Grant bit his lip. “She didn’t say anything. She just looked at Logan, and then at me. She seemed so shocked, so devastated. But the worst part was how completely afraid she looked. Afraid—of me.” He exhaled an anguished breath.
“Maybe you still have a chance, if you talk to her, explain things,” Jerry said.
“You didn’t see the look on her face!” Grant argued. “She wants nothing to do with me!”
Jerry had no idea what to say, and he nervously fidgeted in his chair, playing with a paperweight on his desk. How the hell had he become embroiled in this mess? He didn’t care about romances between fucking parolees! He glanced at the clock.
“Madsen, it’s almost nine o’clock, and I need to start seeing parolees on today’s docket. Maybe you came here to turn yourself in, maybe you came here seeking advice, I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care. The truth is I don’t have time to arrest you—too much goddamn paperwork—and besides that it isn’t even your day to see me. Just get the hell out of my office, and let’s both get started with another thrilling day.”
Grant panicked. He hadn’t thought through any plans beyond reporting to his parole officer. “What should I do now?”
“Well, your instinct to do the opposite of what your brother would do sounds pretty damn good to me.”
“But I don’t know what that is! I don’t … really know my brother.” He looked down. “I don’t know what to do.”
Jerry grew frustrated as the clock ticked forward and this miserable parolee still had not departed. It was obvious Grant needed some fatherly guidance, but Jerry simply didn’t have the time, and his typical grumpiness was quickly returning. “Here’s what you do, Madsen. You get your head out of your ass, and you go to work just like everybody else on this planet. And you stay out of trouble.”
Grant sat up a little straighter upon receiving the admonishment. He was familiar with being chewed out by superiors—this he could understand. “Yes, sir,” he sharply replied and rose from the chair. “Thank you, sir.” Then he was gone.
*
“That smells so good.” Sophie smiled tentatively, smelling freshly brewed coffee as she entered the kitchen.
Will Taylor looked up from the newspaper and felt a stabbing pain in his heart as he watched his daughter lean on the marble countertop. Her hair was mussed from sleeping, as if she was still a little girl, but what hit him most poignantly was the emerald-green silk nightgown she wore. Laura’s nightgown. He’d almost started crying when he extracted the gown from the untouched chest of drawers last night, wordlessly handing it to Sophie.
He cleared his throat. “It’s actually the second pot of the morning, sleepyhead. Justine put it on before she left for the grocery store.”
“How is Justine?” Sophie thought fondly of the Jamaican woman who had been her parents’ housekeeper for fifteen years.
“She’s, well, she’s Justine. Already complaining about the upcoming winter even though it’s only July.”
Sophie smiled as she poured herself a steaming cup of coffee. After adding creamer, she stirred the hot liquid nervously, sensing her father’s eyes on her. She had some explaining to do. She’d fended off his questions about her tears the night before, begging him to allow her to sleep and promising they’d talk in the morning. Now that morning had arrived, she had no idea where to begin.
She shut her eyes momentarily, feeling overwhelmed by the previous evening. You know my brother? Grant’s stunned question still pierced her.
Sitting across from her father at the kitchen table, she asked, “Aren’t you due at work by now?”
“I cancelled my meetings this morning,” he replied. Will Taylor also felt a pressing need to explain himself, to make her understand why he’d avoided her for the past year. He had no idea how their reunion would proceed, and he swallowed anxiously. “Construction can wait.”
Sophie stared down at the swirling steam rising from her coffee. Her father couldn’t see the skeptical arch of her eyebrows. Construction could not wait. At least it never had before. Work had always come before family. Feeling her shoulders tighten, Sophie took a deep breath and tried to remember Hunter’s encouragement about reconnecting with her father. He was all she had now.
“I’m sorry for barging in on you last night,” she began. “I didn’t have my purse, and I had, um, no place else to go.”
“You left your purse somewhere?”
His accusatory tone made her sit up a little straighter in her chair. Worried questions tumbled out of his mouth.
“You lost your phone? Your wallet? Do you need to cancel your credit cards?”
“Dad—”
“Here, let me get the phone—”
“Dad!” Sophie practically yelled, causing him to sit back down in his chair. She took another deep breath. “I don’t own a cell phone. I don’t have any credit cards, okay? I just got out of prison!”
His face fell at the cold reality of his daughter’s situation. He lived in a luxurious home, and she didn’t own a credit card? His cheeks flushed as he looked down at the cherry table and quietly inquired, “When did you get out?”
“A little over a month ago.”
“Where are you staying?”
“At Kirsten’s.”
“Kirsten’s?”
“Kirsten Holland. She was my roommate at DePaul, remember?”
After a few tense moments, he asked, “Why didn’t you come here?”
Sophie dared to look into his eyes, framed by lines of worry. Her father appeared to have aged ten years since she last saw him, and noticing his emerging fragility she wondered why she’d been so intimidated by him all her life. “Because I didn’t think you wanted me here,” she said.
“What? Why on earth did you think that?”
Her brown eyes flared with year-old fury. “Oh, gee, Dad. I don’t know, maybe because you didn’t visit me once in prison?” Will averted his gaze, but Sophie wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. “Or maybe it was the fact that you didn’t say one word to me at her funeral.” She felt her chest tighten and added, “Anyway, I got the message loud and clear.”
Sophie felt the hole inside her grow larger with each second of continued silence. She would never earn her father’s approval, and it was stupid to come to his house when she needed comforting. Will Taylor: construction magnate, coldhearted businessman—he would never be able to comfort her. “I should go,” she muttered, scraping her chair across the expensive tile.
“No,” Will said, standing with his daughter. “Please don’t go, Sophie.”
She glanced angrily at his face and was stunned to see tears.
“I—I—I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “That was inexcusable, what I did. Please, sit back down. I—I want to talk. I need to talk to you. Please, Sophie?”
Swallowing hard, she paused, then slowly felt herself buckling back into her chair, never taking her eyes off him. After Will resumed his sitting position as well, he folded his hands on the table, taking a deep breath.