Sammy sighed again, resting her chin on her palm and watching her uncle suspiciously as he moved into the kitchen. “Please don’t say potpie.”
Gard opened the freezer and gestured at a stack of freezer meals with a flourish. “Potpie.”
Clearly it was some kind of inside joke, because Sammy was trying very hard not to laugh. Even with her kitchen failure. Which was a relief.
“Don’t let him feed us frozen potpies, Lia,” Sammy said, with fake desperation. “You have to do something to save us all.”
“Sometimes you gotta take the losses on the chin,” Lia said, smiling at Sammy, who was clearly enjoying herself. Which was a huge win in Lia’s book. She had expected the second fail of the day to end in more sobs and tears, but Sammy seemed…really okay.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. It was the man currently heating uppotpiesin the microwave.
He served Lia first, and even though she didn’t like potpie, particularly the frozen variety, she sat there and ate it. Well, even she couldn’t choke down the peas, but she ate the rest, while Gard and Sammy talked.
Lia would have been happy to sit there and listen, which was often how she got through life, never really belonging anywhere. Even now, feeling like shedidbelong in Hope Town, it was easy to keep to herself. To maintain a kind of tough-girl outer shell, chat about business or the weather, not…herself.
But Gard and Sammy didn’t let her hide in plain sight. They kept asking her opinion on things or trying to use her as some sort of tiebreaker vote when they were good-naturedly arguing about something.
It was nothing, and yet it felt…special that they would just fold her in.Toospecial. Because this was still…not hers.Theywere not hers. She was like…a tourist.
Eventually the vacation would be over.
And that thought made her want to cry a little bit, which was just ridiculous and an overreaction. So, since they were all done eating, Lia got to her feet. “Thank you for dinner. Just text me what days you and the girls want to come to the bakery this week,” she said to Sammy, moving for her purse. “Otherwise, I’ll see you Saturday.”
“Okay, but can I have Sunday off? Gard talked to Sarabeth’s mom last night and said I could go to her party.”
Sammy’s smile made Lia smile too as she shouldered her purse. She’d known all along Gard would let her go even if he didn’t want to, but she was glad it didn’t seem to have caused too much turmoil.
“Of course. And if it’s okay with Gard, you can take Saturday off too.”
“Are you sure?” Sammy asked, frowning a little.
“You’re going to need to sleep in Saturday if you’re going to go to a sleepover. I hear not much sleeping is done at those types of things. You guys think about it. Let me know.”
She opened the front door and let herself out with a little wave on the way.
Outside in the cold air Lia managed a full, deep breath and let it out. Okay, she had to set herself some ground rules about the Fairhursts. Like no more dinners at Gard’s house. It was just too…cozy and intimate. Maybe a restaurant every once in a while, butnothis cute little house.
She’d only taken a few steps down the drive when she heard the door open behind her and she turned to see Gard stepping out onto his porch.
Oh. No.
He smiled at her in the beam of the porch light. “I just want to make sure there’s no damages from this morning I need to be paying off.”
“No, nothing like that.” Lia tried to smile but she was…nervous. Not about her day with Sammy. Abouthim. “She just…needed a break from everything, so we drove around a little bit.”
He took a few steps toward her. “Sorry if the Fairhurst circus hijacked your weekend.”
“You didn’t,” she said earnestly, because the last thing she wanted him thinking was that her nerves were some indication that she didn’t want Sammy in her life, or Sammy had done something wrong. This weekend she’d felt…involved and useful and like she mattered and that was…
It wasa lot, because aside from what she’d built at Hope Town—the bakery, her friends, all important but fused to that past of hers—she’d never felt like she belonged.
Gard took another few steps toward her. “I’m grateful, Lia. And before you get that pinched look, I know you don’t want me to be. It’s not a transactional kind of grateful. I appreciate you.”
She couldn’t find words to respond to that, because it touched something deep inside of her. She thought about what Sammy had said about protecting herself, and Lia knew she was falling into the same trap. Letting things seem…good, hopeful. She’d get clobbered.
And what had she told Sammy aboutnotprotecting yourself so much from the bad stuff you didn’t see any good? Shouldn’t she take her own advice?
That advice suddenly feltverydangerous.
