After the Climb (River Rain 0.50)

His lips hitched before he said, “Not sure how you missed it, beautiful, but we just had the first, second and maybe even third parts of our talk. And just for the record, if you’re used to it and don’t care, it doesn’t bother me as long as it won’t upset my sons.”

I blinked at him.

“Food’s here, baby,” he whispered.

Stiltedly, my head turned to the table.

Tapas were all over it.

The beers had been served.

Heddy looked gleeful.

Harv looked hopeful.

But Duncan?

He reached to grab a falafel.

And he was smiling.

Chapter 7

The Afternoon

Duncan

* * *

Considering Chloe was hanging on his porch with Bettina as he drove up to his house after lunch, Duncan didn’t head around back to the garage.

He parked out front.

She was keen, worried about her mother, so he wasn’t out of his Tesla SUV before Chloe was skipping down the stairs in her ridiculously high heels.

And he hadn’t quite rounded his vehicle, and he definitely didn’t have a chance to tell her not to skip or she’d break her neck, though she appeared to wear heels like they were a pair of Chucks, before she was calling, “Well?”

“Let’s go inside, honey. We gotta talk,” he replied.

Her face fell.

“It didn’t go badly,” he told her quickly. “And because of that, we have to talk.”

A light of excitement hit her brown eyes that was so Genny, he felt it like a punch in his throat.

She then skipped back up his steps.

Duncan followed more sedately.

He sent a glance Bettina’s way, and his housekeeper was practically wringing her hands with worry mingled with enthusiasm.

This meant, although Duncan did not share, Chloe did.

He sighed.

Bettina had been with them since Dora and he split. Even before he’d built this house.

She didn’t live with him, but she came every day to tidy, or clean on the rotation she had in her head, do his laundry (and the boys’ when they were home), stock his kitchen and sundries, deal with any house issues that sprang up as well as normal maintenance and overseeing Bill, the man who saw to the grounds.

And she took care of the horses, chickens and garden when Duncan wasn’t around to do it.

This was not a full-time job.

For her what it was, was a job she could do on her own schedule that paid well and she’d be finished by one at the latest and then could look after her grandchildren when they were done with school. Because her daughter had to work a job that didn’t pay enough for childcare and she also had a baby daddy who was a fuckwit.

“It’s all good, you can go get the kids from school,” he told her.

“You all right?” she asked.

He was tentatively fucking great.

“I’m fine,” he answered.

She gave him a long look before she nodded.

He followed Chloe into his house.

Now Chloe…

She was temporarily living there.

Her decree, not his invitation.

The woman was a steamroller.

Not like her mother at all.

But Duncan found it cute, mostly because of why she was that way.

The afternoon before, Chloe had shared with him that she intended to stay close, but could not stay in town, lest her mother see her (and she’d used the word “lest”) and cotton on to what was happening.

So with him it was.

But even if she’d given him a choice (which she hadn’t, but he could have pressed it, something he did not do), he wouldn’t have denied her.

The opportunity to get to know Genny’s daughter?

No way in hell he was going to pass that up.

So there she was and had been since yesterday, late afternoon.

She had her father’s more dominant features, dark hair, dark eyes.

She had her mother’s extreme femininity. Heart-shaped face. Tall, slim frame. Graceful hands. Long, elegant neck.

Mostly, though, she was her own being, and the force of her personality proved it.

Unless her father was aggressive about getting what he wanted.

Duncan took over the situation when they both were inside, and he led her to his office.

This had to be more formal, because she was not going to like what he had to say, and he had to push it and not cave.

Not even a day with this young woman, and he was glad he hadn’t had daughters at the same time he was feeling Harvey’s pain.

In other words, he was a total pushover.

He had utterly no qualms about that.

But he could see it causing problems.

When they arrived at his office, he gestured to a chair in front of the desk as he moved behind it.

“Well, doesn’t this feel like I’m going to get a talking to,” she remarked as she sat across from him.

Duncan had a feeling she was no stranger to “talking tos.”

He sat as well, eyes on her.

The clothes she wore were Genny too.

Even back in the day, when neither of them had any money, his girl did what she could to be a fashion plate.