Snowed in with the Single Dad

by Melinda Curtis

  And the dress was blue, not pink. By its nonpinkness alone, the dress was Laurel’s.

  “I’m sorry, sissy. Mom said I could wear it.” Pink-loving Ashley had smiled the delicate smile grown-ups seemed enamored with and tried to turn away. “Don’t I look pretty?”

  “Listen to me!” Laurel wailed, crushing the stiff fabric in her fingers. “That’s! My! Dress!”

  “Laurel, your sister needs it more than you do.” Mom had intervened, working to pry Laurel’s fingers from the dress. “Ashley’s auditioning for a princess role tomorrow. Princesses always have many dresses to wear. And if she gets the part, she’ll need you and your big heart more than ever.”

  Laurel didn’t mind Ashley getting her heart; it was her dress she didn’t want to share.

  But the tulle had slipped through Laurel’s fingers, seam stitches snapping.

  Freed, Ashley had turned so fast she’d nearly fallen.

  Laurel had caught her, the same way she always did.

  “I love you, sissy,” Ashley said, wrapping her arms around her.

  And Laurel had hugged her back, the same way she always did.

  Laurel’s hands clenched in her lap.

  They might have been identical, but Ashley’s sweet voice sounded like joyful bells, and she danced with the grace of a ballerina. She’d been born for the cradling beam of celebrity.

  And Laurel had been born to stand in her shadow and help her get there.

  * * *

  MITCH LOOKED UP from researching historic landmark qualifications in Idaho and realized the inn was too quiet. “Gabby?”

  It wasn’t like his teenage daughter to be silent. She hummed while she cleaned. She pounded the keyboard ferociously when she did her homework. She banged pots and pans when she was in the kitchen.

  The door separating their apartment from the inn’s common room was slightly ajar. He got up from the kitchen table and pushed it open wider. “Gabby?”

  In his wheelchair in front of the muted television, Zeke roused from a doze. “I’m fine.” He blinked. Frowned. Cleared his throat. “Were you asking?”

  “No, but I’m glad to hear you’re doing okay.”

  The inn’s front door opened.

  Mitch took a couple steps that way. “Where have you...”

  Gabby didn’t come into the foyer. It was Shane, smiling like a prosecutor after a hard-won conviction.

  “Where have you been?” That line had been meant for Gabby.

  Shane’s smile curled into a mischievous grin. He shrugged out of his lightweight jacket and rubbed his arms. “Is that chili I smell?”

  Mitch nodded.

  “It must be Tuesday.” Shane chuckled.

  Zeke laughed, too. “It is, indeed.”

  “What’s so funny?” Mitch didn’t appreciate missing out on the joke.

  “All anyone has to do is check in with you or Ivy to know what day of the week it is.” Shane climbed the stairs. “In your case, Monday, lasagna. Tuesday, chili. Wednesday, spaghetti.”

  “Thursday, leftovers.” Zeke hadn’t smiled so naturally since he’d checked in. “Friday, fish. Saturday, tuna casserole.”

  “Sunday, pot roast,” Shane called.

  “Sue me,” Mitch taunted. “I’m organized. I run an inn.” And cooking had never been a chore he was fond of.

  “The inn practically runs itself,” Shane said before shutting his door at the top of the stairs.

  Mitch turned on Zeke. “Are you complaining about my cooking?” Food was part of the recuperating cowboy’s room and board. “Because I’m sure Ivy would love to feed you.”

  Ivy, who heated up frozen french fries and chicken nuggets and promoted them as the Friday Night Special. At least Mitch cooked from scratch.

  “No, sir.” But a smile hovered at the corner of Zeke’s mouth.

  Animated voices and laughter drifted to Mitch from one of the guest rooms upstairs. Belatedly, he remembered he’d sent Gabby to deliver extra towels to Sophie’s room. His daughter had probably got to talking and lost track of time, which would’ve been fine with any guests other than Zeke or the Monroes.

  Needing to retrieve her, he climbed the stairs.

  “This dress is famous.” Gabby’s voice drifted down the hallway. “This is so cool.”

  Mitch gritted his teeth and quickened his steps.

  The door to Laurel’s room was open, a magazine crumpled on the hall floor across from it. Her back to Mitch, Laurel stepped halfway into the dimly lit hallway. Her hair was piled high and she wore the pink evening gown that sparkled as if it’d been sprinkled with fairy dust. Laurel pivoted, still half-hidden by the wall, and disappeared back inside her room.

  “Go slower,” Sophie said. “Exaggerate your movements. I need the perfect shot.”

  Laurel stepped fully into the hallway, one hand on her hip, moving with the grace and confident swagger of a model. Posing as if ready for a photo op on the red carpet.

  Mitch’s heart dropped to his toes.

  That wasn’t Laurel! That wasn’t even a woman!

  It was Gabby, his strawberry blonde, naive, twelve-year-old daughter!

  Makeup. Lipstick. Hair piled high. High heels. And a dress that plunged in front and in back.

  Where was his Barbie-obsessed daughter? The one with the pigtails and braces? He couldn’t see her.

  Mitch walked down the hall, seemingly in slow motion. But his mind... His mind was in overdrive.

  “Gabby.” Her name erupted from Mitch on a note of anger.

  “Dad?” Gabby barely looked at him before she leaped back into the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Whispered exchanges were made. Another door slammed.

  Mitch reached Laurel’s room and pounded on the five-paneled wooden door so hard it groaned. The inn had been groaning a lot lately. Mitch groaned. He’d been groaning a lot lately, too.

  “Come in,” Laurel said warmly.

  Sophie sat on the bed next to her. “Hey, Mitch.”

  Gabby was nowhere to be seen, but the bathroom door was closed, and something scurried in there like a trapped mouse.

  “Was that my daughter?” Mitch had perfected the art of intimidation in Chicago courtrooms. A hard stare. A firm mouth. A low, accusatory question. Normally, that elicited a desired response—a blurted apology, a stuttered statement of truth.

  Sophie didn’t crack. “She was curious about Laurel’s dress. She looked beautiful, didn’t she?”

  Laurel slapped a hand over her eyes. “I told them this was a bad idea.”

  “You’re in contempt.” He went all angry judge on her, shaking his finger, lifting his voice. “Don’t tell me you had no part in this.”

  “Dad!” Gabby called, voice brimming with teenage annoyance. “Go downstairs. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “I’ll wait.” Mitch crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at Laurel.

  Sophie cleared her throat. “I feel I should mention Laurel warned us several times to stop.” She gave a little half shrug. “But Gabby and I were caught up in the moment and...just...couldn’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” Laurel said, apparently the only female in the vicinity who felt remorseful.

  “You knew I wouldn’t approve.” Mitch turned his gaze toward the window and a blanket of falling snow, searching for calm.

  The last thing he wanted was for Gabby to turn out like her mother—fashion obsessed and money hungry—or his father.

  He wanted to kick the Monroes out of the inn. But they owned it. It was beginning to feel like they owned him.

  Sophie cleared her throat, breaking into Mitch’s thoughts. “Gabby likes to wear dresses, Mitch. And she looks beautiful in them.”

  “She doesn’t need dresses in Second Chance!” This was hiking boots and blue jeans territory. Fishing wa
ders and floppy hat country. They ran an inn made of round logs with wood floors that squeaked, even when covered in durable carpet. “This dress needs to go!”

  “Dad.” Gabby still hadn’t emerged.

  “I’m sorry.” Laurel stood and placed a hand on Mitch’s arm, lightly, gently. Her soothing tone brushed across his anger. “Let me explain.”

  The need to accept apologies and explanations was strong. Laurel would make promises. She’d reassure him this was a onetime occurrence.

  But her red hair, blue eyes and fashion sense were reminiscent of his ex-wife; and promises, like laws, could be broken. His father was proof of that.

  He turned away from Laurel. “I’ll wait in the hall.”

  “Dad. You’re embarrassing me.” Gabby darted past Mitch a few minutes later, feet landing on every squeaky floorboard as she fled downstairs.

  “Hey, we need to talk about what went on here.” Mitch followed, lengthening his stride to catch up.

  But Gabby was ahead. She reached the ground floor and didn’t stop running, racing into their apartment and slamming her bedroom door.

  “Problem?” Zeke asked, muting the television above the fireplace.

  Mitch ignored him and continued into their private quarters, closing the door behind him. Gabby hadn’t locked herself in her room. She’d shut herself in the bathroom.

  “Gabby, open up.” Mitch pounded on the door.

  “Leave me alone!” A muffled protest, possibly accented with tears.

  Mitch’s heart broke in two. “Come on, honey. We need to talk. You can’t put this off. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Her feet shuffled on the linoleum and then she opened the door. “Dad.”

  He didn’t think she’d called him Dad as much her entire life as she had in the past few weeks. More than anything Mitch wanted to gather his little girl into his arms, tell her he loved her and know that she’d never change from the sweet darling baby with the toothless grin in the framed photo hanging in the hallway.

  But Gabby had her arms locked over her chest and her guilty gaze nailed to the floor. She and that attitude weren’t budging.

  The hug, the reassurance, it would have to wait for a later date. Hopefully, not years from today. For now, he had to be the father who had the hard conversations. “Gabby, I can’t have you dressing up like you’re twenty-two when you’re twelve.”

  “It’s just a dress.” Her face was bright red. All trace of cosmetics gone. “I don’t see what the problem is. You had no problem with me playing dress up at Aunt Evelyn’s house when I was seven.”

  “The problem is you’re twelve years old.” Mitch flailed about for an argument to justify his position. “We only just bought you your first bra last summer and now you want to wear a dress without need of one?”

  “Dad. Lower your voice! Everyone in the inn probably heard that.” Gabby’s cheeks flamed red.

  Mitch imagined his did the same. They felt hot enough to cook bacon. Of all the arguments he could have made...

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. It was just a dress.”

  “It wasn’t just a dress. There was makeup and there was—” his hands circled his head “—hairstyling going on.”

  There was a knock on the apartment door.

  “Excuse me,” a feminine voice carried to them.

  It was Laurel.

  He flung open the door, frowning for all he was worth, ready to tell Laurel to check out, to get out.

  “Hey there.” Laurel held a small smartphone in a sparkly pink case toward him. “Gabby left her cell phone in my room.”

  Mitch rejected her offering. “Gabby doesn’t have a smartphone.”

  “Dad.” Proving him wrong, Gabby snatched the device.

  Mitch felt cold, icy even. He was the crackled frost on the windowpane. The loose, snowy powder being blown off the mountain. He let Gabby use his account to order things she needed online. But he’d never seen a receipt for a cell phone. “Where did you get that?”

  Her little chin shot up. “Mom gave it to me for my birthday.”

  The attitude. The silences. The changes in her personality. They hadn’t come from her braces being removed or her envy of Laurel’s fashionable wardrobe.

  “Please, give it to me.” Mitch held out his palm.

  “Dad.” Gabby clutched the phone over her heart.

  Mitch then closed the door on Laurel with the hand that should have held a cell phone. “Is that why you wouldn’t let me see your gift when it came?”

  She’d unwrapped it in her room. He’d been trying to respect her privacy. And all this time his ex-wife had been going behind his back and encouraging his little girl to lie to him.

  He’d felt cold before, but he was boiling now.

  “Call your mother.” Mitch didn’t recognize his own voice. It was cold and detached, and he wasn’t proud of it.

  This was the hard part about parenting—not being his daughter’s friend but being her father. Not going ballistic over her push for independence via unexpected rebellion. Laurel was right about this being a phase. She was right about too much when it came to Gabby. And yet, she’d been wrong to let his daughter wear that dress.

  Gabby unlocked the phone and dialed.

  “Put it on speaker.” His tone had dropped, but he was still half-ashamed that his words were so accusatory. But it wasn’t his fault. The fault lay with—

  “Hi, sweet thing,” Shannon gushed over a background of many voices, laughter and clinking glasses.

  “Shannon. It’s Mitch.” His tone tossed down the gauntlet. “I’ve just discovered what you gave Gabby for her birthday. This gift is something we should have talked about before you bought it.”

  “Why?” Shannon’s voice took on a lethal edge that tried to match Mitch’s. Heels clicked on marble; presumably Shannon was walking away from the crowd because the noise dimmed. “All the twelve-year-olds here have cell phones. They text each other all the time.”

  “She has no one to text, Shannon.” All the kids in Second Chance were younger than she was.

  “Maybe I wanted to text my daughter.” A door latched. The sound of the crowd muted. “Maybe I wanted some privacy. You know, Mitch, you’re always around when I call on the house phone. And because you chose to live in those awful mountains where the power goes out every time you have a thunderstorm, I can’t always reach my daughter on the house phone. Gabby is twelve. She needs to be able to talk to another woman about the things she’s going through.”

  “Mom.” Eyes squeezed shut, Gabby fell back against the wall.

  “Is that Gabby in the background?” Shannon asked.

  “Yes. She’s here. I have you on speaker.”

  “Jeez, you could’ve told me. You always want to make me look like the bad parent.”

  There was no way Shannon could look like the bad parent to Gabby today. No, that was Mitch.

  “Gabby, honey.” There was a noticeable change in Shannon’s tone of voice. “When your dad gives you your cell phone back—because you know he’s going to take it away just because it was our little secret—you call me. You call me anytime. We’ll talk about changing that custody agreement. You’d like to live with me half the year, wouldn’t you?” Before Mitch or Gabby had a chance to respond, Shannon tossed her goodbye. “Love you, girlie!” And hung up.

  Share custody? Over my dead body.

  Mitch wanted to go to his room, fall on the bed and forget he’d ever been married, which was preferable to throwing away Gabby’s cell phone, he supposed. Not that he was going to do either.

  Gabby grimaced. “I guess I’ll go to my room, where I’ll be in time-out until I leave for college.” She turned, dragging her feet. “Unless Mom wins that custody battle.”

  Shannon would ruin Gabby.

  He should let his da
ughter have the last word. She’d gotten the message loud and clear: he didn’t approve of her keeping this a secret. But he couldn’t. “You can come out for meals, chores and schoolwork if I go with you to the diner.”

  Gabby choked on a sob and raced to her room, slamming the door behind her.

  Mitch shut off the cell phone and shoved it in a desk drawer.

  Things were going to be a lot quieter around here for the next few days.

  As soon as the crying stopped.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT WAS MIDNIGHT and Mitch was pacing downstairs in the common room.

  He had a distinct set of footfalls.

  Laurel should know. She’d been listening to him walk the inn at night for several weeks now, often lulled to sleep by his sturdy tread. Tonight guilt acted like a dose of caffeine, keeping her awake.

  Granted, things had gotten out of hand. But she’d apologized and...

  And Mitch hadn’t accepted, the same way her sister, Ashley, hadn’t accepted her apology over the pink dress incident.

  Ashley! Ashley! Who designed your dress?

  Flashing light bulbs blinded. Popping light bulbs made her ears ring.

  Laurel rolled over. Rolled back. Thought about how light her chest felt when everyone around her was happy. Listened to Mitch pace.

  Strong. Sure. Steady. His were the steps of a man who knew who he was and how he wanted to live. She envied him that.

  Really, he could stay mad at her all he wanted, but Gabby... He and Gabby needed to make up. Maybe if she tried to explain about the dress and what it meant to her...

  Laurel sat up gradually, the way she’d learned to sit up since the wallop of morning sickness. Nothing rocked. Her stomach didn’t clench. Her head didn’t spin. She swung her feet off the bed slowly. All was good.

  Take that, morning sickness.

  She put on a silky gray robe over her silky menswear-style pajamas and went downstairs.

  “You should go back to bed.” Mitch’s words reached Laurel before her stocking feet touched the ground floor. He sounded as sharp and cold as the wind whipping past the inn’s windows.