“Sorry, Daddy, I was boooooored,” June said, as if that explained abandoning her father in the grocery store and giving him a minor cardiac incident. Kyle turned his attention to Margot and lifted a dark-blond eyebrow.
Margot raised her hands in surrender. “I swear, I am not stalking you.”
He smirked. “That’s what the last girl who stalked me said.”
“I didn’t knock her down or anything. She ran around the corner and bounced off of me.”
“June, we’ve talked about that, too,” Kyle scolded.
Juniper shrugged. “It gets me around faster.”
Margot tried to back away slowly from the little domestic scene, but Kyle turned to her. “I’m sorry, I’m usually better at supervising my own kids. But my other daughter was picking out a shampoo, which is sort of a ‘wisdom of Solomon’ thing, and June got away from me.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding and trying to back away down the aisle. “All right, then, see you around.”
“Um, actually, I could use your help,” he said. “With the shampoo thing. You’re a woman.”
“Thank you for noticing,” she deadpanned.
“And you’re probably better at picking out this stuff than I am,” he said, his cheeks flushing under his beard.
“Why is it so hard to pick a shampoo?” she asked.
Kyle cleared his throat. “Well.”
An older girl, maybe seven or eight, stepped around the end display and into the aisle, looking highly disgruntled. Her hair was several shades darker than her sister’s. It was also several times larger than her sister’s, forming a sort of unintentional cloud of frizz around her head.
Margot flinched. “Oh.”
“Hazel tried a new shampoo this week because it smelled like One Direction is supposed to smell. Don’t ask me why that makes sense. It’s a girl thing and I can’t possibly understand. And it made her hair all flat and stringy-looking. So I got her a volumizing shampoo, which was obviously a mistake because she has naturally curly hair and the chemicals awoke something evil in it. We tried defrizzing shampoo and dry shampoo and it just keeps getting bigger. And then at school today, the static electricity from the other kids just made it angry . . .”
June tugged on Margot’s shirt. “We’re afraid it’s going to start sucking people in, like the Blob.”
Hazel made an indignant noise but moved behind her father, out of sight. Margot turned to Kyle, brows lifted.
“I should not have let them watch that vintage horror movie marathon,” he admitted.
Margot sighed. She felt deeply underqualified to handle this. But Hazel looked so miserable with her giant cloud of hair. And she just couldn’t let Kyle make this worse for his daughter before she went back to school. Hazel was already the principal’s kid, which probably made life at school hard enough.
“This is not a problem that can be solved with more shampoo,” Margot told him, leading the little family back into the shampoo-and-conditioner aisle. June climbed down from her father’s arms and tugged on Margot’s jean pocket as she walked. Margot carefully peeled her hand away and tucked it back into Kyle’s.
It was unsettling how quickly kids attached themselves to people they barely knew. She needed to help poor Hazel with her follicle emergency and then get away from Kyle and his kids and his soft, teasing lips as quickly as possible. Surely there had to be some nice local lady who could decipher Kyle’s dual personality and his girls’ personal hygiene issues. She just needed to make some sort of dignified exit and never leave work or home again, so these awkward encounters would stop.
Reasonable solution.
Margot searched for the best brand among the value labels and started handing Kyle products. “Deep conditioning, spray detangler, and a Wet Brush. And if that doesn’t work . . .”
Margot turned to Kyle with a hesitant expression on her face.
“I’m scared,” Kyle whispered.
“Do you have olive oil at home?”
Margot separated from the little family as soon as Hazel’s hair care regimen was selected. She didn’t even say good-bye. She just said, “All right, then! Good luck!” and disappeared like fog. She felt a little guilty being rude to children, but this breakdown of the sexy, brooding image she’d had of Kyle to the responsible school administrator to the guy picking out no-tears shampoo was too much for her to handle. Not because it destroyed her unreasonable expectations, but because she could picture that very easily—Kyle standing at the stove while the girls ran around the kitchen, waving their sticky hands near all the available surfaces. She shook that image out of her head. As adorable as Kyle’s baggage might have been, she was in no way prepared to deal with them. All she’d wanted was a nice, simple romp with the hot broody local. She didn’t want to know about his home life. She didn’t want to meet his adorable, follically challenged children.
The lump of unease in her belly turned to ice-cold disappointment as she grasped the full implications of Kyle having kids. It felt like a death of possibilities. She was not prepared for this kind of complication in her life. She was going to be leaving Lake Sackett in a few weeks, God willing. She did not have time to form any sort of attachment to a single father of two girls.
Unfortunately, that father of two girls managed to catch up to her as she was loading her groceries into the truck. Over his shoulder, she could see that June was already strapped into the booster seat inside what she realized now was a sensible, family friendly four-door truck. Hazel was climbing in after her.
Margot moved toward the driver’s-side door but couldn’t unlock it without being obvious about dodging him.
“Hey, I didn’t have a chance to say thank-you properly,” he said. “I really appreciate the help. Every time I think I have a handle on this whole ‘parenting daughters’ thing, something pops up and bites me on my ass. And Hazel struggles without her mom.”
“As someone with challenging hair, I sympathize with her plight,” Margot said.
Kyle cleared his throat. “So, um, this is . . .”
“Uncomfortable to the point of pain?”
“I was going to go with ‘a little awkward,’ and end it there,” Kyle countered, pursing his lips. There was a pause in the conversation. With the way Kyle was looking her over, his gaze appreciative, Margot thought that he might ask her out. And she was already coming up with a list of reasons why she couldn’t accept. But she didn’t have the opportunity to use any of them, because he just smiled, said, “Well, I’ll see you around!” and pushed his empty cart toward the corral.
Margot couldn’t help but bite back some discontent. Clearly the connection she’d felt with him in that brief moment of madness hadn’t meant nearly as much to him as it had to her. And that was a good thing, right? She didn’t need to get all tangled up with this man and his kids. It was already going to be messy enough leaving her own family behind in Lake Sackett.
Margot palmed her keys. Right. Good life choices. Minimal complications.
She yanked open her door and called over her shoulder, “So if you see me sometime in the next twenty-four hours, it’s not stalking. It’s a coincidence. An embarrassing and ill-timed coincidence.”
Kyle opened his driver’s-side door and smirked. “That’s what the last girl who stalked me said.”
AFTER THE MISSED lunch debacle, Margot had planned to avoid her father. Stan had made his priorities clear. She needed to do the same. She just wanted to do her work, stay away from charming single fathers, then find a job and get out of town before she had to deal with Stan again. She got really good at tailoring her schedule to avoid seeing him at work, orbiting around the funeral home on a “Stan free” track.
Of course, her scruffy cousin blew that plan all to hell at the earliest possible opportunity just a few days later. Duffy insisted on showing her the “other side” of the business by taking her fishing. She’d pictured waking up around nine, going to the Rise and Shine, and then spending an hour flicking some bait over t
he water just to say they did it. She did not expect him to show up at her cabin before dawn, throw some worn boots at her, and drag her into his truck.
In most cases, being dragged from bed into anyone’s truck would be problematic.
“I’m reporting this as a kidnapping as soon as I’m awake,” she said through a yawn, leaning her forehead against his cool passenger window. “I have memorized the number for the Georgia State Patrol.”
“You’ll never get a cell signal out here,” he reminded her.
“I’ll mail them a letter,” she countered, her face smashed against the glass. “On very official-looking paper.”
But when she woke up she didn’t have time or stationery with which to report her cousin for multiple felonies, because she was sitting on a bench against the weathered red exterior of the Snack Shack. The water lapped loudly against the dock, occasionally splashing hard enough that droplets launched up from the surface and landed near her feet. She started, shrieking a little bit, grateful that she hadn’t rolled off the bench and into the water. “Duffy! Did you carry me down the dock while I was asleep? That is wrong!”
But Duffy didn’t answer. She couldn’t even see him, only the peachy orange of sunrise peeking over the horizon. The water lapped gently under the dock, its glittering surface making Margot squint even behind her sunglasses. Margot groaned and rubbed her hand over her face. “I’m going to shave his head while he sleeps.”
“Here, hon, this will perk you right up.”
Margot jerked again. Her eyes flew open and she found the tiny form of Bob’s wife, Leslie, blocking the rising sun. “Aunt Leslie? What are you doing here so early? Did Duffy kidnap you, too?”
A compact pixie with fading blond hair and a penchant for floppy straw hats, Leslie passed her an enormous thermal mug. “You have to wake up pretty early to beat the fishermen to the water. And I have to have the food ready for them. Now, you take a big swig of that. Bob told me the brew was hard on your system, so I mixed in some milk and sugar, like we fix for the kids.”
Margot rolled the oversweet substance on her tongue and winced. “You give this to children?”
“Well, not Nate,” Les said, shaking her head. She pressed a grease-spotted paper bag into Margot’s hands. “I’ve gotta get to work. Here, hon, you tell Duffy I made these for your breakfast.”
Margot sniffed the bag. It smelled like at least two hours on an elliptical. “What is it?”
“Bacon wrapped around a sausage, stuffed with cheese, dipped in egg batter and deep-fried. I call it a Breakfast Stick.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“The gravy’s in the spare thermos!” Les called brightly, walking back into the shack.
Margot heard a rumbling and turned to see Duffy guiding what looked like a floating front porch toward her. According to the bright red paint scrawled across the bow, it was called Sarah Jane. He waved cheerfully. “Hello, the dock!”
“Hello, wide flat boat thing!” she called back.
“This is a pontoon boat,” he told her as he deftly steered it parallel to the dock without colliding with it. “I figured it would be a little bit more your speed than one of our bass rigs.”
“You would be correct,” she said as he helped her step on board. She was pleased that the boat didn’t give under her feet. It was a nice stable surface, not at all tippy. “Here, Aunt Leslie gave us breakfast.”
Duffy looked into the bag and grinned. He called over Margot’s shoulder, “Oh, um, hey, Les? We’re gonna need enough for two more.”
“Is Frankie coming with us?” Margot asked, stowing her purse under one of the seat cushions and flopping onto the wide, couchlike seats.
“Not exactly,” Duffy said, flushing behind his gingery beard.
“Duffy, what did you do?” Margot turned to follow his eye line and saw her father walking on the dock with Aunt Donna at his side.
Aunt Donna looked ready for camping in the outback, wearing a khaki tank top with a green bandanna knotted around her neck. Her frizzled reddish hair blew in a curly cloud around her face, occasionally falling over a pair of black aviator sunglasses. She was sun-burnished and blowsy but looked perfectly at ease as she jumped onto the boat.
Seeing the uncomfortable expression on Margot’s face, Stan dropped the large Coleman cooler gently to the dock. A chubby Jack Russell terrier with gray-white hairs streaking out from its muzzle trotted down the dock, wearing a little doggy life vest.
Huffing at Stan until he stepped aside, the dog leaped gracefully onto the boat and hopped up on the seat nearest Donna. It turned in a circle until it found the best napping-in-the-sunshine position and dropped to its stomach.
“Look, I can just stay here,” Stan said as Donna tossed a bag full of gear to her son. “Don’t feel much like fishing anyway.”
“No, no, you stay, I’ll go,” Margot said, grabbing at the cushion that hid her bag. “You’ll probably get more out of this trip than I would.”
“No, the whole point of going out this morning was to teach you about fishing,” Stan protested as Leslie dropped a grease-spotted bag into Duffy’s waiting hands. “And I don’t want to mess that—”
“Really, it’s no trouble, I’ll just head back to the cabin and catch up on chores.”
“Now, listen here, if your cousin wants to take you fishing, I’m not gonna interfere.”
Donna turned, hands on hips. “Get your ass on the boat, Stan.”
“But—”
Donna lowered her sunglasses and glared at Stan. He threw his arms into the air. “Fine!”
While Margot sat, feeling pretty useless, the other three moved about the boat with practiced ease, securing the canvas screen overhead, prepping fishing rods, and most important, distributing the Breakfast Sticks. The terrier popped its head up, sniffing with hopeful eyes, but Donna scratched behind its ears and dug a treat out of her fishing vest.
“No Breakfast Sticks for you, Willie,” she said, though Margot noted her no-nonsense aunt didn’t have a cutesy dog voice. Her dog voice was just as exasperated as her people voice. “I’m not gonna have the vet fussing at me over your cholesterol again.”
“Willie’s been fishing with Mom and her charters for more than ten years,” Duffy told her. “He’s enjoyed a fair share of Breakfast Sticks in his lifetime.”
“Do the charter clients mind sharing their boat with a dog?” Margot asked.
“Anybody who does mind gets tossed off my boat,” Donna said, peering over her aviators at her niece.
Margot raised her hands in surrender. “Understood.”
Duffy revved the engine while Stan cast off a line. Margot just sat there and smeared SPF 30 sunscreen on her face and throat. Leslie stuck her head out of the Snack Shack and waved them off with a big grin on her face. Behind her, trucks were already pulling into the marina lot, eager for coffee and bait and deep-fried breakfast.
“Here you go.” Donna plopped a floppy canvas fisherman’s hat on top of Margot’s head. “You’re gonna need more than sunscreen to protect that fair skin of yours, Big City.”
“Actually, I’ve always tanned pretty easily,” Margot said. “I just haven’t been outdoors much lately, so I’m kind of fish-belly pale.”
Donna scoffed. “Stan’s the same way. Get him near a strong lightbulb and he’s brown as a walnut.”
Margot glanced at her father’s craggy face. He nodded and shrugged, seeming pleased that Donna had noted a similarity between him and his daughter. Margot cleared her throat. “So where are you taking me?”
“One of my favorite spots,” Donna assured her as Duffy glided the boat easily across the water. “Crappie galore. You’ll love it.”
Donna handed her one of the rods she’d brought, with the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop logo printed on the reel. She explained the mechanics of casting, when to release the tab on the reel, how to know when to start turning the spinning handle, and then dropped it into Margot’s palms. “Tru
st me, any fool can use this.”
Margot grimaced. She had a feeling Donna would have no problem telling her when she was being a fool. Donna slapped a plastic container of minnows on the seat next to her. “If you want to fish on my boat, you’re gonna have to bait your own hook. Put that college education of yours to good use.”
Margot lifted the lid of the minnow container and blanched at the poor, defenseless feeder fish. “Oddly enough, fish murder was not covered in my major.”
Margot was well aware of her own disgusted expression as she struggled to slip the hook through the bait. She didn’t even look up as she felt her father’s weight settle next to her.
“Don’tcha know anything about baitin’ a hook?” Stan asked, glancing up to make sure Donna wasn’t watching while he demonstrated the proper skewering technique.
“Well, I didn’t spend a lot of time fishing as a kid. Or any time, really,” she said, subtly shifting away from him on the seat. At least, she hoped it was subtle.
“Well, what did ya do?”
Margot stared at him. After the lunch debacle, he didn’t deserve to know anything about her childhood. She wasn’t going to answer. But then Donna started giving her the scary, pointed glare and Margot said, “Piano, which I was terrible at. Ballet, at which I was a bit better. French lessons. Horseback riding, though I never got to a competition level beyond our country club.”
“It figures you’d have that sort of thing up there in Chicago.”
“I was lucky. Gerald wanted to make sure I had all the same extracurricular opportunities as my classmates.”
“Was that your mom’s husband?”
Margot nodded. “They married when I was still very young.”
“Was he good to ya?” Stan asked. “This Gerald, was he decent to ya?”
“He’s a very decent man. A doctor. He’s in England right now, doing a teaching fellowship at a medical school there. We haven’t spoken in a long time, but when we do, it’s very civil.”
“Well, at least there’s that,” Stan said.