“I didnotshow up there to cause a scene. I went there to talk to my brother. There’s a difference.” She didn’t expect him to see it, though. In his mind, personal business didn’t belong on the job.
“It’s none of your business, Lydia.”
She’d made a decision before leaving Ashley’s that she wasn’t going to let her dad get her back up, but she could already see it wasn’t going to be an easy resolution to keep. “Since I had to quit my job and dip into my savings to pay ahead on my rent, I think Ashley’s marriage is very much my business. And that’s above and beyond the fact you’re all my family. That’s supposed to matter, too.”
“Mind your mouth,” he said, which was code fordon’t tread too closely to calling me out for things I do wrong.
“You don’t think it’s a little rude to have Danny staying here?”
He considered it for a few seconds, and then shook his head. “He’s not staying with me. And, even if he was, he’s been part of this family for a long time. You want me to see him out on the streets?”
“Oh, please. There are a lot of options between staying under your roof and being out on the streets.”
“He’s staying with Scotty, not me.”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “Again, under your roof.”
“Your brother pays rent. He’s allowed to have a guest.”
Losing her temper with her father never got her anywhere but in a shouting match she couldn’t win, so she tried to swallow some of her anger. “I know he rents the second-floor apartment, but you’re still his father and you still own the house. I think you guys could have taken into consideration how awkward it might be for Ashley, having Danny living here.”
“He’s not living here. He’s just...what do they call it? Couch-surfing. He’s just crashing until Ashley comes to her senses.” As if he could sense the storm of words she was about to unleash on him for that bit of bullshit, her dad just kept right on talking. “And speaking of renting, we’ve been renovating the third-floor apartment. It’s almost done.”
“Yeah? You going to rent that to Danny, maybe?”
“No, I was thinking you could rent it.”
Oh,hell no.“Why would I do that?”
“You can’t stay with your sister forever.”
The wordforeverpinballed around in her mind and she suffered a rare moment of being struck speechless. He couldn’t possibly believe she’d come back to Boston to stay. She knew Ashley had told him she just needed a little time and Lydia was going to cover for her. At no time did either of them imply she was moving back for good.
“And you might get in the way of her and Danny getting back together,” he continued, just making it worse.
Lydia had gone toe-to-toe with her father many times over the years. Ashley might be older, but she was always willing to step back and let her sister do the talking for her and their younger brother. Lydia knew her father would never lay a hand on any of them in anger, so she’d never had any fear of getting in a shouting match.
There was still a line, though—only so far she could push before it became serious disrespect—and Lydia wasn’t sure she could get into this without crossing that line.
“It’s important for a couple going through a tough time to have plenty of alone time,” he continued.
“Yeah, you’re the person we all go to for marriage counseling,” she muttered.
He gave her such a hard look, she actually dropped her gaze to her hands. They weren’t supposed to bring up the fact that children weren’t deaf and they all knew Mom was on the verge of throwing Dad out when she got sick. Even when they tried to be quiet, her dad had a voice that carried through the walls and they’d all known. Then the cancer came and nobody ever mentioned those times again.
“I’m here for Ashley,” she said quietly. “And if Ashley wants alone time with Danny, she’ll let me know. If they try to reconcile, I’ll do whatever I can to help make that happen.”
He seemed satisfied, and he picked up the remote control again. Once the channel surfing started, the conversation was usually over. “You should go upstairs and smooth things over with your brother. I don’t like when you kids fight.”
Both of the Kincaid men in one morning? She was tempted to claim she had to get to work, but that probably wouldn’t work on the guy who owned the business. “I’ll talk to him later. He might not even be up yet.”
“He’s up. No reason to put off the conversation.”
With a sigh that let him know just how she felt about his demands, Lydia pushed off the couch and walked through the house to the back. Stepping out onto the back deck, she leaned against the railing for a few minutes, just breathing in the fresh air.
She wasn’t sure if it was their zodiac signs or the stars being misaligned when she was born or some kind of magnetic opposition built into their DNA, but she and her father had never been able to communicate. They loved each other. That was never in doubt. But they drove each other batshit crazy like nobody’s business.
Once she’d calmed down enough so she could probably have a reasonable conversation with the other family member who had a knack for driving her batshit crazy, Lydia went up the wooden steps to the second-floor deck and knocked on the glass slider that led into Scott’s living room.
