Page 71 of Secret Love

She smiles coyly. “Nope. Come in, Father.”

“Father…” I make a face at her and she presses her lips together to keep from laughing. “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”

“I’m Gracie!” she insists. “Come on.” She turns and waves her hand for me to follow.

We walk through the house and to the back door, which she opens with a flourish. A ballad plays over the outdoor speakers. Audrey is standing in front of a table set for two and is in one of her pretty dresses. Electric candles are lit all over the deck and table.

“Hi, Daddy.” She smiles and holds out a chair for me, motioning for me to have a seat.

I move toward her and kiss her cheek. “Hi, pumpkin. You look lovely.”

“Thank you.” Her smile widens when I sit down and she puts a napkin over my lap.

“Wow. What did I do to deserve all this?”

A throat is cleared and I look up to see Cassidy, who is also dressed up. I smile at her and am relieved when she smiles back. It’s only then that I notice Bree is standing behind her, looking like she just swallowed something painful. I get a sudden sense of dread.

“What’s going on, girls?”

“We wanted to do something nice for the two of you,” Cassidy says, moving aside and motioning for Bree to sit down next to me. “Since you both do so much for us.”

I’d foolishly thought maybe the other place setting was for Cassidy and me to talk things over.

“Girls,” Bree starts…

“Wine?” Cassidy interrupts, holding up the bottle of chilled wine out of the ice bucket. She pulls out a bottle opener. “I looked up how to do it online.”

“I’ll do that.” I take it from her and open the bottle. “Would you like some?” I ask Bree.

She nods and I fill our glasses.

“What is this really about?” I ask Cassidy and then Audrey and Gracie. Their looks are fleeting before also turning toward Cassidy.

“What I said,” Cassidy says, her smile faltering for only a second. “We wanted to do something nice for you guys.”

“I do need to talk to your mother, but then I want to talk to all of you,” I say.

Cassidy gulps and nods. “We’ll bring out the food and you can take all the time you need to talk and…and enjoy being outside on this nice day.”

“Smell the flowers!” Gracie yells across the deck.

Audrey giggles and goes into the kitchen. Cassidy and Gracie follow her inside and Bree and I are left to look at each other in concern.

“Are our daughters trying to matchmake us?” Bree whispers. She picks up her glass of wine and takes a long gulp.

“It looks that way.” I take a long drink myself.

“What happened this morning? Cassidy wouldn’t talk about it and then they’ve been super secretive all afternoon, shooing me out of the kitchen any time I tried to go in.”

“There was a woman at my house when Cassidy came in this morning.” I scrunch up my nose. “Not the way I wanted to tell any of you about this.”

“Oh.Oh.” She looks at me with interest and then clinks my glass. But then her shoulders deflate. “Wait, what exactly did Cassidy see? Because she was upset.” Her eyes widen.“Did she see you having sex with someone?”

“No. No, she didn’t.” I look around to make sure the girls aren’t nearby. “But a heads-up that she was coming inside would’ve been nice. I don’t want them to ever feel like they have to knock when they come to my house, but…yeah, it could’ve been much worse.” I shudder thinking about it.

“Well, who is it?” Bree waves her hand to hurry me along. “And you still haven’t said what she saw.”

“It’s Tru Seymour and she was in my shirt.”

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