“Samson!”
Sam froze halfway through the kitchen, the back door still swinging shut behind him. He’d just come in from checking the Buick, seeing if there was anything he could get done before heading to Rumrunners later. How the hell did his dad always know?
He drew a steadying breath and stepped into the living room.
His father was perched forward in the recliner, one hand gripping the walker like he might haul himself up at any second. His glare cut straight through Sam.
“What is that car doing in my driveway?”
Sam frowned, the familiar sting of frustration pricking his chest. He hated what the head injury had done to his dad—not changing him so much as peeling back the layers to expose the weaknesses he’d hidden for years.
“I thought I told you? You and I are going to try to get it fixed up for Erielle.”
“Erielle.” The older man shook his head. “All I hear about is that woman. Why would we do something like that for her?”
Where would his dad have heard about her, since he didn’t leave the house? But Sam didn’t argue. “Because it would mean a lot to her, having her grandfather’s car. And you and I…we could use the work, too.”
His dad made an angry gesture toward his back. “Do I look like I should be bending under a hood, or crawling around underneath a car?”
“You don’t have to do that part. I can do it. I just thought…it would be something we could do together. Something to get you away from the television and living your life again. Something like we used to do.” Sam sat across from his dad, in his mom’s recliner. “Remember how happy you were when you got me that TransAm? Despite what terrible shape it was in?”
Of course he’d wanted a sports car, but his fantasy car had come fully loaded, without rust, and, of course, able to start when he turned the key.
But together, they’d taken the whole thing apart, rebuilt it inch by inch. And they’d talked. And worked. And just…been father and son. They’d learned a lot about each other that fall.
Temper still flared in his father’s eyes, but was tempered by the memory. The older man pressed his lips together. “I don’t need you feeling sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for anyone,” Sam retorted. “I can’t do this on my own, and I want to do it for her. Give her something.” Some reason to be happy. He didn’t add that maybe it wasn’t only for her—that maybe it was for him too, trying to grab hold of the father he used to know.
His dad snorted, the sound edged with challenge. “I’m not going to just sit in a chair and boss you around.”
“No, sir,” Sam said, though relief rippled through him at the crack in his father’s resistance.
“You’re lucky the tires haven’t rotted clean off.”
Sam huffed a laugh. He’d had the same thought. Getting that car running was going to take money he shouldn’t be spending—not on sabbatical, not for a woman he hadn’t seen in a decade.
But none of that mattered.
Because this wasn’t just about her.
It was about him.
About them.
Something he needed every bit as much as she did.
“You know, there’s a more economic way, and better-tasting way, to do that.” Erielle motioned at the stack of canned chicken soup on the counter in the diner. They may have been store brand, but still overpriced compared to what Erielle could make. “You have chicken broth?”
Hattie gave her a look—Erielle would do anything to be able to read this woman’s expressions—and turned to the cupboard for a box of broth.
Erielle accepted the box skeptically. “You don’t make your own?”
“Why would I make my own?”
“It’s easy to do. We’ll do that here in a bit, for next time.” She set down the broth and selected a whisk from the magnetic bar above the counter.
“Don’t you be forgetting whose kitchen this is.”
