“Sammy, I have a lot of complicated and conflicting feelings about everything that has gone on in your mother’s life, and in yours, but you have never—notonce—been something that held me back. I have exactly the life I want, and that includes taking care of you.”
She didn’t meet his gaze. But after a few beats of silence, she spoke very softly. “Mom would always… She said she couldn’t date while I was underfoot.”
Gard wished Dani would have phrased that better for Sammy, but… “Your mom had good reasons for that rule.”
Sammy slid a glance at him then. “Because of my dad?”
Gard sighed, not sure how everything had devolved intothis. But he wasn’t going to lie to her. “Look, your dad was a… He was young and he was dumb, and boy was he damn selfish, but he wasn’t mean. A couple of the guys she was involved with after? Mean.” And dangerous. Not just for Dani, but for Sammy too.
If there was one thing his sister had gotten right, it was swearing off men for the past ten years.
“Lia’s not mean.”
Gard wanted to groan. “Sammy.”
“You like her. You think she’s hot.”
“We’re not talking about this.” Though even awkward and kind of weird, better than talking about Dani’s bad dating choices.
“Don’t not have a life because of me,” she told him earnestly.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t have a life before you came into the picture either.” Probably not the best argument either.
“More of one.”
Maybe, but not by much.
“Look, if I end up letting you go to that party, it’ll beforyou. Soyoucan have fun with your friends in a safe environment. It won’t be about what I want to do while you’re somewhere else.”
“But that’s what I’m saying. You should do stuff for yourself too. Don’t forget, I was there when Matilda told Momandyou that your entire lives can’t revolve around me.”
Gard scowled at the invocation of the family therapist. Who likely would also side on letting Sammy go to this party. Doingnormalthings, rather than feeling like she was being punished
Damn it.
He remembered what Lia had said about wishing she’d been in a place to be able to go to sleepovers.
Fifteen. He’d been obsessed with sports and trying to talk Madison Sealy behind the bleachers. And Lia had run away and never gone back.
Before he could figure out anything else to say to Sammy to get it through her head she was no burden, another car turned into the parking lot. It was an old junker of a car, but he quickly recognized Lia in the driver’s seat.
He grinned in spite of himself.
She’d come.
Lia didn’t knowwhy she was here, but the fact Gard and Sammy were smiling at her as she approached made it feel like the right choice.
She had friends. But they were all Hope Town friends. All with their own secret pasts. They had busy lives, trying to handle small business in a small town. It made it easier to understand each other, trust each other and the town they were building, but it didn’t quite make for…deep connections. Just because you knew each other had secrets didn’t mean you could share them.
Not that she could have any deep relationship with Gard or Sammy, because they couldn’t know the truth about her.
But they didn’t know…any of it—not that she wasn’t Lia Blair, not that shehadsecrets, so this didn’t feel like…anything else in her life. It felt like a fresh start. It felt like making Lia Blair…real, instead of a role she was inhabiting.
Of course, now Gard knew she was a teenage runaway, but that wasn’t particularly identifying. So, it was okay. It was all okay.
So why are you so damn nervous? And more importantly, why are you here?
Sammy greeted her with a hug, and Lia supposed that answered her question. Sure, there was this whole weird…flirty thing with Gard, but at the end of the day, she’d fallen for Sammy hard. It wasn’t just that she wanted to help a girl who reminded her of herself, it was that Sammy was…great. And Lia wanted to be a part of that.
