Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
* * *
Daisies. Sam sent daisies to the store every morning for a week straight. Each day, they brightened up the area by the cash register, and when Nicole ran out of the room, they lined the windowsill overlooking the street.
“Someone’s in love,” Aunt Lulu said, turning the lock on the door and hanging the CLOSED sign from the doorknob.
“Are you talking about me? Or Sam?” Nicole asked her partner.
Aunt Lulu waggled her eyebrows. “Oh, a little bit of both of you.”
Nicole bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Is love enough?” She asked the question that had been nagging at her day and night.
“Oh, honey. Of course it is.” Aunt Lulu placed an arm around her shoulders and led her to a small table in front. “Sit.”
Not one to argue with this woman, Nicole did as instructed. Aunt Lulu pulled up a seat beside her. “I lost my first love to cancer before we ever got married. If I could have him back, just to experience that love again, I truly believe all would be right in my world.” The woman who always seemed so together and strong looked suddenly frail and sad.
Nicole reached for her hand. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Aunt Lulu shrugged. “It’s in the past. I can’t change it, so I just push forward. But I can advise you not to waste one single day.” She rose to her feet, obviously finished with sadness and reminiscing. “So aren’t you glad we hired people to help with the cleanup?”
“More than anything. I don’t know if I could handle it,” Nicole admitted, stretching her legs and wiggling her aching feet.
A knock sounded at the door. “Who could that be?” Nicole asked.
Aunt Lulu stepped closer and glanced outside. “A very distinguished-looking gentleman I’ve never seen before.”
Wary, Nicole stood and checked the visitor for herself. “Dad!”
“That’s your father?” Aunt Lulu asked. “Nice-looking man.”
“Yes.” But Nicole wondered what was inside him. “I guess I should find out what he wants.” She unlocked the door and let him inside. “You’re returning my unexpected visit,” she said. “What’s the occasion?”
“I have news,” he said.
“I see. Well, first meet my business partner, Lulu Donovan. Lulu, this is my father, Paul Farnsworth.”
They shook hands, Aunt Lulu lingering too long—more for effect—as Nicole had come to learn about her. She liked being noticed.
But she was also observant and realized that Nicole’s father had come for an important reason. “I’ll go see to the cleanup,” she said, excusing herself.
Nicole waited until Aunt Lulu was in the back room before turning to her father, only to find him wandering around, taking in her bakery with his discerning eye.
“Very nice,” he said, surprising her.
She blinked. “Thank you. I take it Mom told you where to find me?”
“Your mother told me she paid you a visit. She was . . . upset about the business and Robert’s arrest, and you know how your mother gets when things don’t go her way.”
“Yes. She tries to manipulate them back the way she wants them.”
“She does,” he agreed.
“You’ve done it a time or two yourself,” Nicole pointed out.
His mouth twisted in a wry grin.
“It won’t work with me. Not anymore. I’m not leaving my life here—”
“I’m not here to ask you to.”
Nicole stepped back, taken off guard. “Then why make the trip here?” she asked, her heart suddenly racing, and she couldn’t figure out why.
He studied her, as if seeing her for the first time. “Something your boyfriend said.”
“Sam’s not my—”
Her father burst out laughing, the action and the sound so at odds with the man Nicole knew, she was even more off balance. “What’s so funny?” she finally asked.
Her father shrugged out of his suit jacket and placed it over the back of a chair. “Whatever you label the man, he cares about you. Enough to call me out on ‘not giving a shit about you.’”
Nicole’s mouth went dry, and she lowered herself into the nearest chair. “He shouldn’t have said that.”
Her father took up the chair Aunt Lulu had been in minutes earlier, his big frame awkward in the smaller seat. “Someone needed to point out what should have been obvious.”
Nicole glanced down at her hands. “I don’t know what to say.” And she was rarely at a complete loss for words.
He paused, clearly as uncomfortable as she was. “Your mother and I aren’t affectionate with each other,” he finally said, surprising Nicole yet again. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to me that I didn’t know what to do with children. Two girls, no less, and one with a mental disorder. And your mother is not exactly the maternal type.”
“You can say that again.” If he could state the truth, Nicole wasn’t about to hide her feelings. “She told me I was a disappointment.” She choked on the word and averted her gaze, embarrassed to show emotion in front of him.