Page 63 of Restored By You

“I asked her to give us the room.”

I grunt, cross my arms, and wait. I’m not going to make this easy for him. I’m not going to fill the silence or throw him a line. He went through all this trouble, he can do the talking.

He studies me a beat longer. Then, unexpectedly, something in his posture shifts by a degree. “I’ve been informed,” he says dryly, “that I’ve become somewhat unpopular in your town.”

I fight down a grin. “You don’t say.”

“I can’t seem to get a single contractor to return my calls. Jenn tells me the general sentiment is that I—” a thin, humorless smile, “—did my daughter’s fella dirty, she was told.”

I snort. “Sounds about right.”

“You could gloat, you know.” He tilts his head. “Most men in your position would.”

“I’m not most men.” I hold his gaze. “And I’m not doing anything for your benefit, Mr. Winton. Including making you feel better about the mess you made.”

“No,” he says, sounding tired. “I don’t suppose you would.”

He turns back to the mountain view through the large bay windows, and for a long moment, he just stares out. “The only thing my father ever taught me about love was that you provide. You provide a roof, an education, opportunity.”

I raise a brow, not sure where this is going. “So you sent your kid to boarding school?”

“I sent her to the finest school in the country.” A muscle works in his jaw. “I gave her what my father gave me. Structure. Advantage.” He shakes his head. “Her mother would have known better,” he goes on, quieter. “She—” He stops, and for the first time the man looks almost human. “She was the warm one. She was the one who knew how to do it, how to just…love the girl out loud, the way Shea does with that boy. And when she died, Shea was so young, I had no idea what to do with a grieving little girl. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I provided. And I hired people to do the rest. I’ve been lost ever since, if you want the truth of it.”

I can tell he’s being truthful, real. And some part of me, the part that’s got a mother who fed me four times a day and a father who tells me he loves me every single day of my life, feels something almost like pity for the man.

“That’s a sad story, Mr. Winton,” I say, and cross the floor, stopping a few feet from him. “But here’s the thing. You had a warm woman show you exactly how it’s done, for years. You watched her love that girl out loud, as you put it, so you can’t stand here and tell me you didn’t know how. You knew. You just decided it was easier to write checks.”

He flinches as if I’ve struck him. And hell, maybe I have.

“You want to know what Shea needed?” I keep my voice level, but I don’t pull the punch. “She needed her dad to pick up the phone when she called from that school cryin’ to come home, and say ‘I’m comin’ to get you.’ That’s it. And you’ve had almost thirty years to do it, and instead you taught the smartest, kindest, most talented woman I’ve ever met that she’s only worth what she can produce.” My jaw tightens. “You know how I know that? Because when I tell her she’s enough just the way she is, she doesn’t believe me. And that’s not something any boarding school did. That’s you.”

The silence stretches long and cold on the unfinished floor between us.

Daniel Winton stares at me, and his eyes are wet. He doesn’t try to hide it, or argue it away, or even wave his wallet at it. He finally says, his voice rough, “I owe you an apology. You’re not who I assumed you were.” A long pause. “You’re a better man than I. I can see why she—” He stops to collect himself. “I respect a man who will tell me the truth to my face. God knows no one’s done it in twenty years.”

I shake my head. “Don’t apologize to me. I don’t need it and I don’t want it. There’s exactly one person you owe an apology to, and I’m not her. And I’m not gonna be the one who carries it to her for you, either.” I hold his gaze. “You want to fix this? You do it with her. In person. And you don’t get to do it on your timeline. You do it on hers. When she’s ready, if she’s ever ready.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

I turn on my heels as Daniel looks past me.

Shea’s standing at the plastic barrier, still in her coat, cheeks flushed from the cold. I have no idea how long she’s been there, but from the look on her face, it’s been long enough.

“Shea.” Daniel straightens. “How did you—”

“Levi drove me up. I got tired of waiting.” She smiles in my direction, then her eyes move to her father, and the smile’s gone. “And then I heard my name so I stayed.”

I start toward the door. “I’ll give you two some space.”

“No.” Her hand shoots out and catches my sleeve. “Stay. Please.” Her fingers tighten. “I want you here.”

That’s all she needs to say. I stop.

What passes between Shea and her father over the next twenty minutes, I mostly stay out of. It’s not repetition of what he said to me, it’s harder than that. He says the things a father says when he’s finally being honest with a daughter he failed. Shea’s mother comes up again, and this time, Shea’s the one crying. There’s a long stretch where nobody says anything at all, just the two of them looking at each other across a distance so wide, trying to figure out if it can be crossed.

He doesn’t fix it. You don’t fix their kind of strain in twenty minutes.

But he apologizes—real and with no excuses—and he tells her Tyler stays, no boarding school. He tells her he’s putting the Montgomery contract back the way it was, and when I open my mouth, he lifts a hand and says, “Not for you. Jenn made the right call choosing you and your brother, and I made the wrong one out of spite.”