and have it just the way you like it?”
“Nope. Can’t eat a whole one. I’ll just have what you guys are having.”
Val gave Annie a knowing look. “Yep, you’re right. He’s faking it.”
Just to prove them wrong, he ordered anchovies on two slices of their large pizza and forced himself not to gag while he took the first bite.
“Best I ever had,” he claimed as he finished the first piece.
Annie watched him intently, then reached for the second slice. “Let me try it.” She bit into it, then grimaced. “Oh, yuck. How can you eat that?”
“Because we all but dared him to,” Val said. “Some men will do anything if they’re challenged.”
“Is that it, Daddy?” Annie asked skeptically. “Was it just because we dared you?”
“Okay, yes,” he said finally, his gaze locked with Val’s. “You caught me.”
Annie grinned, apparently satisfied that her first instincts about the anchovies had been accurate. “You don’t have to eat the other slice. You can have some of ours.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Val chimed in, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “I think he should finish what he started. Wasting good food’s a crime, when so many people around the world are starving.”
“I’ll mail the leftover slice of pizza to anyone you care to suggest,” he responded, already reaching for one of the more appetizing wedges. Val snagged his wrist in a grip that suggested, for a pipsqueak, she’d been doing some strength training in Laurie’s home gym. “I take it you object.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “That pizza has my name on it.”
He leaned over and pretended to study it intently. “I can’t see it. Can you, Annie?”
His daughter stood up and glanced at the slice carefully. “It’s Val’s, all right,” she said at last.
His head snapped up. “You took her side,” he said, genuinely bemused by it. “What kind of kid takes the side of a stranger over her own father?”
Though he’d said it in jest, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he could see Annie’s expression clouding over. He’d done it again—spoiled the mood for reasons that escaped him.
“Annie?” he prodded gently. “What did I say?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled. “May I be excused?”
Slade noticed that she addressed the question to Val.
Looking troubled, Val asked, “Where will you be?”
“Outside, I guess.”
“Slade?” Val said, turning to him.
“Fine, go,” he said tersely. When Annie had left, he scowled at Val. “Okay, I blew it again. Mind telling me how?”
“You all but told her that, for siding with me, she wasn’t a good kid,” she said. “I know you were teasing, but she took it to heart.”
“Are you telling me that every time I open my mouth, I’m going to be walking through a minefield?”
She nodded. “Pretty much.”
“Which one of us do you think is going to crack first?” he asked.
“My money’s on you, unless you can learn to roll with it. Think about this,” she said with a certain amount of glee. “Puberty’s going to be much, much worse.”
Slade held up a hand. “Don’t even say it.”
“People survive it,” Val assured him. “Kids and their parents.”
“Maybe if there are two parents, who can bolster each other’s spirits,” he said.
“Oh, no, single moms survive it, too. Mine did.”
Startled, he studied her face, saw the unexpected shadows in eyes that usually glinted with good humor. “Where was your dad?”
“He died when I was eight.”
Which explained why she empathized with Annie, why she was fighting like a tigress to see that the lines of communications between him and his daughter were opened. No doubt it pained her to see a child with a perfectly good, healthy father going through life as if she had none.
“I’m sorry,” Slade said. “That must have been tough.”
“It was.” Her expression turned from sad to thoughtful. “Funny, I’ve lived most of my life without him, yet I still miss him. I can still remember the scent of his pipe tobacco, the way it felt when he scooped me up and hugged me. I felt such a sense of security, as if no harm could ever come to me. After that, there were just years and years of uncertainty, even though my mom was terrific and worked her butt off for us.”
She shook her head, as if clearing it of unwanted memories. “Sorry. We were talking about you and Annie.”
Slade nodded. “Yes. I think we were. That’s why you care so deeply what happens between her and me, isn’t it?”
She seemed surprised by the suggestion. “I hadn’t thought about it,