A Small-Town Homecoming. Terry McLaughlin

“Jeez.”

      “We can go to the store this weekend. You can pick out some things you like to cook.”

      “I’m not your slave.”

      “No. You’re my daughter,” he said, feeling foolish for pointing out the obvious. “And I want you to come and eat your dinner.”

      “I said all right.”

      He slid his hands into his pockets and watched her, waiting, praying she’d give in and walk through the door, promising himself he wouldn’t move a muscle or say another word until she did. He searched her face—that long, pale face dusted with her mother’s freckles and framed with his own dark hair—looking for the sweet, cheerful little girl he’d known so long ago. But she wasn’t there.

      “Are you just going to stand there all night?” she asked.

      “No. Just until you come to dinner.”

      She rolled her eyes and shoved to her feet. “Jeez.”

      He followed her back to the kitchen, dreading the nightly routine. Questions about homework, answers he didn’t trust. Conversation conducted in monosyllables and resentment hanging so thick in the air it seasoned every bite of food he swallowed. An argument about the cell phone, or bedtime, or something she wanted to buy, or whether a ten-year-old needed a babysitter—any-thing but the one topic he knew she really wanted to fight over: her mother, and when she was coming back to rescue her.

      At times, the pain was unbearable. He wanted to keep his daughter here, with him, wanted to get to know her again, wanted to break through the walls she threw up in his face, wanted his love to matter, to build solid memories for her to take with her when she’d grown and gone. He wanted to gather her close and hold her tight, to make her pain disappear, to feel her thin arms wrap around his neck and hug him tight, the way she’d hugged him so many years ago. A lifetime ago.

      But he couldn’t take away her hurt, and he couldn’t offer the comfort she wanted right now. All he could do was reach deep, deep down below his murky emotions and haul up another handful of patience and love. And pour his invisible offering over the sad and sullen child whose stony expression reminded him of all his failures.

      He asked her what she’d done at school that day, but she wasn’t talking to him tonight. So they sat in uneasy silence as they picked the meat from the bones.

      TESS GLANCED up from her monitor two days later when the door to her office clicked open, admitting a gust of rain-specked wind and a dripping, frowning Quinn. He raked long, scarred fingers through his wet hair and ran an assessing look around her office.

      “What are you doing here?” she asked.

      “Is that how you greet all your customers?”

      “Is that what you are?” she asked as she rose from her chair. “A customer?”

      “What kind of customers do you get in here, anyway?” he asked as he stepped farther into the room. His gaze traveled over the sketches pinned to the wall, the fan suspended from the tin ceiling, to the models displayed on tall white cubes and the massive ficus arching over one corner of the red Persian rug on the old plank floor.

      “The serious kind.” She folded her arms and waited as he leaned over a model of a tasting room she’d designed for a Paso Robles winery.

      He straightened and met her stare with a particularly grave expression. “I’m serious.”

      “Yes,” she said as her lips twitched to hide a grin. She wondered if she’d just witnessed a miserly sample of his sense of humor. “You are.”

      “I like this.” He bent again to study the winery model. “It’s clean.”

      “Clean?”

      “Uncluttered. French without the frills.”

      “The client asked for sleek and no-nonsense, with an Old-World feel.”

      “You gave it to him.”

      “Giving my clients what they ask for is what keeps me in business.”

      “Even if you know better than they do what they should be asking for?”

      “That’s where a touch of diplomacy comes in handy.” Tess tilted her head to one side, pleased with his subtle compliments but wondering what he wanted. He had to be working some angle, or he wouldn’t have spared the time to stop by. Everyone who knew him said he was a straightforward kind of guy. “It works wonders,” she said. “You might give it a try.”

      “Waste of time.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and straightened again, facing her. “I want to change the approach to the parking area. Straight shot, northeast corner.”

      “The curve from the street on the south will slow traffic and show the building to best advantage. I want visitors to savor their entry into the space.” Tess strode to the model set in the wide bay window and pointed to the overlapping layers representing the site grade. “A curving drive will give the landscape design team a more interesting flow to work with. And this bend in the road will be the perfect place for an ornamental tree.”

      “We can get more parking spaces if we come in straight from the street.” He crossed the room to where she stood and sliced a finger across the softly cascading form. “Here.”

      “We’ve already provided for the number of parking slots the city required.”

      “There’s room for more.”

      “No.”

      He glanced at her. “Now might be a good time to try some of that diplomacy you mentioned.”

      “I don’t have to be diplomatic about this.”

      “You do if it’s not cost-effective.”

      “Everything I’ve mentioned is in the budget.”

      “About that budget.” He narrowed his eyes. “There’s no room for delays.”

      “Yes, there is.”

      “Not enough.”

      Now it was her turn to aim a dark look in his direction. “Are you planning on inefficiency?”

      “No. But weather happens. Shit happens. It always does.” He leaned toward her. “If you’d spent any time around a construction site, you’d know that.”

      “I’ve spent plenty of time around construction sites,” she snapped, temper edging her closer to him, “and I’ve never had any problems with my budgets.”

      “Because the contractor covered your butt?”

      “Don’t worry, Quinn. You’re the last person I’d ask to cover any piece of my anatomy.”

      Too late, she realized the direction the conversation had taken. So, obviously, did Quinn. His gaze dropped to her lips a fraction of an instant before hers dropped to his.

      She watched, helplessly fascinated, as one corner of his mouth slowly turned up, deepening the groove in his cheek. Her breath snagged, and she was glad that was only half a smile. She had a feeling the complete version would be devastating.

      “Are we going to be doing this every day for the next nine months?” she asked when she could suck in air again.

      “Arguing?”

      Arguing. That’s all he’d been doing. She turned and moved toward her desk to put some distance between them. And tossed her witchiest smile over her shoulder, just to get back at him. “What did you think I meant?”

      “We only have to argue when you’re wrong,” he said, his serious expression back in place, “and too stubborn to admit it.”

      “I’ve explained my reasons for keeping the plan the way it is.”

      “Yeah.