Page 20 of Their Stormy Reunion

“I was over at the hardware store talking to Dave Draper. He told me he’d seen you with the Vickers over at Pearl’s. Sounded like Fallon was getting the cold shoulder.”

I shook my head. “It was Pearl. She wasn’t cutting Fallon any slack.”

My dad gave me a hard look. “How long is Fallon in town for?”

“She intends to stay until Bob gets better. Isla is in no shape to take care of him, and he refuses any kind of in-home care.”

“That sounds about right. So what are you going to do about Fallon’s predicament with the town?”

Shit, Dad never pulled his punches.

“I’m going to do something. There’s no way I’m going to let this continue. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“You never did tell me what you’d done to have her run away. Not that that matters. What was more important was why you did it. I always did want to get to the bottom of that, but you hustled into the military too fast for us to have any kind of conversation.”

I gave him a weary smile. “Are you accusing me of having run away?”

“If the running shoes fit.”

I laughed. That was Dad, shooting straight.

“I fucked up, Dad. I got cold feet and set things up so that Fallon would see something that would make her assume I was sleeping with someone else.”

“You pulled this the day before the wedding?”

I hadn’t heard that tone of voice from my dad since I’d taken Fallon to a party during our junior year, where I knew there would be drinking. He sounded just as pissed now as he was then.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

Dad pushed his plate with his half-eaten sandwich away from himself. “I figured it was going to be something like that, but even though it was nine years ago, it still disappoints me.”

I looked down at my clasped hands. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty pissed and disappointed with myself too.”

Dad sighed, and I looked up at him. God. Now he had an expression from the past on his face. It was the one that always choked me up. How could this man always show me such love and compassion?

“Son, do you know why you did it?”

I rubbed the back of my neck and took my time answering.

“I’ve had a lot of time to work it through. Look at it from an older perspective. All I can tell you is that my thinking was totally fucked up back then.”

“Is it still?” Dad asked quietly.

“No.”

“Did you talk to someone?”

My head jerked back. “Like a psychiatrist?”

“Nope. Just like the counselor your mom and I had you talk to when you first came to live with us. Someone who could untangle your emotions. Seems to me that some of what you were feeling went back to when you were living with your real dad and mom. What you suffered. What you saw.”

“Like I said, I’ve thought it through. I’m good.”

He gave me a long look. It was his old Dad-look, the one I got when I was a teenager, where I was sure he could see right down to the core of me. “Before you start up anything with Fallon, you need to be damn sure you’re good, you owe it to her.”

“I know. And I am. I promise.” Yep, I was definitely reliving my teenage years.

He continued to look me over for another long moment, then nodded. “Okay, Son, then you go after her. This time don’t let her slip through your fingers.”