The Years Between Us Page 4

  And while she can’t know what I do here alone, I don’t want the guilt of relieving myself with the vision of her body and face that I’ve already memorized. But that’s going to be harder than I anticipated, so I turn the hot water handle off until the water runs cold.

  Chapter Six

  CLAUDIA

  In the time it took me to change into my one sundress that wasn’t wrinkled and seemed appropriate for dinner and put on some fresh makeup and do my hair, I’ve managed to talk myself down from my first impressions of Mr. Prescott… no, Luke… no, Mr. Prescott! I can’t call him Luke, not in my thoughts at least. While he’s insanely hot and doesn’t look at all like he’s old enough to be Danielle’s father, he is still her dad and someone who will potentially be allowing me to be a guest in his house for two months. That’s going to be incredibly uncomfortable if I start fan-girling over his body. So, I make a promise to myself. Whenever I start thinking about Mr. Prescott as anything other than my friend’s dad, I’ll consider how I’d feel if Danielle looked at my dad the way I’d found myself looking at Luke.

  Ew.

  My plan has worked for as long as I’ve been in Danielle’s company. When she and I joined him in the giant living room downstairs, he was dressed in nice khaki trousers and a crisp white shirt that defined his upper body perfectly, his sandy blond hair slightly longer on top than the sides and without a trace of gray. And then there was the body spray, the kind of thing I’d smelled on a few guys at college and asked myself why I was holding on to my virginity when a guy could smell that good.

  You wouldn’t want Danielle thinking about how good your dad smells, would you?

  Again… Ew.

  But now that we’re seated at this really nice restaurant called The Ridge Bar and Grill in Echo Ridge’s downtown, Danielle has rushed off to use the bathroom, and I no longer have her as a distraction.

  “I met your parents last fall while they were waiting for you,” he tells me, his large hands folded neatly on the table that is between us.

  “I was turning a paper in,” I tell him, knowing that I’m pinking up in just saying that much. “Otherwise I would have met you and your wife… I mean, your ex-wife.”

  He offers the beginnings of a laugh. “Your parents were under the impression Dani’s mother and I are still married, and we didn’t have much of a chance to refute that.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him, wondering what it would be like to have loved someone enough to marry them, then go through a divorce and then have to co-parent and be civil and pretend that the earth hadn’t once revolved around this one person.

  “And why are you sorry?”

  “Oh… I…” I begin nervously, “I just thought maybe you miss your ex-wife or something? You’ve got such a big house, so it must get lonely.” I bite my lower lip—he probably doesn’t agree, and what do I know about marriage or long-term relationships anyway? He might be perfectly content in his big, lonely house.

  He doesn’t answer right away, appears to be studying me with those gorgeous eyes of his, but doesn’t look at me like I’m a total noob at least. “It can be… lonely… but I have my work, and I travel a fair bit. Plus, I come into town a few times a week for dinner just to get out.”

  “Your work,” I say, glad we can shift topics before I put my foot in my mouth again. “Danielle said you do some kind of software programming?”

  He smiles. “I help design software for some of the big developers, which I can do remotely. I’d built a small company up when Danielle was little, but it was stressful, and her mother had a hard time with the long hours—just another reason for the divorce I guess.”

  I’m about to tell him that I’m sorry again, but there doesn’t seem to be a need. He appears to have gotten on with his life all right and has acclimated to living alone.

  “And what about you, Claudia? Dani has mentioned you a fair amount, but I’m not sure she’s ever said what you were majoring in.”

  “Primary education.” I’m used to saying it like I should be ashamed of it. Becoming a schoolteacher, one that would teach elementary school children with no desire to move up the ranks and become a college professor one day, is not a very impressive life goal in my parents’ social circle. I might as well have just told them I planned on becoming a hooker.

  “You want to be a teacher. That’s pretty admirable—it’s a tough job.” He says it with what feels like a stamp of approval, one that I’d never get from Mom or Dad.

  “I wish my parents thought the same thing. They think it’s a waste of my talents. But then they’re both lawyers, and they look at it as a step down for my family.”

  He inches forward. “Really? Seems like a pretty amazing goal to me. And the last thing I’d want is to pressure my own daughter into tech when I know she has no interest.”

  “I really wish you could transplant that philosophy into my parents.” What an amazing father.

  “Sorry. Did you guys already order?” Danielle slides in next to me and takes a sip of the water that has been delivered to our table.

  “I ordered you the fried squid,” Mr. Prescott says with a grin.

  “I hope you did,” Danielle teases right back, “because I’ve grown accustomed to fried squid during my time away!”

  “We were waiting for you,” I tell her, though in truth I haven’t really been able to focus on the menu since we’d gotten here.

  “The seared scallops are really good,” Mr. Prescott tells me. “Or they have this Mediterranean penne pasta that’s really nice. Get whatever you want. It’s on me.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” I do actually have an allowance, though it probably won’t be enough to cover going out to dinner as often as Danielle and her dad might be used to.

  “Just let him. He has more money than God,” Danielle says.

  “Not sure about that.” He offers a light scolding to his daughter with his eyes. “But it’s really no problem. You’re our guest, Claudia.”

  At the word “guest” Danielle and I turn to one another at the same time.

  “About that,” she says.

  I’m about to find out how cool her dad might be with me staying the summer when a tall, beautiful woman appears at the end of our table.

  “Well, if it isn’t Luke Prescott,” she says. She has dark hair, almost black, and is wearing this really red lipstick that contrasts beautifully with her light skin and the dark dress she’s wearing. Color me jealous.

  “Emily,” he says, slipping politely out of our booth to stand opposite her. “Good to see you.” There’s a look of surprise on his face, as if seeing her is the last thing he expected today.

  A light hug follows, and I look over at Danielle for a hint at who the mystery woman is, but she offers nothing but perhaps some slight contempt.

  “Emily, I think you’ve met my daughter, Danielle, and this is her friend, Claudia.” He motions toward us. “And this is Emily Wells. She owns this place as well as the hotel attached to it.”

  “Hello girls,” she says, putting special emphasis on that last word, as if we couldn’t compete with her womanhood. “It’s always been apparent Luke has passed down his good looks to you, Danielle.”

  “Uh, thanks?” Danielle doesn’t seem at all impressed with her, and I think I know why. It’s impossible not to see that she’s attracted to her dad.

  “It’s been a while, Luke,” Emily says, lifting her finger and nearly ready to trace it down his well muscled arm when she pulls it away, turning her attention back to us. “Dinner is on me tonight. Luke has given us so much business over the year, so I think it’s time I gave back some. I’ll send your server right over to get your order.”

  “That’s not necessary, Emily,” Mr. Prescott says, still standing.

  She puts a hand up. “I won’t hear of it! Just let me do this one thing and hope I’ll get to see you more often… all of you of course.” It’s clear it’s only Luke she wants to see more of, and then she’s off, but not befor
e she turns back to Mr. Prescott and winks at him.

  “Well, that was gross,” Danielle pouts, nearly burying her head in her menu.

  Mr. Prescott sits back down and sighs, having overheard his daughter. “She’s a good friend. That’s all.”

  Danielle lets her menu fall to the table and trains her eyes on her dad. “And Claudia is staying with us for the next two months.”

  I nearly choke on the water I’d just swallowed. Her delivery, mixed in with her obvious annoyance with Emily, might just piss Mr. Prescott off enough to say no.

  “Oh?” He arches his brows at his daughter, then offers me a luke-warm smile.

  “If it’s not any trouble—”

  “I already told her she could,” Danielle pushes. “Otherwise she’ll have to go to Florida and endure sixty days with a family she can barely stand and humidity that is basically hell on earth.”

  “It’s really not that bad,” I say, wanting to remind Danielle I’m not okay with pity or guilting anyone into giving me a break.

  “Two months is a long time,” he says, clearing his throat and easing back. “But if you need a place to stay, then our house is certainly big enough.”

  His offer sounds honest and from the heart, and when he smiles at me, a smile that seems to go all the way up to his bright hazel eyes, I’m put at ease.

  “Thank you, Mr. Prescott.”

  He bristles a breath or two, probably because I called him Mr. Prescott, but then relaxes and says, “Not a problem. We’ll look forward to your time here.”

  Danielle grabs my thigh under the table, gives me a squeeze and a triumphant smile. I love the girl, but I kind of feel like she just blackmailed her father there, used her discomfort with that Emily woman to get her way. But at least she did it for something good, for a friend, for me.

  Chapter Seven

  LUKE

  I wake up to a text message from Emily:

  So nice seeing you last night. You figured I’d flown the coop, didn’t you? Hope to see you again soon. –Ems

  I sit up in bed and drag my hand over my face.

  Fuck.

  I never would have taken Dani and Claudia to The Ridge for dinner if I’d known Emily was back in town. I hadn’t seen her since March when she’d up and left to “attend” to the small winery she owns in Napa. The impression she gave me was that she wouldn’t be coming back to Echo Ridge for a very long time, and I had no reason to doubt her.

  Besides being beautiful and accomplished, Emily Wells is incredibly headstrong and independent, and she’s always liked having the last word. I enjoy strong women—it had been one of the things that attracted me to her—and we’d begun a relationship after Dani went off to college. But when she wanted to fuse our lives together after I thought we’d agreed our relationship would remain casual, sexual, I’d had to end things. She of course had a right to want the things she wanted, but I had a right to remain single, to attend to my daughter, my business and my ex-wife without the complexities a long-term relationship with her would have entailed.

  I’m not sure what Emily is getting at now, if she wants to get back together or just have a friendship, but if she’d known of my continued—and now increased—involvement with Isabelle’s illness, the only thing she’d be thinking is that she’d dodged a pretty major bullet with me.

  Deciding that I’ll just give her a call later, I crawl out of bed and head to the bathroom, fill a glass with water and drink it down. I should have told Dani about her mother last night, should have asked her to come down to the living room with me after we’d all gotten home from dinner, but she looked so happy with Claudia, both of them running off and up the stairs like a couple of schoolgirls. Of course they aren’t schoolgirls. They’re young women, and when it comes to Claudia, who I found interesting and intriguing over the course of our dinner, I have to keep reminding myself she is my daughter’s best friend, that she is likely only nineteen, that even if she was okay with the advances of an older man—not ancient, but from a guy nearing forty—I wouldn’t be okay with giving them.

  I don’t know that she and Dani are awake yet, but if they are, I’m guessing they’re having fun. Living in a small town, outside of a small town, has been fairly isolating for my daughter, especially after her mother left, so having a friend here will be good for her. And I don’t want to ruin that for her in any way, so I find myself wondering all over again if she really needs to know about Isabelle. She can’t cure her, and as long as her mother doesn’t attempt to contact her, she won’t know the difference.

  Back in the shower, I lather up and try to let go of the strain I feel at keeping the secret. I’ll just have to take things one day at a time, assessing and reassessing what will be best for Dani. For now Isabelle is safe, cared for, perhaps on some kind of road to recovery. And wouldn’t it be better to wait until she was as close as she could be to full recovery before I tell Dani? That idea is a hopeful one, one that allows me to put aside the current predicament.

  My mind doesn’t stay unfocused for long, quickly moving to another young woman, to Claudia. I can’t erase the images of her in that beautiful white dress she’d worn to the restaurant last night. I’d seen how men had looked at her when she’d excused herself after dinner to run to the restroom, how their heads had turned as she passed them at the bar, how I had to keep myself from staring as well. When Dani had told me she’d already invited her to stay the next two months, my initial thought was one of pleasure. There were far worse things than being under the same roof as an absolutely gorgeous young woman, one that would get the attention of an entire restaurant full of men. But the downside was that I’d be spending the next two months having to hide my interest, even the subconscious kind, to avoid feeling like a perverted old fuck. And more important, I’d been trusted by Claudia’s parents and my daughter to act as a protector, and that’s exactly what I’m planning to do.

  But damn if that’s an easy task while I’m here in the shower, thinking of her, my cock stiffening in response. I consider turning the water cold like I did yesterday, but I instead try to cut her from my mind, take hold and do my best to relieve the pressure.

  Chapter Eight

  CLAUDIA

  “So what do you want to do today?” Danielle asks me, having padded into my bedroom early this morning and now lying on her side and facing me.

  “I kind of just want to sleep.” It’s the first idea that comes to mind. I don’t think I’d slept in during our entire first year at college, all the late night cram sessions and a never ending list of school events that had kept us eternally busy. “But I also kind of want to explore. Maybe we could go into town, and I could see if anyone’s hiring?”

  She laughs. “You want a job when you could just have two months of total fun and relaxation?”

  I lift my body up and sit against the headboard. “Well, I did plan on having one in Seattle until my mother put an end to it. And I’d only want something part time, even though I probably don’t have a way to get into town on my own, do I?”

  She sits up too so that our bare shoulders are touching. “If you really want a job, we’ll figure it out. I’ve got the Rover, and Dad has a Tesla and a truck, but don’t ask me what kind it is—I really don’t know.”

  “I wouldn’t expect either of you to have to keep running me into town and then having to pick me up again.”

  “Dad would let you borrow one of his cars, as long as you have a valid driver’s license of course.”

  I shake my head. “On top of letting me stay here for two months? That’s asking way too much.”

  “Ask and you shall receive.” She waves her hand around the room, basically the guest room in her suite that is decorated with furniture and artwork that couldn’t have come cheap, things that I’m guessing her father has given her without question.

  I wouldn’t really be comfortable calling Danielle spoiled—though not too many nineteen year olds drive brand new Range Rovers—but I’m beginning to see that sh
e’s fairly good at getting her way with things.

  “Maybe I should just check and see if there are any jobs first, and then we can ask your dad about a car or whatever, okay?”

  “Fair enough,” she says, kicking off her sheets. “So lets get up and get on with it then!”

  I’m actually really glad we didn’t go with my first idea of sleeping all day. It feels good to be up, freshly showered and dressed. I’d hung several more of my dresses in the bathroom, letting the steam of the shower take out the wrinkles. I’m wearing one of my favorites, a relatively short blue dress with a yellow flower print, black dots in their centers. I pair it with a light sweater and some wedge heels, a look that is casual but also nice enough for a job search.

  Danielle opts for linen shorts, a lavender blouse and basically the same wedge heels I’ve got on, both of us taking the stairs this time. The smell of coffee, eggs and toast permeate through the air and draw us toward the kitchen. And while everything smells absolutely delicious, the thing I’m most anticipating is seeing Mr. Prescott.

  He’s cooking over the stove with a smile on his face as he’s doing it. A red polo covers his torso, though I feel like I can see every single muscle rippling from beneath it, a perfect male specimen regardless of how old he might be.

  When he looks up, sees us, I swear that after a big smile for his daughter, his eyes shift and then linger on me. It might just be that this is what I want to see, that I want to imagine he’s interested.