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“Makes me wonder why it didn’t work out between Sophie and Tom.”
“You don’t even know if they had a romance,” Abby pointed out, even though she’d been the one to suggest it earlier.
“I think they did. Come on, don’t you? What else could it have been?”
Abby considered the point. “I suppose,” she said at last. “There must have been something there.”
“So why do you think your dad is so reluctant to know more?”
She shook her head. “He’s not,” she said as firmly as she could. The last thing she wanted was for Simon to start poking and prying into their lives, or trying to figure out what made them tick—she so quiet, her dad so grumpy. “Not in the way you mean. He’s just like that, about everything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She turned to him, startled, her mouth dropping open. “What…”
“I don’t believe you,” Simon repeated, smiling, almost sounding flirtatious. Again. “It’s more than that. Yes, I get it, he’s reluctant. He’s your standard taciturn farmer, man of few words, salt of the earth, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Wow.” Abby shook her head, smiling a little. “How many clichés can you use?”
“I’m not trying to imply your father is a cliché—”
“Really?” she returned lightly. It felt good to challenge him, to tease, like stretching an old muscle she’d forgotten she had.
“All right, maybe I am.” Simon grinned, unabashed. “He seems a bit that way to me. But, at the same time, he seems more. Like he’s hiding something. I think he is.”
Abby’s stomach tightened at this assertion. “You mean about my grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“All right, Sherlock.” She shook her head, trying to laugh it off.
“Tell me you’re not curious.”
Abby hesitated, staring out at the darkening night. Was she curious? For a moment, her instinctive caution wavered. For a second, she truly wondered. What had happened, seventy-odd years ago? Could it possibly matter to anyone now? To her?
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Will knowing what happened make much difference, all these years later?”
“It could. You know the phrase—‘those who forget history are doomed to repeat it’?”
Abby rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that meant to apply to wars and genocides and things like that?”
“And failed romances, and personal regrets.” A touch of sorrowful whimsy colored his voice, like the tug of a thread, leading to an unraveling.
Abby bent down to stroke Bailey, sliding her fingers along her silky ears as the darkness settled softly over them.
“If your grandmother and my grandfather had stayed together, neither of us would be here,” she said slowly. “So I’m kind of glad they didn’t.”
“So am I.” The throb of sincerity in Simon’s voice made Abby keep her gaze on her dog.
Were they flirting again? Why couldn’t she tell?
Simon cleared his throat. “What was your grandmother like, anyway? The woman Tom Reese did marry?”
“I’m afraid I don’t really remember her. There’s a picture of them in the hall, though. Their wedding photo. I’ll show it to you, if you like.”
“All right.” That seemed like a signal for Simon to leave, which Abby hadn’t meant, but he’d finished his ice cream and so he stood up, and she started to do likewise, half-wishing the evening wasn’t coming to an end.
Simon reached down with one hand to help her up, and, after a second’s pause, Abby took it. His palm slid across hers, warm and dry, and she felt ridiculous for reacting to it. She really needed to get a social life. The next time Shannon wanted to set her up, she’d say yes. Even if it was to some bozo from Milwaukee whose laugh would be too loud, or who would bore her senseless talking about the stock exchange or fantasy football.
