“We all want our dads to be around,” Misty said. “I wish my dad was still here, sometimes.”
Tina’s eyes went wide. “Was your daddy scary?”
Misty thought about that. “Well—sometimes he was, I suppose. He’s not in
time-out, though. He died a long time ago.”
Tina hesitated. Then she came forward and hugged Misty. “That’s sad.”
Startled, Misty hugged back.
And that was when Diane came hurrying out of the crowd. “Tina!”
Tina jumped back. “Hi, Mommy.” She sounded a little guilty.
Diane looked like she didn’t know what to make of the scene in front of her.
Misty stood up. “Hello, Diane,” she said, trying to figure out how to handle this situation. Finally, she just went with the truth. “Tina and I were just talking about how we both miss our dads.”
Diane’s brows came together. “Tina, go find Rachel and Marie and play,” she said.
Tina’s face lit up, and she went off running without a backwards glance, finding a couple of families who had just come in the door.
Diane straightened and turned to Misty. “What were you telling my daughter?”
Misty’s instinct was to fight fire with fire, to step forward and tell Diane to back off. She made herself take a deep breath instead. What would Ty do?
He’d be kind and empathetic, she thought, without being weak.
“I was telling her that I was sorry,” Misty said. “That I missed my dad, too.”
“Your father arrested Ryan for the first time when Ryan was fourteen years old,” Diane ground out. “He never gave him one chance. Ryan had no chance, growing up with that asshole as sheriff.”
Breathe, Misty told herself. Don’t get mad. What would Ty say?
“Well, I want different things for these kids,” she managed, pushing down any anger she felt about hearing this woman talk about her father like that.
And she did want different things. Maybe it didn’t matter what had happened in the past, if they could all manage to focus on the future.
“I don’t want to arrest Ryan’s kids,” she said. “I haven’t charged Zeke with anything yet, because I want him growing up into a good man, not a criminal. I want this place to be somewhere Tina can go after school, and I want them both to get good jobs and have families of their own.”
Diane stared at her suspiciously.
“That’s what I want,” Misty said on a sigh. “And so today I’m going to wash some windows.”
Diane still wasn’t saying anything, but Misty decided she’d better quit while she felt good about what she’d been saying. She smiled at Diane, then turned and went to find Ty.
“Hey,” he said, turning away from where he’d been chatting with Carlos. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, I just—I had the sense that something might be wrong.” He frowned. “It’s strange, now that I think about it. I guess I just knew that you were...agitated, somehow.”
Huh. This mates thing was more powerful than she’d realized.
“I was,” she said, “but it was just a difficult conversation, nothing dangerous.” She smiled up at him. “I did my best to channel you.”
That broad smile. She’d never get tired of seeing it. “Did it help?”