Page 68 of Stuck with the Hero Next Door

She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “He’s...excited to see Everwood.” She paused. “Wants to see where I ended up. He’s never heard of Everwood. He just wants to make sure I’m not living in some backwoods cabin without running water.”

There was something she wasn’t saying, something hidden behind the cheerful explanation. I knew Cassie well enough by now to recognize when she was editing her words, choosing the version that sounded most innocent.

“How long is he staying?”

“A few days. Maybe a week.” She fidgeted with her napkin, tearing it into small, precise strips. “He’s been worried about me since the cottage thing. Thinks maybe I should consider...other options.”

And there it was. The real reason behind her careful tone and the way she wouldn’t quite meet my eyes.

“Other options like what?”

She shrugged, still focused on destroying the napkin. “Moving back to Nevada. Or maybe trying somewhere new. He thinks small-town Montana winters might be too much for someone who grew up in the desert. He wasn’t too happy with how far Millers Pass was, and it has a two-story mall.”

I set down my coffee, the warmth of the morning suddenly feeling fragile. “What do you think?”

“I think...” She stopped, sighed, and finally looked at me. “I think I’m going to starve if Mac doesn’t give me breakfast.”

Then as if on cue, Mac called out our order from the kitchen, and the moment fractured as Linda brought us our plates. But the words hung in the air between us like smoke.

We ate breakfast with careful conversation. The same kind of conversation people have when they’re avoiding bigger topics. Things about the weather, what was on the agenda, and town gossip, like the new library parking lot. She told me about her students’ latest photosynthesis project. I mentioned helping Mrs. Patterson move some furniture and discovering she had about fifty antique teapots hidden in her basement. Normal things. Things that keep us from the real topic, things that kept us from the undercurrent of her “casual” news.

When I walked her to her truck afterward, she was quiet, lost in thought. At the door, she turned to me with that same careful smile.

“Don’t worry about the dad thing. He’s just being protective. You know how dads are.”

But I didn’t know how fathers were, not really. Mine had died when I was young, but I had my grandpa, and I understood the responsibility he had for protecting someone he loved from making choices that might hurt them. I didn’t have a father, but I had Grandpa, and he was every bit of what a dad should have been and more. I carried that same responsibility for Mom and Janet.

“Cassie,” I started, but she was already closing the door.

“I’ll see you later. Thanks for breakfast.”

I stood there for a moment, watching her disappear down the street, feeling like something important was left unfinished.

The rest of the week passed with a strange new tension between us.

She still came by sometimes after school, sat on the stack of hay while I fed the horses, and accepted my offers to help with errands or repairs around the house. But there was a definite quality of unknown territory to it now, like she was viewing everything through her dad’s lens of uncertainty instead of her own. She’d traded her mom’s dreams for her own, and now she was second-guessing her decisions through her father’s lens instead of the strong and solid lens of her own choices.

When her father arrived on Saturday morning, I was hanging out at Jordan’s garage, helping him put a new 350 in a '78 GMC truck, trying not to watch the road for unfamiliar cars. But I couldn’t help glancing up as one turned into town.

Through the garage’s large windows, I watched him park in front of the diner where I knew Cassie had arranged to meet him. He was tall like she was, with graying hair, and from the look of the forty-pound jacket he was wearing, he wasn’t from around here. He moved with purpose but kept a careful watch on the icy sidewalk, taking in the town with the careful attention of someone assessing whether his daughter had made a good choice.

I forced myself to focus on lowering the engine hoist, but part of my mind kept circling back to the question I’d been avoiding all week: What if he convinced her to leave?

Sunday afternoon, I was helping Rusty with a fallen tree when I ran into George at the hardware store—who asked for help bringing in his herd from behind my ranch. At this point, I was offering to help anyone I could because staying busy beat sitting around wondering what conversations were happening at Cassie’s house.

“Levi!” Cassie’s voice carried a brightness mixed with a little uncertainty. “Dad, this is Levi Marshall. Levi, my dad, David Grant.”

David Grant had a firm handshake and an assessing gaze. He was polite, friendly even, but I could feel him taking my measure—with the careful attention of a father trying to understand his daughter’s life.

“Mr. Grant, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Mr. Marshall, Cassie’s told me a lot about you. Thank you for looking out for her during the storm. Sounds like it could have been much worse.”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” I replied, glancing at Cassie, who was examining a display of plant fertilizer with odd focus.

“She always has been,” David agreed. “Even when she was little, she had this way of landing on her feet, no matter what life threw at her.”

There was pride in his voice, but also something else. Maybe protective concern. Concern that came from watching someone you loved grow up and make decisions on their own and face challenges you couldn’t face for them.