Dan blinked at the steering wheel. No contact for years. He or someone who worked for Dad had always, always been the intermediary once their divorce had been final. “After twenty-some years of no contact whatsoever.”
Dad sighed. “We’re worried about you, Dan. For all of the issues your mother and I have, you were always our number one priority.”
Well, his mental health, anyway, which he supposed counted.
“Both of us think this ranch idea has gone from…harmless to concerning. Scott’s call has me even more concerned. I’ve reached out to some friends at Phoenix. They should be giving you the week’s notice you asked for, and I hope you’ll accept that generous offer.”
Perhaps if he was eighteen again, he’d feel like he had to do what Dad said. That it was imperative to do whatever his parents asked of him, as long as it involved hockey. Hockey had become the one passion the three of them shared, the glue that held his fragile mess of a mind together.
Shouldn’t they be happy he didn’t need it anymore?
“I’m happy here. I’m building something here. On my own. Well, mostly on my own. Partially, anyway.”
“So it’s a woman!” Dad almost sounded relieved, as if he’d solved the mystery of the crazy son and his crazy llama ranch. “Well, that’s another story. Is it serious?”
Dan hesitated to answer, not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he thought it might undercut Dad’s understanding of his reasoning. Mel might be his reason for some things, but not everything. “It’s…unrelated.”
“Unrelated.” Dad sounded puzzled. “You’re not easing any of my worries, Son. Are you sure this isn’t…”
“Isn’t what? Mental breakdown again? Yeah, I’m pretty damn sure. For one, I’m not five. For two, I’m not uncontrollably crying or causing trouble, and I sure as hell don’t have night terrors anymore. I’m a grown-ass man.”
“I’m not trying to upset you.”
Dan wanted to laugh, but he rested his forehead on the steering wheel of Mel’s truck instead. “No, heaven forbid we upset each other.”
“Come home, Son. Go to the tryout, come home, and we’ll talk this all through.”
“Talk it all through or skate till we collapse?”
Dad was silent, and Dan straightened. “How about this. You come out here. Mom too. See what I’ve built. See me here.” Meet Mel maybe. “There is nothing you have to worry about. I’m not breaking. I’m not broken, and if anything…I am home.”
“If I agreed to that, would you take the tryout?”
“No, Dad, this isn’t a barter. It’s an invitation. You’re free to take it or leave it, but it doesn’t change my plans. It doesn’t change me.” The words bubbled out of him all in an excited burst. Because they weren’t just words. They weren’t just anger.
They were the truth.
“Let me know what you decide, but right now, I need to go.” He clicked End on his phone, looked at Georgia’s diner, and decided he could really go for a double bacon cheeseburger, calories be damned.
Chapter 23
Mel didn’t look directly at Caleb. Not at first. She needed a moment. She needed more than a moment. She needed a whole lifetime to wrap her head around this.
“What are we going to do about her?” Caleb asked.
She wished she had any clue. Any glimmer of an idea, but she was blank. Completely and utterly blank, and all the bravado in the world didn’t change the fact that she did not know how to handle this.
So she was honest, and it was a strange jolt to realize her honest moments with Caleb were few and far between. “I don’t know.”
His eyebrows drew together and he stepped gingerly toward her. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t have a fucking clue what we’re supposed to do.” Her tone was more vicious than was fair, but she couldn’t find it in her to care, to rein it in, to promise anyone it would be fine.
This wasn’t fine.
“He couldn’t possibly know about her,” she added. Of all her fears and confusion, that was the one piece that made her feel a little ill. Dad. Knowing. All this time. It wasn’t possible. “There’s no way Dad knew.”
“That girl all but said Mom’s a liar.”
Mel looked back to where she’d taken Summer, to get her out of the way, to avoid the very off chance Dad looked out the window for once, saw anything, asked questions.
Yeah, that’s the reason you’re hiding her away.
Mel swallowed down the queasy wave that kept threatening to escape her stomach. Summer had looked so lost. Even more lost than Mel felt. Like she had nowhere to go, and at the very least Mel always had somewhere to go.
“She thinks we knew and didn’t care,” Mel forced out, her throat tight and words scratchy. “Why would M…” She couldn’t say Mom, couldn’t force her mouth to make those words. “What’s the purpose of all this?” Was that the hardest part? Not understanding? Or was it a deeper hurt, a deeper cut she kept trying to ignore?
Throbbing, burning.
Why had she been left behind?