Page 5

Eva’s eyes filled, mouth trembling, and she threw her arms about his neck. “Daddy, I’m sorry Grandma Louise is gone and you’re sad.”

Eyes shut, he closed his arms about her, hugging her. “Me, too, Minnie.”

After a moment, he drew back, and she stared at him with wide eyes, an expression Caitlin recognized as her I don’t know what to do next look. A slight smile tugging at his thin mouth, Tick chucked her under the chin.

“You know, Min, I think Grandma sent some new books for your shelf here.” He palmed the back of her head and straightened, nudging her toward the house that had once belonged to his grandparents and was now their home base when they were in Georgia. “You should go check that out.”

With another hug thrown about his waist, Eva darted up the steps. He watched her go, and Caitlin let her gaze trail over his face, love and affection squeezing her chest. He was so good with their girls, seeing and meeting their needs, even when he was hurting.

She touched his arm, and he turned to her. Stepping forward, she wrapped an embrace about him. His arms closed about her but were gone before she could sink into him, communicate any sense of love or comfort through the hug.

“Hey, you brought my black suit, right?” He strode to the rear of the SUV and lifted the hatch.

“I did.” She trailed after him, frowning. He rarely wore the suit, his regular uniform a charcoal suit and white shirt, ties in shades of blue or green. “Any particular reason you wanted it?”

He grimaced. “I’m a pallbearer, and Aunt Sue thinks black is more appropriate.”

She stilled. “A pallbearer? How do you feel about that?”

Shrugging, he slung the garment bag over his shoulder and reached for Eva’s weekender. “Someone has to do it.”

“Yes, but . . .” She grabbed her own bag, then Eleanor’s. “It doesn’t have to be you, Tick.”

His gaze skittered over her face, and he stepped back to lower the hatch. “It’s fine.”

Except it wasn’t, and she could see it, in every line of his face, in the set of his shoulders. She knew the clenched line of his jaw, though. He’d dig in further if she tried to budge him.

“I need to get the girls started changing if visitation begins at six.” They could talk about it later, although she wouldn’t be able to change his mind. The man took duty to family with utmost seriousness.

She loved that about him.

“Yeah, I’ll change and meet you at the funeral home. I’m going to pick Gene up.” Behind her on the walk, he cleared his throat. “I’m spending the night over there. He’s having a hard time.”

“Oh.” She tossed a startled look over her shoulder at him. “Of course.”

With the girls’ bags in the living room, she followed him to their bedroom, eyeing the tense set of his shoulders.

“Tick.” She placed her weekender on the foot of the bed while he hooked the garment bag on the door to the dressing room and unzipped it. The bed remained neatly made — perhaps he’d slept at Gene’s the night before as well. “Are you all right?”

As far as questions went, the query defined asinine. Of course, he wasn’t all right, but he was so off from his expression to the way he walked to the brevity of his interactions with her.

“Yeah.” He moved her black sheath to the clothing rod on her side and rezipped the bag. “Just tired. Didn’t sleep well last night.”

The excuse didn’t ring true, but after his aloof response to her embrace outside, pushing for anything further seemed unwise. She ran her thumb over her engagement ring, the smooth gold of her wedding ring next to it. Perhaps time and space and quiet would bring him back to himself.

Grabbing the hem of his shirt, he stripped the garment over his head, then reached for his belt. “I’m going to grab a shower. I’ll take my stuff with me in case I don’t make it back over here in the morning.”

That grab a shower wasn’t an invitation to join him, either. She nodded, still fiddling with her rings, feeling ridiculously rejected and chiding herself for it. Sometimes, her childhood insecurities, courtesy of her nightmare of a father, made themselves known in the oddest, subtlest ways. “I’ll check on the girls.”

She was braiding Eva’s hair when he called up the stairs he was leaving. Frowning, she snapped a band around the end of the braid and made herself stop worrying. With the loss little more than twenty-four-hours old, she’d be surprised if he wasn’t struggling, a little disconnected.

He wasn’t all right, but sooner or later, he would be.

Louise had been well-known and loved in the community, so cars spilled out of the funeral home parking lot, people standing in groups on the lawn and front porch, with limited room to navigate inside.

Visitors crowded the chapel as well, muted conversations filling the stuffy air. Floral arrangements and green plants surrounded the silvery gray casket at the front of the room, Gene, his surviving sons and daughter-in-law Sue forming a reception line. Unsurprised to find Tick at Gene’s side, Caitlin cast a quick glance over the crowd. Colt sat on the front pew, face buried in his hands, wife at his side, and her mother-in-law Lenora leaned over a pew a couple of rows back, immersed in a quiet conversation with Tick’s sisters-in-law.

Tick caught her eye and nodded, unsmiling, and Eleanor squeezed her hand. “I’m going to sit with Anna, Lyssa and Blake.”