A Match Made Perfect--A Clean Romance

by Anna J. Stewart

  “Cavatelli.” Ezzie held up a box of imported pasta. “Why would your father freak about you scuba diving?”

  “Because if he had his way I’d still be using those floaty things on my arms.” Mandy flapped her arms like a bird then bent down to scoop Sparky, Aunt Frankie’s new firehouse cat, into her arms. The purring started immediately, as the slender black feline nuzzled the side of Mandy’s neck. “You know, those blow-’em-up things for babies. I’ve been on the swim team for two years straight. I don’t need floaty anything.” But she could do with some scuba gear. Hmm. She couldn’t talk her dad into that scooter, but maybe...“Uncle Monty said he’d teach me during his downtime and help me get certified. And he said if I want, I could work for him this summer, which would be perfect because I’m thinking about the marine biology program at UC Santa Cruz. Or maybe Long Beach.”

  After a few more kitty snuggles, Mandy let the cat go, washed her hands and retrieved the plates.

  “I thought you were planning on being a vet.”

  Mandy shrugged. “I love animals, too. I’m keeping my options open at this point, but I really, really love the idea of the ocean as an office. Maybe something environmental? I don’t know yet.”

  “You don’t have to decide today,” Ezzie said as she opened the oven and pulled out a sheet of softball-sized meatballs. She lowered them into the simmering sauce after adding a few pinches of red-pepper flakes, as Mandy had suggested. “Anything else about your day you want to talk about?”

  Mandy halted in the doorway, dishes clutched against her chest. “This is about my mom, isn’t it?” She turned and narrowed her eyes. “Did Dad put you up to this?”

  “Put me up to what?” Ezzie dumped the remaining drippings into the pot of sauce.

  “He’s worried seeing her this morning has somehow traumatized me, so he’s having you act as a spy to find out.”

  Ezzie stood up to her full five feet and blinked innocently at Mandy. “I would never spy for anyone. But now that you mention it—”

  Mandy set down the plates again. “I told Dad I was fine. And I am.”

  “Your father worries. It’s his job.” Ezzie brushed a finger down Mandy’s cheek and Mandy smiled. She loved Aunt Frankie and Uncle Monty to death; her stand-in family had been a huge part of her growing up process. But she missed her grandparents, who’d moved to Arizona when Mandy was eight. Her summer visits had grown less frequent the older she got and even when she did see them, it wasn’t the same as when they’d lived here. And her mother’s parents... An odd pang struck near her heart. She knew they had to be pretty awful people if even her super diplomatic father couldn’t seem to find anything good to say about them.

  Ezzie’s appearance in Butterfly Harbor last Thanksgiving had filled a void in Mandy that she didn’t realize she had. Ezzie had a way of cutting right to the heart of whatever might be on Mandy’s mind. And she wasn’t usually wrong. “It has to have been a shock to see her after all these years,” Ezzie persisted.

  “I’d only ever seen her in pictures.” Mandy swallowed the ball of unease in her throat. She’d been grateful Uncle Monty had taken her out in the boat today. It meant she didn’t have to think about how seeing Brooke Ardell for the first time actually affected her. Her respite had now ended. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”

  “There’s no supposed to,” Ezzie assured her and set the lid back on the pot. “You just feel how you feel. It sounds as if it’s a difficult and complicated situation.”

  Was it? Brooke was just another visitor to Butterfly Harbor. A visitor who happened to be her mother, but...what that meant exactly, Mandy couldn’t quite figure. “She left before I could talk to her. Today, I mean. It took me a few minutes to recognize her.” Longer than it should have, Mandy thought. How was it she hadn’t recognized her own mother when they looked so much alike? “I wanted to talk to her. Is that wrong?”

  “No, bella.”

  Mandy’s eyes misted at the affection Ezzie conveyed in her nickname for her.

  “I don’t want to upset Dad.” Mandy lowered her voice so her father couldn’t hear in the next room. “I don’t want him to think that just because I want to see her, that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. Because I do. He’s the best.”

  Ezzie smiled. “I’m sure he knows you feel that way.”

  “But won’t it hurt his feelings?” She hadn’t realized how much the idea had been worrying her. “She didn’t just leave me, she left him. Maybe it’s easier for me because I never knew her, but for Dad—”

  “You never have to feel guilty about wanting to see your mother, Mandy.”

  Mandy gasped and spun around, her vision wavering with tears when she saw her father standing in the doorway. He always looked so sturdy, as if nothing could knock him down. This moment was no different as he trained his gaze on hers. “Dad—”

  Her father did what he always did when she was upset. He came to her and wrapped her close. When his head curved down over hers, cocooning her in safety and support, she clung to him, willing the tears to vanish. “I completely understand that you want to see her, Peanut.” Her breath hitched. He only called her that when he knew she was really upset or confused. Or when he wanted to make her smile. “She’s your mom. Nothing’s going to change that.”

  “But you’re my dad.” She sniffled and tried to swallow the surge of uncertainty.

  “And I always will be. We’re stuck with each other, remember?” He gave her a quick squeeze, released her, then caught her face between his hands. “Whatever you want to do, however you want to do it, we’ll do it, okay?” He pulled her in for another hug. “And that includes scuba lessons.” She laughed when she felt him shudder. “At some point you’re going to have to narrow down your interests, though, Mandy. I don’t think my heart or my wallet can take much more.”

  “’Kay.” She nodded against his chest, and when he started to pull away, she clung to him. “Just another couple of seconds, Dad.” She burrowed into him and the tears eased. “Just a couple more.”

  * * *

  THE LAST TIME Sebastian got up in the middle of the night to check on Mandy had been over a year ago, when she’d had the flu. He’d felt helpless then, unable to do much more than comfort, medicate and search for old Hepburn-and-Tracy movies for them to watch in between her bouts of coughing. But tonight he felt the urge to make sure she was okay.

  There was no doubt she was doing a lot of thinking about Brooke these past few days, but not a lot of talking, and that was definitely not typical Mandy. He’d given her space, but considering how attached she’d been to her phone, he assumed her thoughts were reserved for her best friend since kindergarten, Eleni Gianakos. At least, he hoped it was Eleni. He wasn’t ready for the you’re-spending-too-much-time-with-Kyle conversation just yet. At least she’d be back in school in the morning and, hopefully, have her mind occupied with things other than Brooke.

  Sebastian padded barefoot down the hall and pushed open the door to Mandy’s bedroom, careful not to jostle the whiteboard she kept on the door for messages. Usually he slept soundly, but something had woken him. Not a noise, but a feeling—that dead-of-night feeling that called out that something was not normal. It didn’t take long for him to see what.

  His daughter’s seashell bedside lamp glowed dimly, illuminating the fact that she was still awake, preoccupied no doubt by the framed photo she held in her hands. His heart screamed, and he wished he could turn back time and stop the last few days from ever happening. The only thing he knew he’d been put on this earth to do was to be a father to his little girl, to protect her and guide her into the fullest and happiest life she could lead. Except she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was the same age Brooke had been when they’d met. And maybe that, he admitted, was what was really keeping him up.

  Standing in the doorway to her bedroom that was half rainbows and unicorns and half boy
bands and science posters, he watched Mandy trace a finger along the image of Brooke. A surge of irritation sped through him.

  Brooke was robbing their daughter of sleep. On a night when her dreams should be filled with visions of riding the ocean waves, or hitting a fast curveball, Mandy was being kept awake because her mother had seen fit to return to Butterfly Harbor.

  “I can hear you breathing,” Mandy said. The grin on her face forced away his worry and sadness. “In or out.”

  “It’s after midnight, Man.”

  “Can’t sleep.” Mandy flopped onto her back, still holding the photo against her chest. “My mind won’t stop spinning.”

  “I know the feeling.” Sebastian leaned against the door frame. “You know what that means.”

  Mandy’s grin widened. “Ice-cream sundaes?”

  “I picked up a couple of pints this afternoon.” He’d had a feeling they’d need them. “Come on.” His heart lightened at the sound of her laughter as she dived out of bed and raced him to the kitchen. They instantly fell into the routine that had started when she was four and woke up from a nightmare about giant butterflies swooping in and carrying her off to a faraway land.

  He got the scooper, two faded My Little Pony bowls, and the ice cream, while she grabbed the spoons, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and chopped almonds...because they were healthy. A few minutes later, his hand dripping with double mocha fudge, he felt himself settle as Mandy stuffed a huge spoonful into her mouth. “There’s nothing ice cream won’t cure,” he joked and washed his hands before joining her at the table. How he hoped that would always be the case.

  But he knew better.

  “I was sending you messages with my mind,” Mandy announced. She looked around the small kitchen he and Monty had repainted a bright sunshine-yellow a few summers ago. He could barely see the refrigerator under all the notes, schedules and oversize calendar noting Mandy’s various activities. The kitchen, just like the rest of their two-bedroom apartment above the store, was small, tidy and...home. Their home. “Like telepathy messages,” Mandy continued. “Ice cream. Let’s have ice cream.” She made a woo-woo sound and wiggled her fingers in a way that had him laughing.

  “So that’s what I heard.” Still, the real reason for her sleeplessness hovered. “You know the deal. The ice cream comes with a price. Get it out on the table, Man. No judgment. No argument.” Even though it was the last thing he wanted, he spooned up some ice cream and ate. “Is it about your mom, or is something else bothering you?”

  She shrugged, which wasn’t a good start. “I don’t think I’ve progressed much beyond the fact she’s actually here. Everything feels like a jumble inside, you know?” She tilted her head and scrunched her nose...much like her mother used to do. Sebastian sighed. “I feel like I should be angrier with her. But I’m not angry. That’s weird.” She stabbed at her ice cream.

  He grabbed the can of whipped cream and set it aside before she could squirt some directly into her mouth.

  “No fair. I’m having issues, Dad. They require copious amounts of whipped cream.”

  “I have to draw the line somewhere. Be careful or I’ll stick some kale in that bowl.”

  “Yuck.” She shuddered. “I don’t know how I feel about her being back. Maybe because...” She trailed off, caught her lower lip in her teeth and winced.

  “Because what?” He kept his voice gentle. He never, ever wanted Mandy to think she couldn’t talk to him about something.

  “Why did she leave us?” The confusion marring Mandy’s brow reached deep inside of him and grabbed hold.

  It was the one question she’d asked over the years that he could never find an answer to. It was the one question he’d never been able to answer for himself. He wiped his mouth, sat back in his chair. “I’m not the person who can answer that, Mandy.” As much as it pained him to admit it. The last thing he wanted was for Mandy to go looking to Brooke for answers, but seeing as he didn’t have any...

  “You always say that, but you must have some idea.” She pinned him with that investigative look she’d perfected around the age of ten.

  “I’ve made assumptions based on information I had at the time.” Assumptions that didn’t belong anywhere in the head of a fourteen-year-old. But Mandy was mature beyond her years and it seemed as if he’d run out of excuses to dodge her curiosity. Especially now that she had a second source of information so close by. “Her parents were very...” He hesitated. “For want of a better word, controlling. Very...determined that she live her life in a certain way. You and I didn’t figure into their plans for Brooke.”

  “Controlling?” Mandy’s spoon clanked into her bowl. “Like how?”

  In the past, Mandy’s questions about Brooke had been cursory, as if she needed reassurance or a reminder that she actually did have a mom, out there, somewhere. “Well, emotionally.” It wasn’t something he liked to dwell on, especially since he’d never been able to convince Brooke to break free. He’d almost succeeded. He’d even made an appointment at city hall to get married a few weeks after Mandy was born, but in the end, Brooke had ricocheted back to the parents she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint. “I think...” Sebastian took an extra beat to consider his words. “I think maybe it’s best if you talk to her about this, Mandy. My experience with her shouldn’t factor in to your relationship with her.”

  “Isn’t your side more important?”

  It touched him that she thought so, but letting her believe only his viewpoint mattered in this situation wasn’t fair. To Mandy. Or Brooke. “I know I told you I wouldn’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

  “Sounds like there’s a great big but at the end of that sentence.”

  The grumbling statement had his heart swelling with love. She amazed him. “Running away from a problem is never a solution,” he said, tempted to add that running away was exactly what Brooke had done. “Facing it head-on, dealing with it, moving beyond it—those are the only ways you can settle this in your own mind. Your mother came here for a reason. She says that reason is you. As far as I know she’s still here, so...”

  She spooned up another mouthful of ice cream. “What if I figure out I’m angry at her?”

  “Then we’ll work through that.” The idea of Mandy tormenting herself raised his level of frustration all over again. If Brooke had just stayed away, if she’d just stayed wherever she’d been for the past fifteen years, Mandy would be focusing on talking him into scuba-diving lessons, instead of trying to figure out why her mother had abandoned her. “Would it help if I talked to her first?” The second the suggestion came out, he regretted it. He didn’t want to talk to Brooke. He didn’t want to see her, not when a mere flash of that smile of hers had him tumbling back to the years he’d had to forget in a hurry. But, just like with his daughter, he knew, deep down, things wouldn’t get resolved by doing nothing.

  “Will you tell me what she says?”

  “That will depend. But it might ease your mind to know how I feel about what she says. That’s a bit of a compromise, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.” She stuck her spoon in her mouth, then pulled it free. “One thing’s for sure. However we proceed, we’re going to need a lot more ice cream to see it through.”

  Sebastian smiled. “That’s my girl.”

  * * *

  ON MONDAY MORNING, Brooke stood huddled in her jacket, hair tucked under her knit cap, and waited in the early chill for Holly to arrive at the diner. Anticipation rushed through her, an exciting little buzz she hadn’t felt in...

  She blew out a breath that formed a cloud in the air. Who would have thought she’d get this amped up over waiting on tables? But she was. So much so that she’d barely been able to sleep last night, and had been up and dressed before her alarm went off. She hoped she hadn’t woken up BethAnn when she’d dropped the coffee tin. Or accidentally tripped up the stairs on her wa
y to get her jacket. The truth was, she’d been a bundle of nerves since Holly had offered her the job—nerves that hadn’t come close to settling.

  Though, when she’d returned to her booth after accepting Holly’s offer, she hadn’t taken her salad and fries to go. Rather, she’d stayed at the diner. She wasn’t about to give up any ground she’d gained by speaking directly to the Cocoon Club. A notable group of feisty senior citizens who meant well, Holly had assured her, but who definitely had their own opinions.

  She had time to make inroads, not only with the people of Butterfly Harbor, but also with Sebastian and Mandy. If Myra, Oscar and other members of the Cocoon Club were going to be the dragons at the gate, so be it. Dragons, which were pretty much indestructible, could sometimes be charmed.

  Her stomach growled around the solitary cup of coffee she’d downed. The roar of the ocean called to her and already she was looking forward to taking her breaks out on the beach, letting the water and tide ease whatever new worries she’d have to deal with.

  “You can do this,” she whispered to herself and began to pace in front of the door. “You can do this.”

  “If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t have hired you.”

  Brooke yelped and spun around, her hand flying to her heart. “Holly. You scared me.”

  “And you surprise me. You’re early.” Holly gave her an approving nod. “Impressive. Come on. We’ll get you started with the coffee machines, the most important appliances in the diner.”

  “Great. Okay. Ready.” Brooke blew on her hands and followed Holly inside, then hung up her coat in the metal locker Holly assigned to her. When she emerged from the kitchen, she found Holly at the register talking with another woman. Dark blond hair, lively eyes and a guarded smile told Brooke her reputation definitely preceded her. First test of what was sure to be many for the day. “Hi.”