8. Tag

8

TAG

T ag drove his truck down the gravel drive with Charlotte beside him, heading back to the village to drop her off.

The sun was going down early, as it did in winter, and he felt good—physically exhausted from a day of labor, and oddly content knowing that Charlotte had enjoyed her day on the farm.

He had been pretty sure that a city girl would be grossed out by the sights and smells of the animals. He hadn’t been prepared for her to ask a million questions and then get her hands dirty helping.

And the last thing he’d expected was for her to hit it off with Olivia.

Olivia had always been naturally a little reserved, but she seemed to be retreating into herself these last few years, as if she wanted to disappear into her own memories, where her mom was still alive and well.

He had taken her to a child psychologist out in Burlington a couple of times. The lady ultimately told him that Olivia was coping in her own way, and that he ought to get her a library card of her own, and make sure he was ready to talk when she was.

But it seemed that no matter what he did, Olivia just got quieter and quieter.

She definitely didn’t want to talk to him about her book, even after he’d spent a few long nights after work, reading it as fast as he could. It actually hadn’t been half bad, and he honestly sort of did want to talk about it.

But she’d just said thanks politely enough when he handed it back, and disappeared into her room, as usual.

Both his parents had told him this was normal for a teen. But he couldn’t help feeling like maybe there was something he ought to be saying or doing to get his daughter back. It was like she was sitting on a boat, drifting farther and farther from the shore—leaving him behind.

But she’d taken one look at Charlotte and decided she was worthy of a serious talk. The two had holed up with a plate of peanut butter brownies for more than an hour, having a full-out discussion about the themes of the book until Dad said it was time for the milking.

The kids had even wanted to come with them for the ride to drop her off tonight, though Chance was already leaned against his sister sleeping, and Olivia was zoned out on her headphones.

Tag glanced over at Charlotte. She was gazing out the window dreamily, but she turned when she sensed him looking.

“What?” she asked.

“Olivia likes you,” he said quietly, sliding his eyes back to the road.

“She’s awesome,” Charlotte said. He could hear the smile in her voice.

She didn’t say anything else, so he glanced over again. She was smiling now.

“What?” he asked.

“You read it too,” she said. “What did you think?”

He frowned. It wasn’t that he was ashamed that he liked a book for young girls, exactly. But it seemed odd to talk about it with her.

“I liked Edward,” he said finally.

“Oh, yeah?” she said lightly. “What did you like about him?”

“He would do anything to protect Bella,” he said, nodding to himself. “And he doesn’t have a problem telling her how he feels.”

“Wow,” she said. “You’re right. That’s a rare quality in a guy. It’s probably why a lot of women like that book.”

Tag nodded again, wishing he were better at expressing himself. He didn’t have a lot in common with the sparkly vampire, that much was for sure.

“Thank you for today,” she said suddenly. “It was really nice to spend the day on the farm.”

“You learned a lot,” he agreed, nodding.

“Yes,” she said. “But I also had fun. I always wanted a big family like yours. It must have been fun growing up.”

“It was,” he said. “We had a lot of chores, but we also ran around playing in the woods and the creek. And Mom and Dad were always thinking up fun games for us in the wintertime.”

“Allie says the same thing,” she replied. “She also says that you always took her along on your adventures.”

“Most of the time, yeah,” he said. “She was so little, but she just wanted to do what we did. She was fine if I kept an eye on her.”

He could still see her in his mind, two pigtails sticking out at uneven angles, her eyes all big as she repeated me too, me too, me too in the sweet, plaintive voice that he’d never been able to resist.

“That’s why you’re a protective guy,” Charlotte said. “You grew up protecting someone.”

He lifted his eyebrows and glanced over. But Charlotte was just making a casual observation, her eyes on the forest outside the car. He smiled to himself, realizing maybe he had something in common with that book’s hero after all.

“I was the oldest,” he said after a moment. “That’s just part of it, you know?”

“Hey, a lot of kids I know had older siblings who tortured them,” Charlotte said. “Those are the friends who thought I was lucky to be the only kid in my family.”

He chuckled, and felt her glance over at him again.

“So, I guess I won’t have a lot of reasons to call you tomorrow,” she said. “Maybe you’ll finally be able to get some work done.”

He nodded, but found himself thinking that he had actually kind of enjoyed her silly questions.

“You’re going to miss me, aren’t you?” she teased him. “ How many cows are there? Do they eat snacks? Do the babies ever wear adorable little sweaters?”

“Blankets,” he couldn’t help correcting her.

“You will miss me,” she said triumphantly.

“You can still call if you have a question,” he told her. “Sorry I got frustrated yesterday. The store has been kind of a drain on our resources for a while now.”

“Isn’t ice cream the only thing you sell?” she asked.

“It is,” he said, nodding. “But we could sell it all to a big grocery store in Burlington, if we wanted.”

He didn’t tell her that they could also sell the whole farm. He had suspected at first that she was just here to kill a little time after breaking up with her boyfriend. But the last twenty-four hours had shown him she had a real interest in the farm and the shop. It didn’t feel right to tell her someone was sniffing around the land. And it wasn’t like there was any kind of offer. Not yet, anyway.

“I think the shop is really special,” she said. “I’m going to make sure everyone else knows it.”

Her words were spoken softly, but there was a real strength behind them.

Maybe she can actually bring it back, he thought to himself. She got Olivia talking with her hands again. Anything is possible.

He smiled, thinking about Olivia practically spilling her mug of milk tonight as she talked a mile a minute to Charlotte, her hands dancing in the air just like her grandpa’s always did when he got into one of his stories.

“Oh, wow,” Charlotte breathed from beside him.

They had just pulled into the village, and he realized she had probably gone to sleep too early to really see the Christmas lights the other night.

The sky was a deepening lavender now, the last of the fiery sunset invisible behind the buildings of town.

He’d always thought the golden lights strung around the pavilion and the old-fashioned streetlamps around the snowy park made the village square look like the little town in a train set. Colorful Christmas lights glowed in all the shop windows, and most of the apartments above—the brilliant colors reflecting softly in the snow that still frosted the rooftops.

“You’re so lucky,” Charlotte told him for the second time in a night.

And you’re not much of a city girl, are you? he thought to himself.

“Sugarville Grove is a special place,” he said. His voice sounded gruff, even to his own ears. “Not that I’ve ever lived anywhere else.”

“Don’t bother,” she told him with a grin. “I’m willing to bet that this is as good as it gets.”

“Hey,” he said as he pulled up to the shop.

Jenny Robinson from the real estate office next door stood in front of the ice cream shop. That was nothing new, Jenny was a pacer—she often walked up and down the block while she negotiated a house sale.

But he didn’t like the way she kept looking in the window of the shop with a horrified expression on her face, and frantically tapping away on her phone. When she saw his truck, the hand with the phone in it dropped to her side and she bit her lip.

“Jenny,” he said as he got out of the truck. “What’s up?”

“Oh, Tag,” she said. “Did you get my messages?”

“No,” he said, reaching for his phone in his pocket.

“Don’t bother,” she told him. “You just need to get into the shop as fast as you can and turn off the water. There’s a flood.”

He grabbed the keys from his pocket, sensing Charlotte at his elbow.

“What’s going on, Dad?” Olivia asked.

“Just stay outside with Chance,” he said over his shoulder, bracing himself for what he was about to see.

As much as he had wanted the family to consider getting rid of the shop, his heart hurt at the idea of the place being ruined. Grandma Lawrence had loved those pine floors. When he pictured her, it was always behind the polished wooden counter.

He could hear the water raining down before he even got inside.

“Don’t turn on the lights,” he barked at Charlotte, knowing she would be tempted. “Stay outside.”

He turned on the flashlight on his phone instead and ran for the basement door, rushing down the uneven cellar steps to cut the water main.

He splashed through a few inches of freezing water as he headed for the front wall. Thankfully, he’d had a plumber come out and replace a couple of valves recently, so it was easy enough to stop the water supply to the building.

He opened the electrical panel next, and turned off the main breaker.

Jogging back upstairs, he could hear the water still coming down. But at least now he knew the source was gone and no one was going to be electrocuted. He kept going up to the apartment to see if he could find where it was coming from.

As he emerged on the landing, the temperature seemed to drop even more. It felt colder up here than it was outside.

“Frozen pipe,” he said to himself, heading to the bathroom. It was on the back wall, and that made it the most vulnerable to a freeze.

As he moved, his mind was doing calculations on the damage and trying to remember what their insurance deductible was. It was high, he was pretty sure, and it was going to take an awful lot of ice cream sales to get them out of this unnecessary hole.

Frozen pipes happened if you weren’t careful, so he checked on the place pretty regularly. But Charlotte was living here now. She should have said something if her heat went out.

As if he had summoned her with his thoughts, Charlotte appeared in front of him. She had beaten him to the bathroom, and she was pulling the shelf over the toilet away from the back wall.

“The heat was off,” Tag said, gesturing for her to move out of the way. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I-I didn’t know,” she said.

“It’s colder than a polar bear’s butt up here,” he snapped. “You didn’t think to tell someone?”

She ran from the room and he felt a pang of guilt, but mostly relief. Now that she was out of the way, he was able to see that the leak was from the supply line on the sink. So at least the shop was raining clean supply water, not drainage.

Catching his breath, he headed back down to the shop, intending to see if the freezers had been damaged.

As he came out of the stairway, he could hear that the downpour onto the main floor had already slowed to a drizzle that slid down the back wall instead of coming through the whole ceiling.

And Charlotte had beaten him down here as well. But instead of checking on things like she’d done upstairs, she was bent over something on the back counter, weeping.

Tag froze.

As he stood helplessly watching, Olivia sprinted into the shop, leaving Chance in the front doorway, holding Jenny’s hand.

“Charlotte,” Olivia said, her voice full of sadness. “Charlotte what’s wrong?”

She wrapped her arm around the young woman’s shoulders, reminding Tag of the way she held Chance when he was sad.

“It was my dad’s,” Charlotte whispered.

There was no sound but the trickle of water for a moment.

If Tag wasn’t sure Olivia knew Charlotte had recently lost her dad, it was pretty clear now.

“Can I see?” Olivia asked gently.

Charlotte sat up a little, and even from where he stood, Tag could see that it had been a framed photograph of two smiling faces. But the water had damaged it.

“He always kept it on his desk at work,” Charlotte said. “But it’s just a picture.”

She turned and her eyes found Tag.

“I thought it was colder in Vermont than in Pennsylvania,” she said, sounding ashamed. “And I thought it was just drafty up there. I didn’t want to complain and sound like some kind of spoiled brat, especially after I bothered you so many times already with all those questions.”

“It’s fine,” he said, finding his voice. “You didn’t know. I get it. I’m sorry I snapped.”

“I don’t really blame you,” she said. “Look at this place. And the apartment too…”

She trailed off, pressing her lips together like she was trying not to cry in front of the kids.

“You can come live with us, Charlotte,” Chance cried, dashing up to her and wrapping his arms around her waist. “We have a room for visitors and it’s called a guest room and you can live there.”

“Oh, that’s so nice of you, Chance,” she said right away, hugging him back. “But I’m sure I’ll figure something else out.”

Olivia turned to Tag, her eyes flashing as she stared at him pointedly, as if she were telling him to fix this.

“Kids,” Jenny said from the doorway. “Why don’t you come over to my office? It’s nice and dry, and one of our customers dropped off a plate of cookies this afternoon that I might need your help with. Your dad can come get you when he’s done.”

“Thanks, Jenny,” Tag said, feeling grateful to the selfless young woman. “Did any of this wind up in your office?”

“Not a drop,” she said. “I was just walking by and thought I heard something.”

Olivia scowled, but took Chance’s hand and they trailed after Jenny. Tag watched after them until the front door closed, leaving him alone with Charlotte.

He knew what he was about to do, and he knew he absolutely shouldn’t do it. He might have been able to send the pretty young woman away in spite of the pull he felt between them.

But he couldn’t say no to his daughter.

“You’re going to stay with us,” he said firmly, turning back to her.

“Oh, Tag, I couldn’t—” she began.

“It will only be temporary,” he said. “We’ll have this place fixed up in no time.”

She gazed up at him, her hazel eyes wet. The Christmas lights outside made her face glow in the darkness of the shop, and he longed to cup her cheek in his hand, to gather up all that magic that allowed her to stumble into his life and make him feel things he hadn’t in years, and bring his shipwrecked daughter closer to the shore.

His heart felt like it was crashing in his chest.

“Are you sure?” she breathed.

“I can’t let you go back to the city before you turn this place around,” he murmured, lost in her eyes. “You promised.”

Suddenly she was in his arms, sobbing against his chest, her soft, warm body pressed to his.

Tag’s heart was aching and his mind was spinning. But his arms wrapped instinctively around her, and his senses catalogued the way she fit against him, and the delicate, faintly sweet scent of her hair.

“You’re okay,” he murmured, rubbing slowly between her shoulder blades, like he did when his kids were crying. “You’re okay now. I’ve got you.”

As her sobs slowed and she softened in his arms, he felt something that had been coiled tight in his chest begin to loosen, allowing emotions he had held back for so long to trickle through him, leaving him raw and sensitive in their wake.

I’m in over my head here , he thought to himself. What have I done?

It would be one thing to avoid the feelings this woman was awakening in him if all he had to do was stay away from the ice cream shop.

But now that she was going to be living with him…