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“And she’s okay with that?”
“Of course not. It’s Penelope. She and Julia will Nancy Drew the hell out of the missing-father-mystery until she gets an answer.” Analise had tucked her head inside his armpit, listening to his steady, reliable heartbeat.
He’d kissed her hair. “Don’t worry, you’ve got me, but I do wish your mom would let me know who he is.”
That conversation with Dany now traveled on a loop in Analise’s brain as she walked outside to the driveway.
Her fiancé was hauling plywood from his hefty 4x4 Chevy truck emblazoned with Ramirez Homes & Remodeling. She rarely saw him during summertime, not until the sun went down, and, even then, he still worked until midnight overseeing projects that reached into the Twin Cities. The extra work had extended deep into this year because he wanted to get ahead of foreseeable problems and avoid a disgruntled client’s call while on their honeymoon in Cabo.
Analise pecked him on his lips and tasted salty sweat.
“How’s my favorite güerita?” he said, grunting while heaving the last load into his arms.
She waited too long with the standard, Good. Or Fine! Even if nothing was really good or fine. And since Analise’s days were as predictable as a hellacious Minnesota winter, Dany tilted his head, inviting an explanation.
“Oh, good. I mean—as good as the worst mother on the planet can be,” she said, kicking the entire Taylor situation under the rug.
And because nothing out of the ordinary, such as a beautiful stranger grabbing hold of her insides would ever happen, Dany accepted that her misery involved their shared plight of raising eleven-year-old girls.
He laughed. The deep parentheses around his smile always made her heart expand. “I’m officially the worst dad on the planet for making her continue with piano lessons and refusing to get a latte on the way home. Hey, maybe we should get married.” He extended his gloved hand.
Analise accepted it, and he twirled her around and into his thick chest. She smelled his cologne underneath the dirt and pine. A comfort that made her heart widen even more than his smile did.
She would throw away the napkin with Taylor’s number the first chance she got.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ulla
Ulla worried her way home on the drive from Jorgen’s. Ever since Analise marched in today, opening not only the wounded father question—but Linnea? She jumped every time someone walked through Jorgen’s doors, and now kept an eye in the rearview mirror, to see how close the specter of the past was encroaching on their lives.
When she saw the Audi A5 Coupe parked along the curb, she knew it was Taylor Barnes, not at all surprised at his choice of car make and model. It matched him: impressive, a notch down from obnoxious, but still spoiled. Her legs pooled with cement. She parked the T-bird in the driveway and exited her car at the same time Taylor emerged from his.
He approached, older-looking, of course. His hair was shorter than she remembered, emphasizing his large eyes that had not aged, still those of a tortured seventeen-year-old boy fighting not to let go of Analise.
Ulla closed the door but clenched the handle. She refused to be the one to speak first.
He stopped several feet in front of her, as if waiting for her to strike the first verbal blow, but then, with a tight voice, he said, “I’m here for my mom. Not me. Not Isa.”
“What?” This was not what she expected.
“My mom. She needs to talk to you.”
“Why?”
He appeared to grapple for words. “Apparently I’m supposed to convince you with this.” He withdrew from his pocket a folded paper. “She wants you to have it back.”
Reluctantly, Ulla accepted the paper, unfolding it. She gasped with all the rage and fear that came with it. She sucked in her composure and shoved it back into his hands. “She can go to hell. You both can. The fact that she didn’t come herself still shows me what a coward she is.”
“She’s not a coward, she’s dying.”
Ulla turned away, thrown by the force those words delivered to her stomach. Linney is dying? She massaged her throat and faced Taylor. “From what?” she whispered.
“Ovarian cancer.”
Ulla took in his sorrow. She glanced at his hands gripping the picture of Beskyddaren. He wore no wedding band. Why isn’t he asking about Isa? “I’ll think about it.”
He said nothing, but he didn’t move to go.
