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Their father looked at her with such pride even as tears shone brightly in his eyes. “That is wonderful,” he said gruffly. “Any child that gets to be in your class is lucky. It’s good to love what you do.”
“And I do,” she told him. “I really do. Of course, dealing with the administrators and school board isn’t always so great, but…” She shrugged. “It goes with the territory and all I can do is voice my concerns and try to make a difference.”
“Good for you!” Then he set his eyes on Ashlynn. “How are the plans coming for the salon? I heard you got approved for the loan—congratulations, by the way. Do you have an opening date?”
Ashlynn shot a quick glance at Billie who simply shrugged.
“Um…no date yet,” she explained. “We’ve talked to the architect and started ordering equipment, but things are in the early stages right now. The building passed its overall inspection and now they’re installing all new electrical and plumbing. Once that’s all in place, we can really dig in and get started.”
“Excellent!” he said. “Have you thought of a name yet? Is it going to be Ashlynn’s Salon or Hair by Ashlynn?”
That made her laugh. “Oh my goodness, no. I’m thinking of going with something that’s kind of a play on words like…Color Me Crazy!”
Ronan laughed loudly. “I love it! That is so perfectly you, Ash! Brilliant!” He sat down in the oversized chair in the living room and was still smiling when he looked over at Billie. “I hear you are making quite the name for yourself with your baking!”
“I’m enjoying it.”
Ashlynn noticed their father didn’t seem the least bit put off by Billie’s lackluster reply.
“What’s your best seller?” he asked.
“Grandma Donovan’s lemon pound cake,” she said, relaxing a little. “But we keep trying new things so…”
He nodded and stood back up and left the room.
“Well that was odd,” Chloe whispered.
“Can you blame him?” Ashlynn replied before looking at Billie. “Could you give an inch? I mean…we were all having a decent conversation and then you just sucked all the joy right out of it.”
“You mean the way he sucked the joy out of our lives?” Billie quietly hissed. “Don’t put all this on me. If he hadn’t…”
Ronan walked back into the room carrying a small box. He made his way over to Billie and handed it to her. “I’m not sure if you’ll find anything in there that you can use, but…those are my grandmother’s recipes,” he said solemnly. “Most of them are desserts and I thought you might appreciate them.” With a shrug, he turned and sat back down. “Every one of my siblings got copies of them, but I got the originals so you’ll need to be careful. Some of the paper those recipes are written on is fragile.”
“Dad, I…”
“It’s a lot of puddings and cakes and breads, but maybe you might find something you can use at the coffeehouse,” he said with a curt nod.
Levi walked back in at that point and noticed how quiet everything was and let out a loud sigh. “Seriously, you guys? You couldn’t keep a conversation going for five minutes?”
“Levi,” Chloe began, but never got to finish.
“It’s all good,” Ronan said, his voice softer than it had been all night. “The girls and I were talking just fine. You just happened to come in during a lull. I just gave Billie some of my grandmother’s recipes. I thought she could use them, but…” He sighed. “I know a box of recipes doesn’t make up for me being a crappy father, but I just want you kids to know that if I could…I would go back and do everything differently. I’d work harder to be the kind of man your mother and the four of you were proud of. I’d be someone you all could have depended on instead of the loser who never got his shit together.”
“Dad,” Levi said, “No one thinks that.”
But his father looked up and nodded at Billie. “Your sister does, and she’s not wrong. I know I wasn’t the father any of you wanted or deserved, and I’m sorry for that. I’ll respect your decisions if you don’t want anything to change and we can go back to being…well…estranged. But I’d really like a chance to get to know all of you more. I’d like to spend time with you and just…I don’t know…I want to be a part of your lives. Like I should have been all along.”
Chloe got up and practically threw herself into Ronan’s arms, hugging him tight. “I love you, Dad,” she said.
Ashlynn hated that tears were practically blinding her, but she got up and went to his other side and hugged him as well. “Love you, Dad,” she murmured. “And I’m so glad you’re here.”
And oddly enough, that was the truth.
Levi came and stood behind them and put his hand on Ronan’s shoulder. “This is good, Dad. I’d love for you to be a part of my life—mine and Jade’s.”
“You’re going to have your hands full with Silas,” his father said with a chuckle. “He’s a pistol.”
“That he is,” Levi agreed.
