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Oh God.Everyone else.
That phrase is the emotional equivalent of a ripped cuticle—small, concentrated, sharply painful. A vicious double wave of jealousy and humiliation crashes through me.
“Where’d your mind go, Katie-bird?” Dad asks mildly.
I blink, wrenched from my thoughts. My dad’s smiling at me, patient, kind. Like always.
I absolutely cannot tell him where my mind went.
Still, I need some outlet for what I feel, so I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze again, burying my face in his sweater, breathing in his scent—old books and peppermint pillow mints.
On a deep breath, I blink away tears. I’ve felt so weepy all day.
A soft kiss lands on the crown of my head. “I love you, Katie-bird. You can always talk to me, all right? I’ll just listen, if you want. No advice. No judgment.”
“I love you, too. And I know,” I mumble against his sweater. “I’ve missed you so much. You and Mom. Bea and Jules. Everyone.”
“We’ve missed you, too,” he says. “But as Grandma used to say, the ones we love are always with us. Wherever you’ve been, I’ve had you”—he taps a hand over his heart—“right here.” Smiling down at me as I give his ribs a break and release him, he says, “Every year that passes, you remind me of Grandma even more.”
I smile. “She was a badass. She also hadnofilter.”
He laughs. “She certainly spoke her mind.” His gaze dances over me. “When you wear that color, that deep blue, it changes your eyes, and you look”—he grins—“very much like her.”
“This was hers. Vintage cashmere.”
“I thought it looked familiar,” he says, returning his attention to the soup. “So why did you have to raid the closet to freshen up for dinner?”
I get out a salad bowl and tongs, setting them on the counter. “Ah, well, I’m a little behind on laundry, so I didn’t have anything nice enough to wear that was clean. I keep forgetting to go to the laundromat. I can’t handle the apartment’s basement laundry. Not since this thriller I read, the main character went down to the basement to switch over her clothes and—”
“Nope. Don’t tell me.” Dad shakes his head, tapping the spoon on the edge of the soup pot, then turning off the burner. “I don’t touch that genre for a reason. My worst-case scenario, doomsday-inclined imagination comes up with plenty of terrible possibilities without the help of thrillers.”
The doorbell rings, making both Dad and me jump.
“See?” he says, taking off his fogged-up glasses. “No help needed.”
“Probably just a delivery person leaving a package,” I tell him.
“Or Christopher,” he says.
My heart skids to a stop. “But Christopher doesn’t ring the—”
Now there’s a knock at the door. I frown, confused. Christopher doesn’t knock, either. He walks right in like he owns the place. He always has.
Who else could it be, though? Not Bea and Jamie. They’re missing Sunday dinner for Jamie’s office holiday party.
“Why don’t you go see?” Dad says. “Oh, and by the way, if it’s those two young fellows with their Bibles again, I’m not home.”
“I—”
“Look who I found.” Mom strolls in from the mudroom, Puck in her arms. His little bell jingles as she sets him down and he scampers toward me. “He’s lucky he’s cute, that’s for sure.”
“Where was he?” Dad asks.
“In the greenhouse, trying to eat my roses again. Who’s at the door?”
As if on cue, there’s another knock.
My eyes dart toward the front door, panic seizing my insides.
