She's Like The Wind (Angel Sands 2)

The door opened again, and Nate heard footsteps behind him. Lorne lifted his hand in a greeting to whoever it was. Nate turned to see a guy looking at a pair of flowered shorts, lifting them up to his waist to see if they were a good fit.

“Why’d you take her on?” Nate asked him. “I thought you were fully staffed.”

“Because she’s good at what she does. Plus she needed a job.” Lorne shrugged. “Friends help friends.”

“She has a job. Well she had one.” Nate shook his head. “And maybe I need her there, too.”

“Not what I heard.” Lorne shrugged. “The way it was told to me you didn’t want her at all.”

Nate dropped his face into his hands and leaned his elbows on the counter. “I messed up,” he admitted. “I said some things I shouldn’t have, and now I’ve no idea what to do to make it right.” He glanced up at the older man. “What should I do?”

Lorne shrugged. “Don’t ask me, ask him.”

“Who?” Nate looked up, his brows pulled down in confusion. Then he saw the man who’d been looking at the rack of shorts. He had to be in his early fifties, though it was hard to tell. His hair was dark with a smattering of grey running through it, his skin smooth and tanned.

“Grant Sutton,” the man said, holding his hand out. “I believe you know my daughter.”

Nate immediately grabbed his hand and shook it. “Nate Crawford. I didn’t realize you were back.”

Lorne gave a huff.

“Why would you know? It was a snap decision.”

Because it’s something Ally would have told him only a few days before. Nate pulled his hand back from Grant’s and he remembered all the things Ally had said about her father. Part of him wanted to berate the man, tell him how much he’d hurt her.

But then Nate had done exactly the same thing.

“I’m going to start pulling in the racks,” Lorne said, grabbing his magazine and rolling it into a tube. “Can I trust you two not to resort to violence?”

Grant laughed. “You’re as subtle as a ten ton truck, old man.”

“Less of the old talk, thank you.” He ambled out of the shop, pulling the door closed behind him, leaving the two of them standing next to each other at the counter.

Grant inclined his head at the two upholstered chairs in the shoe section of the shop. “You wanna sit down for a minute?” Grant asked. “I need to take the weight off these bones.”

“Sure.” Intrigued, Nate followed him over, settling down into the overstuffed armchair. Grant crossed one leg over the other, keeping his eye on Nate.

“I like what you’ve done with the café,” Grant said to him. “Is business going well?”

“It’s good.” Nate looked at the man in front of him. From Ally’s description of him he’d expected him to be old and haggard – worn down by the years of keeping the café open and dealing with a teenage daughter. Instead, he looked relaxed and sun-kissed.

“Does Ally know you’re here?” Nate asked. He hadn’t been ab

le to keep the words from spilling out, no matter how hard he’d tried.

“Of course. I’ve been staying with her.”

It hurt more than Nate had expected to not know what was happening in Ally’s life. He wanted to ask so many more questions – how was she really doing? Was she going to be okay? Did she miss him as much as he missed her? He sat back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the edge of his seat. “It’s nice that you’ve reconnected.”

“I hear you have a daughter, too,” Grant said.

“That’s right. Her name’s Riley.”

The older man’s expression softened. “It’s tough bringing up a teenager on your own. Especially when you’ve got a business to run. I remember those days very well.”

“It is tough,” Nate agreed, “but it’s what I signed up for when I became a father. And she has it a lot worse than me. Riley’s the one who lost a mother.”

Grant slowly nodded. “Yeah,” he said, his voice gentle. “You spend all your time being mom and dad to them, and very little on anything else. I remember how draining it is. How are you holding up?”