I didn’t know the lineman all that well.
I did know that they were all big, hulking alpha men that didn’t miss a single thing.
Especially something so obvious as what Liner and I had.
“Umm, I just called an Uber,” I admitted.
Liner’s face darkened. “Cancel it. I’ll take you.”
I opened my mouth to deny him, but the man’s face between us had me biting my tongue.
He looked amused by the situation and clearly thought that I wouldn’t be winning the argument.
“Okay,” I admitted defeat. “But you can come back after.”
He was already shaking his head. “No can do. I have to go to a couple of other area offices while I’m down.”
Those words made my heart sink.
He did?
“Okay,” I said as I pushed my chair back farther and skirted around it.
Liner stood as well and tossed three crisp hundred-dollar bills on the table.
“I’ll see y’all tomorrow,” he said as he did the same with his own chair. “And please, take your time with lunch. I know we haven’t had time to finish all the courses.”
Some of them had just ordered dessert at Liner’s urging.
I hadn’t because I’d been too nervous to eat.
Not because of the time—I knew that I’d get to the school in time to pick Linnie up—but because of the man that I was all too aware of two seats down from mine. Watching my every move.
“If you don’t mind, I have to stop at a satellite office before we head all the way to the office,” Liner said sweetly, betraying nothing.
I nodded my head and swallowed hard. “Sure. As long as you don’t mind me getting my kiddo first.”
Liner shrugged as if he could care less. “Of course.”
That was when we made it far enough away that the table behind us wouldn’t hear.
“I just about died during that lunch,” he said softly as he held the door open for me.
I laughed softly as I brushed past him on the way out the door. “You have no idea.”Chapter 22Triscuits are what I imagine a scarecrow would taste like.
-Liner to his father
Liner
To say that Linnie was happy to see me in the truck would be an understatement.
Instead of getting in the back door which was held open for her by the teachers, she crawled through the front door, and inside the cab of the truck, only to crawl straight over her mother and throw herself at me.
“Liner!”
The teachers started laughing with delight, then closed the back door with a wave. “Y’all have a good one!”
With that, we were informed to move up so we could get Linnie settled into her car seat. Which we did after about eight more hugs.
“Did you bring Monster?” were the first words out of her mouth once she’d gotten settled in.
I shook my head as I maneuvered around other parked cars to head out to the road that would lead us away from the school.
“No,” I answered. “I left him with Castiel. Remember him?”
I watched her nod her head in the rearview mirror, and I grinned at the look of disappointment that was on her face at hearing those words.
It was like I’d forgotten to bring her best friend.
“Would you like to go to that cupcake store that I saw on the way here to pick you up?” I asked, hoping bribery would take that sad look off her face.
Linnie’s eyes lit up and she started nodding immediately. Sadness forgotten.
“Yes!” she practically squealed. “Yes, yes, yes, yes!”
I looked over at the woman on my right. “Do you think that means she wants a cupcake?”
Theo’s lips twitched. “She’s been begging me for weeks to go there, but seriously, that place is hopping in the afternoons. There’s a line out the door. I keep telling her I’ll take her when it’s not busy, but that place stays busy. I’ve never passed by it without there being a line.”
I saw what she meant five minutes later when I pulled into the parking lot. There wasn’t a single parking space anywhere, causing me to park in the Lowe’s parking lot that was three down from the cupcake place.
“Wow,” I said as I took all the people in. “This better be the best damn—darn—cupcake in all the land for this kind of line!”
Linnie, after being let out of the vehicle by Theo, walked up to me and put her tiny hand into my own.
My heart gave a little squeeze, and a wave of sadness washed over me.
I hadn’t really given myself enough time to ever think about the fact that I couldn’t have kids. But knowing what I was missing now? What it felt like to have a child that was half Theo’s so trusting that she’d grab my hand instead of her mother’s? Well, that was just a nail in the coffin that I could never pull back out.
I loved my dad.