Rick didn’t grab for his crutches. Nola wanted to chastise him for being reckless with his health but knew she needed to butt out of this father-daughter moment. No easy feat when she longed to tell him not to come down too tough on Lauren, who looked as though she was trying very hard to play it cool while she bit the side of her lip in obvious worry.
Teeth set, Rick made his way slowly across the walk toward the willowy brunette dressed in shorts that had probably been right for wherever she’d come from, but that gave her goose bumps in the South Carolina autumn night. Although something seemed off in her greeting. The patient way Lauren watched her father make his way across the patchy lawn… Ohmigod, Lauren showed no surprise at her father’s pained progress. What was going on?
“Lauren.” Rick held out his arms and Nola wondered if he noticed his daughter’s calm reception when he had devastating injuries he’d kept from her.
“Dad.” She shrugged off her backpack and hugged him back, but with little enthusiasm for a kid who’d made her way this far.
Nola watched the two and wanted to knock some sense into both their heads. She’d known things were strained, but she’d had no idea how much. Their awkward hug just about broke her heart.
She realized Rick cared about his daughter. Anyone could hear the concern in his voice. And the yearning for affection was obvious in the teenager’s face as she embraced her father—when he couldn’t see her.
Then they pulled apart and the blasé expression was back on the girl’s face again.
He stepped back and it was all Nola could do not to shove them both inside so the man could rest the legs he pushed too hard every day. “Your mother’s going to have a coronary.”
She shrugged again.
“You’ll need to do better than that. Why aren’t you with your friend? And where have you been for the rest of the week while you were supposed to be there?”
“I’ve been following you around.”
“What?” His so-quiet response spoke louder than any lion’s roar.
Nola hung back, waiting by the SUV, delaying by searching in her purse—nothing actually—to give the father and daughter a moment’s privacy.
Lauren finally fidgeted. Heck, Nola found herself fidgeting, too. She knew how tense Rick had been about his daughter. This news had to be rough.
“Gawd, Dad, it had been so long since we’d seen each other. You’d never been gone a year without at least coming home for a week. Never. So I called your squadron commander and pretended to be Mom. I found out what happened.” Lauren’s eyes outlined with mascara filled with tears. “You’re a real jackass for not telling me, ya know?”
Ouch. Looked as if Rick had raised his daughter to be just as plainspoken as him. That could work in their favor if Lauren was strong enough to wrestle the relationship from her father that she wanted. Or, it could mean there would be a lot of hurt feelings before the two of them were done with each other.
Either way, Nola couldn’t wait to duck inside the house and take refuge from this battle of wills.
“I understand that you’re frustrated, but you can’t talk to me that way, kiddo,” he said with just the right amount of parental censure before looping his arm around her shoulder. “Honestly, I didn’t want to worry you.”
“That’s bull.” She stared him down, defiant. No question where this kid got her strength. “Anyhow, I decided if you wouldn’t see me, I would see you. So I left New Hampshire and went to Texas. I even got a job as a waitress for a few days where I thought I could watch you. That gave me enough money to follow you here when you left after I’d only been in town a couple of days.”
Fear sloshed over Nola like a tidal wave as she imagined all the things that could have happened to this child during the week she’d spent on the road alone. No matter how steely Rick appeared, she could see the fears seething under the surface for him. A protectiveness she couldn’t squash drew her nearer to the pair.
“Enough.” He cut the air with his hand. “I understand you think you’re being all grown-up, but you’re damn lucky you’re not dead. I love you, kid, but there’s going to be some serious grounding over this stunt. Did you ever consider there might be some things going on that you know nothing about?”
She furrowed her brow. “Like what?”
“Nola.” He gestured for her to close the rest of the gap between them. “Lauren, I would like for you to meet my…friend, Nola.”
Friend? Nola turned the word around in her head. She could live with that description. Heaven knows she didn’t expect him to announce to his daughter that they were lovers. As a matter of fact, she didn’t know what they were. Friendship almost involved more intimacy and that knotted her stomach all over again at a time she really needed to get her head in the moment.
She was meeting Rick’s child. This was important. Big-time.
She extended her hand. “Hi, Lauren. I’m Nola Seabrook. Your dad and I met a long time ago when we were both TDY in Texas.”
The teen offered her hand but her eyes offered no welcome. “Yeah. I saw you in Texas this week, too. You’re the cookie lady.”
Sheesh, the kid didn’t have to make the cookies sound so…lame. How did teenagers manage to reduce competent adults that way?
“Lauren,” Rick said in that low parental tone of his again.
Nola shook her head and smiled. “It’s fine.” She shook the teen’s hand. “Nice to meet you and I would be glad to make you some of those cookies while you’re here. You’re very welcome in my home. I know you’ll want to talk to your dad, so I’m going to head inside and make up a bed for you.”