I give her a look so hard she stops mid-rise from her seat. “You can also sit on that fine ass of yours and watch me get it for you,” I tell her.
She gives an almost-smile and lowers herself back into her seat.
I glance at my watch. As far as I recall, Hawk and Martha usually appear around six. We could have up to half an hour to get to know each other better. That makes my stomach do excited little cartwheels — andthatmakes me feel a lot younger and less jaded than I am.
“Time is running short, so we won’t talk about where things are going between us. That’s dangerous ground, and I don’t want you to feel pressured about it… but I also want to know everything there is to know about you. As much as you’ll tell me.” Shaking my head, I throw her an apologetic look. “Sorry. That’s too forward. Forgive my eagerness. This is just… two new co-workers having coffee and learning about each other’s backgrounds.” I set a large mug of coffee in front of her. “Okay?”
Lana wraps both hands around the cup and holds it to her lips to blow across it while staring at me with eyes too pretty toignore. “How long before the others get here, do you think?” she asks.
“About half an hour. Maybe less.”
She nods. “And you want to know stuff about me?”
“Definitely. Yes. Please. Start anywhere. Nope. Scratch that.” I shake my head. “Start with family.”
Lana pales significantly. “I, uh… okay. I can do that,” she says, as if talking herself into it. Her eyes lower to her coffee, then she sets it down, only to pick it right back up, as if she needs the comfort of holding something warm. Her nervous glance at me makes my own anxiety bubble down in the depths of my stomach. I ease back into my seat and sip my coffee, trying to be as patient as possible when all I want to do is hug her and tell her it’ll all be okay.
“Family is an uncomfortable subject for you,” I note, trying to keep my voice soft so she won’t feel prickled. “I can relate. I don’t really have one — apart from the crew up here for the last few summers. I’ve floated from place to place, looking for the right fit, and it’s taken a long time to find it. My first family fell apart when I was eight, and it never got put back together right after that. I have lots of long stories about it that will bore you to tears. Your turn.”
Lana takes a deep breath.
“Well, I’m my dad’s second daughter of three. That we know of,” she adds, giving me a quick glance to see how I take her statement.
I shrug. “I don’t know of him having more than three, if that helps. But I only know Martha, and I didn’t know he had a daughter namedLanauntil yesterday, so I’m probably not a reliable source. You think he’s got some stashed somewhere?”
She snorts softly. “Probably not. He’s responsible enough to claim his seeds, even if he doesn’t invest much into making sure they grow right. Well, I mean… he’s always been dedicatedto Martha — as he should be — but I think he assumes me and Harper get enough input from others to make up for his absence.”
“Do you?”
Lana shrugs. “If I did, should I have to need him less?”
Searching her face to add context to her flat delivery, I hold my coffee a little firmer. “No. How young were you when he and your mom split?”
“Three,” she replies, sipping her coffee. “He’s made attempts to keep in touch and do his duty or whatever, and I’ve seen him a few times since I was a kid, obviously, but not for any substantial periods of time. It’s not like I could spend summers with him or anything.” She glances out the window at the mine site that’s being slowly revealed by the breaking of dawn. I canfeelher rivalry with this claim, but there’s also a sense of resignation about her.
“He’s not without his own damage, and he’s done what he could.” She leans back, as if opting out of further discussion. “It is what it is.”
Her dismissal of the issue feels premature. There are too many gaps in my knowledge, and I want more information.
“How much of your parenting did he actually do?” I ask, knowing I won’t like the answer, but that I need to hear it.
Lana purses her lips as she looks me over. “This is making you angry. I don’t want to talk about family anymore.”
“I’m not angry. I’m just trying to better understand you and the friction we’ll be dealing with around here. I’ve seen Hawk in Dad-mode with Martha, and he’s great — but that’s not what you got growing up, was it?”
The coffee mug goes down, and her eyes lower to the table with it. “No.”
“What did you get, Lana? Letters? Phone calls? The occasional trip to Disneyland you had to arrange yourself? Isit more than that one week he says you all spend together at Christmas — which I’m guessing doesn’t go well enough to make up for the rest of the year? Tell me why I feel like a hero just for getting you a fucking coffee in the morning.”
“Probably because you asked me how I took it, while he’d set a cup of black in front of me and expect me to thank him for it,” she says, picking her mug back up.
“Bates, you and Dad are friends, and I don’t want my strained relationship with him to ruin your opinion of him. He’s a good man. I know that. He’s smart, and he can be warm and funny, and he loves us. When we’re all together, I get glimpses of a whole other life that just kind ofglows, and I enjoy being around him so much that I wish we hadn’t all had to live so far away from each other. But when it’s just us two…”
She shakes her head. “I’d love for him to be different around me, but he’s not, and he won’t be until we put some effort into sorting it out. Which is what I’ve planned to do here, this season — it’s just that I’m too weird to embrace outright and people generally need some convincing to spend time with me.”
“Quit saying you’re weird,” I rumble at her. “You’re sweet, intelligent, kind-hearted, and interesting as fuck. If that’sweird,then the world is a shitty place and we’ve all got big fucking problems.”
Lana watches me with careful eyes. “Do you say things like that to make me want to fuck you?”
