Not freaking out because my daughter declared us a mismatch.
Simply amused.
And affectionate.
And rolling with it.
My heart evens out. I hadn’t even realized how nervous I was.
If Lav had objected, then that would’ve been the end of it.
Not that I expected her to.
She loves Cricket all on her own.
Because it’s so easytolove Cricket. Just as she is.
As she’s always been.
38
THE PUBIC ENEMY
Cricket
Four daysbefore Lav’s birthday party, Heath takes me out to lunch.
It’s our first date off the property since that night at the Pubic House, and we’re back today.
Unlike last time, I order a salad.
Not because anyone cares that I’ve gained a few pounds since I arrived, but because the vegetables sound good.
Also unlike last time, my date has pink hair.
“I cannot believe you did this without me,” I say to him as I ruffle his mane after we’ve ordered.
“Lav and Dori ambushed me last night.”
I got called over to the event space to help with prepping gift bags for all of the guests. The last of the supplies arrived, so we knocked it out to take one more thing off the to-do list, hence me not seeing him last night.
I grin at him. “Well, I love it. I thought Dori was doing stuff with the barrels you found, but this is even better.”
We have a dozen barrels of usable wine. Four different varieties.
Pip’s agreed to let us sell it.
Ginny’s doing market research on the new branding we’re discussing.
It won’t be enough to pay off the mortgage and Mabel’s loan for the roof, but it’ll buy us time.
“Glad she finally found where she fits,” Heath says.
“The more I work with her every day, the more I think about how I don’t know if it would’ve been harder or easier for me to get through”—I glance around, but just like last time, no one’s watching us—“to get through what happened if I’d been barely out of college instead of when I’d been mostly successfully adulting for eight years.”
“You definitely bounced back faster than she did,” he murmurs.
“There was this guy who kept encouraging me.”
