you have a death wish.”
Zara’s negative energy was beginning to grate on his last nerve, though he tried to give her a little grace. He knew this move had been hard on her.
She had wanted them to rebuild their house in Los Angeles. She loved her friends, her school, their small house on a hillside above the ocean in a thriving neighborhood. While he understood where she was coming from, Andrew had plenty of reasons for wanting to start over somewhere new.
“You need to give Oregon a chance. Once the renovations to the house are done, you’re going to love it,” he assured her. “You’ll have your own room and bathroom. You won’t have to share with Finn like you did at our old place. Everything will be closer. You can ride your bike to the library, to the park, to the beach. We won’t have to spend half our lives in the car like we did in Los Angeles.”
“But Mom is in LA. We’re so far away, we can’t even go visit her.”
“Mom is in heaven,” Finn reminded her.
