She perked up a little at that, surprising Gard. He tried to keep up with what she liked, but he hadn’t heard anything about a desire to spend time in the kitchen. Still, he watched her work. She knew her way around his kitchen even though she’d never cooked here before—likely because he’d organized Dani’s kitchen in the apartment in Fairmont the same way he did his.
Gard sat down at the table, keeping an eye on her over the counter that separated kitchen from dining room. As he watched her put everything together, he realized…shewasenjoying herself. She was concentrating, cutting up tomatoes and inspecting his array of spices. She didn’t have that permanent teenage-rebellion scowl on her face as she poured dry pasta intoboiling water and stirred whatever sauce concoction she was making.
When it was all done, she even made up two plates—complete with toasted bread slathered in butter. She brought them to the table.
“Are you really going to make me go to work atsix in the morningon aweekend?” she asked, sliding the plate in front of him. “That’s like…child abuse.”
Sinceshebrought it up, he figured it was fair game now. “How about this? Don’t steal. You won’t earn yourself a job.” And him the complication of having to finagle some afternoons off so he could pick her up from the bakery. He tended to work most weekends since he didn’t have a wife or kids to see, and most of his friends were first responders working nontraditional hours.
She shrugged, sliding into the seat across from him. “It’s fun.”
He didn’t groan or grimace or close his eyes in quiet supplication to some higher power tohelp him survive this. He tried to remain even-keeled and unimpressed. No matter how he felt about the idea of stealing beingfun.
“Well, it’s not going to be fun when you don’t have a nice bakery owner to bail you out and I have no choice but to have someone I work with actually arrest you.”
“It’d just be juvie.”
Gard rolled his eyes. She didn’t have a damn clue, but she certainly thought she did.Teenagers.“You want to stay out of the system, Sammy? Follow the rules.” He took a bite of the plate of food she’d put in front of him, chewed thoughtfully, then narrowed his eyes at her. “Hey, this is really good. What did you do to it?”
He watched as she tried to fight her pleasure over the compliment. “It’s just spaghetti.”
“Maybe, but that’s not just generic brand sauce from a jar. Believe me, I know.”
“I just doctored it up a little bit.”
“It’s amazing. Be careful. I could get used to this.”
She ducked her head, clearly trying to hide a smile. Which made him feel a bit like he’d won the lottery—a very strange, warped lottery, but a win nonetheless.
He didn’t bring up the stealing again. He asked about school. About her schedule. They talked about getting her driver’s permit. He had a lot of realities to figure out now that he suddenly had a fifteen-year-old to take care of. In some ways, that was easier than when she’d been a baby or a toddler, but it still required a lot of reconfiguring his life.
But he’d never want her to know just how much effort it was, because he’d do it a million times if it kept her safe.
They did not talk about Dani. They did not talk about her decidedlynotgoing to this Model UN meeting and instead heading to Hope Town tosteal.
Gard knew that was probably a failure on his part, but he just couldn’t bring himself to ruin the ease of this dinner with the negative subject of her…breaking thelaw.
When Sammy got up to take her plate to the sink, he stopped her. “Nope. I’m on cleanup duty.”
Sammy considered him, then shrugged and put her plate back down. “’Kay.”
“You got homework?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
“Then get on it.”
“Mom never asks if I have homework.”
“That’s because your mom didn’t graduate high school. You plan on following in those footsteps?”
She wrinkled her nose, regarded him with serious blue eyes. “Were you really going to go to law school?”
Gard blinked in surprise. “She told you that?”
“Yeah. She was worrying about money, and I said she should just ask you for some.”
“When was this?” Gard asked, too quick he knew. Too cop-like, because Sammy’s expression went guarded.
