the girls and sleep in the cozy spare room, make pancakes for everyone in the morning, then get back to work securing this client and my future with the firm.
Looked like I wasn’t going to get what I wanted, and that was no one’s fault. If I had to stay in Edgewood, at least I’d brought my laptop and could still get some work done. “Fine. That’ll give me extra time to get my car to a mechanic and find a rental. But I’m definitely leaving on Monday.”
Hal clapped his hand on my shoulder—gently, for him, but it was right where the seat belt had dug in when I hit the snowbank. I held in my wince, though. I didn’t need another push toward urgent care. “The girls will be thrilled. Let’s get back home, huh? You can get a shower and jump into bed.”
“Sounds great,” I said then turned to Dinah. “What do I owe you for our dinners?”
She and Dominic began to protest at the same time. “No, honey, it’s on the house—” “Really, I can’t let you—”
“What’s that?” I held a hand up to my ear. “Forty dollars? Damn, prices have gotten steep around here since I’ve been gone.”
Dinah put her hands on her hips and huffed. “Forty dollars? For two burgers? Does this look like the Ritz to you? Ten bucks a plate, same as it was before. If you’d wanted goat cheese, now, that would be extra.”
“Twenty, got it.” I pulled two twenties out of my wallet and put them down on the table. “Keep the change.”
“Max, no, that’s way too much!”
“Don’t tell me how to tip my favorite waitress,” I told her and held out my hand to shake. “Thanks for the burger. It was delicious.”
“Oh, stop that,” she muttered and used my hand to pull me in for a hug. She was warm, smelled like coffee, and reminded me a little bit of my mother.
Once I let her go, I looked at Dominic, who was frowning at the money. “Please let me treat,” I said to him. “It’s the least I can do for making you go out in this weather to rescue me.”
“Rescuing people is my actual job, Max. I don’t mind doing it.”
It gave me a weird little thrill in my chest to hear him call me Max. “Still.”
“All right, Mister Moneybags, enough.” Hal took me by the shoulder and turned me toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.” He called back to Dominic, “You still coming over tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’ve got the next few days off,” he said.
“Great. I’ve still got to work a half day tomorrow morning, and with all the fresh snow we’ve gotten, the girls have plans for you, Uncle Nicky.”
Dominic smiled. It made his whole face light up, and I suddenly couldn’t look away. “Tell them to get ready, because I won’t go easy on them like I did the last time.”
“Marnie said you cried,” Hal retorted, opening the door. The merry little jingle of the bell wasn’t enough to distract me from the sudden blast of painfully cold wind. I zipped up my jacket and shoved my hands into the pockets.
“Anybody would cry after taking an ice ball to the face!” Dominic called out as the door closed behind us.
…
Hal’s familiar old Toyota truck was still warm inside, thank God. He grabbed my bag from Dom’s Jeep and slung it into the backseat as I settled in the front. It was a little strange, seeing Steph’s car seat back there. Ariel had always kept it in her car—the family car, she’d called it. Hal’s had been almost solely a work vehicle.
He caught me looking, of course. “She took the CRV with her,” he said gruffly as he shut the door. “Guess I should count myself lucky she bothered to take the car seat out before she left.”
“I’m so sorry.” It was inadequate, like the first and seventh and tenth times I’d told him that over the phone, yet it was all I could think to say. “And she hasn’t…you haven’t talked for…”
“About a month,” Hal said, his lips thin. “She called around once a week before that, and then last time she made it clear she wasn’t coming back, so I just…stopped answering. We communicate via email, mostly.”
Ouch. That had to be hard on the kids. “How are the girls handling it?”
“They’re fine. They’ve got me, they’ve got Nicky, and they go to a counselor the school recommended once a week.” He started up the