He pulled his hands over his face and then looked directly at her. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Everything. Nothing. I used to know exactly what I wanted, but now…” He finished his sentence with a shrug.
“I’m sure coming back home has been hard for you,” Hailey said, folding her arms across her midsection. “It must bring back memories, both good and bad.”
As she held his gaze she sensed a shift in the atmosphere. A sense of restlessness. Of half-formed thoughts that neither of them dared speak.
“It has.” He blew out his breath, as if deflating, and leaned back against the counter behind him.
And to her surprise, he looked as confused and bewildered as she felt.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Dan slowly shook his head. “It wouldn’t do any good.”
Hailey frowned. “What do you mean? If something is bothering you about what I’m doing with Natasha, I want to have it out in the open. That’s the only way this is going to work.”
He gave her a melancholy smile. “It’s not about how you are teaching Natasha. You’re dong a great job with her. She’s come a long ways since you started working with her and I appreciate that.”
Hailey’s confusion only increased. “So why is there this tension between us?”
Dan sighed again but this time Hailey waited for him to talk.
Finally he looked up at her. “I think it’s that I feel as if so much of the stuff I thought I dealt with is still hanging around.”
“Stuff like what?”
“Stuff like you and me. How we used to be a couple.” Dan paused, his hazel eyes seeming to pierce hers as her heart skipped a beat. What was he trying to say? Where was he going?
“I promised myself when I came back to Hartley Creek that I would keep my focus on my daughter,” he continued. “And I don’t need any distractions from that.”
His statement plunged into her soul like a shard of ice. The intensity of her hurt surprised her. He saw her as a distraction.
Yet why should it bother her? She didn’t want any distractions either. She had the course of her life set out. This stay in Hartley Creek was merely for her grandmother’s sake. If she was honest with herself, Dan’s presence was a complication for her as well.
“I think the reality is, like you said, we used to be a couple,” she said, choosing her words as carefully as a rock climber chooses his precarious handholds. “And that can cause uneasiness that can be a distraction too. But we may as well be adult about it, realize our old relationship was there and move on.” She forced a smile as she looked up at him again, disappointed at how his blunt pronouncement had made her heart ache. “I want to be comfortable teaching your daughter without all the tension that seems to follow us.”
Dan leaned against the counter behind him, tapping his fingers against the edge. Then he looked over at her again. “You’re probably right. It will make things easier if we recognize we had a past and move on. Like you said, we’re adults. We were so young then.”
“We were,” Hailey said, with an airy wave, struggling to sound more offhand than she felt. “My goodness, just high school kids.”
“Sort of cliché, isn’t it?” Dan said quietly.
Hailey released a light laugh. “A bit. But that’s okay. Our lives are not as original as we’d like to think.”
A moment of silence followed her statement.
Then Hailey reached for her plate and put it in the dishwasher, hoping he didn’t notice her trembling hands. “I’m glad we got that out of the way. Now I can get back to work and you can get back to work and we can be normal around each other.” She was pleased at how practical she sounded. How grounded.
How mature.
Dan cleared his throat, then said, “You know, I’m sorry for the way things went after Austin died.” His voice was quiet.
His words hovered in the silence between them. This was the first time he’d acknowledged the horrible event that had divided their lives into a before and an after.
Regret and sorrow for what might have been twisted her stomach but she couldn’t allow it to stay and take hold.
“I’m sorry too,” was her guarded response.
“But, like you said, that’s in the past,” Dan replied. “We should be able to move on and act normal around each other. We used to be friends.”
“Still are, I hope,” she said, injecting a falsely hearty tone into her voice.
“Still are.” He put his hand on her shoulder. The same kind of casual gesture friends use with each other.
But when he looked at her all her intentions slid away and with them, the intervening years.
Dan’s eyes held a shadow of regret but even as their gazes held, something else shifted in his features. A shadow of sorrow flitted across his face and for a moment his hand tightened.
Then he blinked, as if coming back from past to present, and he lowered his hand.
“See you later,” he said quietly. Then he turned down the stairs leading to the store, closing the door behind them.
Hailey waited a moment, gathering her own scattered wits even as part of her mind mocked her.
Really? Normal? Around a guy who makes your heart shift into overdrive whenever those hazel eyes connect with yours?
She dismissed the voice. She and Dan could get past this. It would take time before they could treat each other as dispassionately as they would any other person in their lives. She had loved him so much, she thought, her heart aching with the memory. He had been everything to her. Reducing all that to mere friendship wasn’t impossible.
But neither was it going to be easy.
“That soup tasted really good, Hailey. Thanks so much,” Dan said, wiping his mouth with the napkin she had laid out.
Hailey flashed him a quick smile and he leaned back in his chair, a surprising feeling of well-being washing over him. For five days in a row he hadn’t had to make lunch. For five days he hadn’t had to worry about Natasha.
For five days he and Hailey had been able to act surprisingly ordinary around each other. He could do this, he thought. Acknowledge they had been good friends and get through the next few days until Natasha was back in school. Once Hailey left town, he could find a new rhythm for himself and Natasha, a new way of doing things and living their life.
The easing of tension also had much to do with his mother, who had backed off the past few days. She hadn’t dropped any of her heavy hints about Hailey, which had only served to bring up his own memories of what he and Hailey had once shared.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Hailey said, getting up and reaching for his bowl.
“Natasha and I will take care of this. You’ve done enough.” He reached out and caught her hand.
Her fingers were cool to the touch. As soft as they ever had been.
She jerked her hand back as a frown pinched her brow. “That’s okay. I don’t mind,” she said.
Dan felt a flicker of dismay at his reaction to her. Hardly the reaction of “just friends.”
Only a matter of time, he reminded himself. After all, they had both talked about this weirdness between them and brought it out into the open. It would go away. What they had was in the past and going back served no purpose. It was time they moved on.
“C’mon, Natasha, let’s start cleaning up,” he said, gathering the plates and bowls.
Natasha jumped up and eagerly helped him carry the dishes to the kitchen.
“Miss Deacon is going to the ranch on Sunday night,” she said as she laid the plates on the counter. “She’s going to have chocolate cupcakes.” Natasha gave him a beatific smile. “I love chocolate cupcakes.”
“I do too,” Dan said, humoring her as he set the dishes in the dishwasher.
“That’s great.” Dan released a slow smile. “I don’t mind soup two nights in a row if I don’t have to make it.”
“I don’t want to have soup two times,” Natasha stated, then scooted around him to where Hailey was spooning the leftover soup into a plastic container. “Can I come with you to the ranch on Sunday instead? Can I have supper with you and your friends?”
“Natasha, don’t be a beggar,” Dan said. “Miss Deacon will want to spend time with her friends by herself.”
Dan suspected she was going to a family get-together at her cousin Carter’s ranch. He remembered going there from time to time when he and Hailey were dating.
“Actually, I’d like to talk to you about that,” Hailey said, snapping a lid on a plastic container. “Natasha, can you go into the dining room and finish up that problem we were working on? When you’re done we can go downstairs and do some more word matching.”
Natasha glanced from Dan to Hailey, as if trying to puzzle out what they might need to discuss. Then, thankfully, she skipped into the dining room, her ponytail bouncing behind her.
Hailey waited until Natasha was settled at the table, then turned back to Dan. Her actions piqued his curiosity. What could she have to say that she didn’t want Natasha to hear?
“Remember Adam from Natasha’s class? Emma’s boy?” Hailey asked. “When Emma invited me to come for supper she suggested Natasha could come as well.”
His gut instinct was to say no. He didn’t want to have Natasha gone while he hung around the apartment by himself.
“I thought it would be a good opportunity for Natasha and Adam to spend some time together,” Hailey continued. “It could help Natasha’s transition to the classroom.”
Dan glanced through the doorway to the dining room. Natasha appeared engrossed in her work and was not paying attention to them. Nonetheless, he drew a bit closer to Hailey and lowered his voice. “Is he the boy who talked about her crying all the time?” Dan wasn’t sure he wanted his daughter spending time with a kid who didn’t seem to like her.
“He said that because he was worried about her, that’s all.”
He looked down at Hailey, her face barely a foot from his. Her gray eyes, her pale skin, all framed by a riot of red hair, sent a surprising flash of attraction through him.
A familiar attraction.
Dan’s fingers rasped against his whiskers as he considered the idea. “I’ve spent enough time sitting by myself over the weekends. I’m not sure I want her away so soon.”
Hailey looked away, breaking the connection between them. “Okay. Then why don’t you come along?”
This caught him by surprise. He paused, trying the idea on for size. While he would have preferred to have his daughter at home with him, he wasn’t sure he wanted to take this opportunity away from her either.
“I suppose I could,” he said. “But are you sure it would be okay with your cousin?”
“Future cousin,” Hailey corrected. “But yes, I am. It’s just dinner. Emma and Carter would love to have you.”
“Okay. Then I’ll come. Besides, I wouldn’t mind catching up with Carter some more. Find out how that drill has been working out for him.”
Hailey tugged her sweater over her hands, wrapping her arms around her middle. “Okay, then, I’ll phone Emma and tell her you’re coming.” The hesitancy in her voice resurrected his doubts.
It would be fine, he reasoned. Carter wasn’t just Hailey’s cousin. He had also, at one time, been a friend.
It would be like old times.
Which could, potentially, be a problem.
Chapter Six
“I am excited to go to a ranch. Have you ever been to a ranch, Daddy?” Natasha bounced on the seat of Dan’s truck, her excitement easing away Hailey’s concerns about having asked them both along to Carter and Emma’s place.
When Dan had agreed to come as well, Hailey had been surprised. Her offer to him had been a courtesy. She hadn’t thought he would take her up on it.
She had arrived at church late this morning because she’d had to walk, and had caught only a glimpse of Dan and Natasha as she left. They’d been occupied talking to an older couple and hadn’t seen Hailey so she hadn’t had a chance to go over their plans.
When Dan called after church to double-check the time, her relief that the trip was still on was frustrating. She guessed the “normal” she wanted to achieve with Dan would take time yet.
“I’ve been to this ranch,” Dan said as he turned the truck onto the road heading out of Hartley Creek toward the Rocking K. “I even rode a horse there!”
“If you want to call that riding,” Hailey couldn’t help adding, trying to keep things light. Just a couple of old friends reminiscing.
“Only got bucked off once,” Dan said.
“You got bucked off a horse?” Natasha was all ears. “Why?”
“Because your daddy forgot to tighten the cinch like someone told him to,” Hailey said, her smile widening at the memory. She could still see Dan sailing through the air and flattening the undergrowth when he landed.
“Someone wasn’t very specific in her instructions,” Dan added, giving her a knowing look.
“Or someone wasn’t listening.”
“Maybe someone wasn’t.”
Hailey held his laughing gaze, then turned to watch the snow-covered fields edging the road. Beyond the fields the frozen river snaked along like a silver thread unspooling from the mountains, rising up to cradle the valley. The sun hovered above the mountains, burnishing the hills with a golden color.
A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed her the ski hill overlooking the town, the lights from the lifts starting to appear in the late-afternoon light. Early this morning she’d heard the muted thump of avalanche bombs going off on the hill, which meant the powder on the upper runs would be epic. So she had hitched a ride with Megan to the hill and taken a few runs.
While they were skiing, Megan had mentioned to Hailey that the grade one class would be going every afternoon to the ski hill for lessons. She had said it would be a good opportunity for Natasha to spend time with her future classmates in a more casual setting.
Though Megan had encouraged Hailey to talk to Dan about it, Hailey was hesitant to mention the skiing lessons. She wasn’t sure how Dan would react to his daughter going skiing on Misty Ridge.
“Do you think I can ride a horse when we are at the ranch?” Natasha was asking.
Hailey turned her attention back to the little girl. “It’s a bit cold for riding, but maybe next time you can.”
“That would be so fun,” Natasha said. “Then I can tell my mommy that I rode—” Her voice broke abruptly and she looked down, fiddling with the pom-poms on the end of her scarf.
Hailey’s heart broke for the little girl but to her surprise, no tears came. Natasha simply heaved out a heavy sigh, then said with a plaintive voice, “I don’t think I can tell my mommy, can I?”
Hailey slid her arm over the girl’s shoulders to comfort her. Dan had the same idea, however, and for a moment both of them held Natasha, their arms overlapping. But neither of them flinched and neither of them pulled back.
Hailey couldn’t help another glance over at Dan, pleased with this new shift between them.
It was as if getting away from the store and getting out into the countryside had eased away the disquiet that surrounded him.
She welcomed the change because it made her more relaxed as well.
“I like your pretty necklace,” Natasha was saying, eyeing the gold chain Hailey was unconsciously fingering.
Hailey held it up, smiling. “Thank you. I got this from my Nana,” she said.
“Is it special?” Natasha asked.
“Very special. It came from a bracelet my Nana had. The bracelet had five gold nuggets that came from my great-great-grandmother. Her name was Kamiskahk.”
“That’s a funny name,” Natasha said.
“It’s a Kootenai name,” Dan added. “You should tell Natasha the story. It’s very interesting.”
Hailey shot Dan a surprised look, then remembered that he knew the story of Kamiskahk as well. Her Nana had told him when Dan had asked her about the bracelet that she always wore.
Another link between them.
“Can you tell me the story?” Natasha asked.
“Kamiskahk’s father hadn’t told anyone else in the tribe about the gold nuggets and he told his daughter to keep them a secret when he gave them to her. Then my great-great-grandfather, August Beck, came to the valley. He met Kamiskahk and fell in love.”
“Did he get hurt?” Natasha asked, her eyes wide.
“Maybe a bit,” Hailey said with a laugh. When she looked at Dan it was to discover him looking at her. She forced herself to hold his gaze then gave him a quick smile, pleased to see him return it.
See? They could do normal.
“Anyway, August found out about the nuggets,” Hailey continued. “And he got gold fever.”
“I got fever once,” Natasha put in. “My mommy said it would go away, but it didn’t. I had to go to the hospital.”
Another glimpse of the little girl’s life with her mother. Which made Hailey wonder, yet again, what kind of woman Lydia had been. And what had Dan seen in her?
That was none of her business. That was Dan’s life and Dan’s past and she had no right to that. Not anymore.
“Well, gold fever isn’t really like being sick. It means he wanted to find gold very badly and he’d do almost anything for it,” Hailey said, carrying on with her story. “So August left the village and went looking for the gold. He spent weeks and months but couldn’t find any. Then one day he felt cold and tired and he started thinking about Kamiskahk. And he realized he had made a mistake but he was too ashamed to go back and admit it.”
Daddy Lessons Page 7