Page 18 of Lost in You (The Monroes 3)

She might not have been the best decorator, but she had a hand in helping Zach and she knew for sure her house was rock solid with the finest of materials. A little more important to her than the right balance of candles and picture frames scattered around just to be dusted later.

Her dad came to his feet and groaned. “It’s getting late.”

“It’s nine,” she countered, sliding the cards together and tapping them on the edge of the table.

“And I’m an old man. I’ll be sixty in a couple

weeks. I should be in bed at this time.”

She never thought of her father as old. Most kids always viewed their parents as ancient, but Macy never did. Old always meant death to her, so she never wanted to view him that way . . . especially after her mother passed. She wanted to hang on to him for as long as possible.

“Sixty isn’t old,” she argued. “And you’re healthy as a horse.”

“The doctor says so, but I think I’m supposed to moan and groan at my age.”

Macy laughed as she stacked the cards.

“How are your migraines?” he asked, gripping the high back on her kitchen chair.

Coming to her feet, she started placing the chips back into the appropriate slots in their carrier. “Fine now. This last one came out of nowhere and lingered longer than usual.”

Her father’s silver brows drew inward. “Do you need to go back to the doctor?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’d never tell me if you weren’t,” he muttered. “I worry about you.”

Moving around the table, Macy threw her arms around her dad’s neck. He was just a few inches taller than she was. She definitely took her height from her dad and her curves from her mom.

“I worry about you, too, but I promise if I need to see someone, I will.” She gave him a reassuring squeeze and eased back. “Trust me, I hate having migraines. If I get another one like that I may make an appointment to see if we need to change the medicine. I definitely don’t want to have them when I’m trying to take care of a little one.”

Her father smiled, the creases around his eyes deepening. “Any child you take in will be so lucky to have you.”

“I requested a little girl,” she informed him. “I just thought that would be easier all around.”

“Probably so,” he said, nodding in agreement. “Are you sure you can handle everything? I don’t want you to get overwhelmed.”

She’d put in hours thinking on this exact subject. But she was more than confident she could do both jobs. “I can do it. Besides, you’re my backup for the store and a built-in babysitter.”

Apparently he was happy with her answer since he gave a brief nod. “Speaking of the store, everything okay? When I worked the other day I saw you had rearranged the plumbing section.”

Yeah, she didn’t figure he’d be good with any changes she made, but she’d had cause. “I got in a new line of products that had a huge rebate and catered toward the DIY crowd. I wanted to showcase that and the plumbing needed to be shifted.”

“Customers don’t like change,” he grumbled.

Macy patted his smooth cheek and smiled. “But customers like rebates, so I think I’m still okay. Besides, I’ll be changing it out again when the new spring items start arriving. All the pots, the seeds. I’m trying a new distributor this year.”

He grunted before heading toward her back patio doors, which looked out onto the spacious yard. “I know it’s your store now, at least in all the legal ways, but I’m still here. I can do more than just fill in when you have a headache.”

Macy knew that’s why he’d randomly stop by the store when she was open. He would make the excuse of already being out running errands and say he just popped in to see the customers. But she’d caught him shifting the boxes of nails around, changing out a few sale signs, and one morning she’d discovered he’d already opened for her, claiming he’d gotten up early.

In all reality, her father wasn’t ready to retire. She’d tried to talk him out of it, but he said it was time for the next generation to take over. She figured he wanted to still live his life and have a good time while he was young enough to enjoy it. He had a few buddies that had already retired and were living it up on the golf course. She couldn’t fault him one bit for wanting to join them.

Macy always knew the store would go to her—that’s what she was raised understanding—but part of her wished she would’ve finished her business degree. No one in her family had gone to college and she wanted to be able to prove she could, to make her parents proud. She didn’t need the degree to run the store, but she wanted it. There would have been some sense of pride in knowing she’d been the first.

But she couldn’t regret not getting her degree. Had she managed to finish, she would’ve missed out on several years of being with her father when he needed her most. Actually, they’d needed each other. All things happened for a reason, right?

Even bad things that altered your every decision in life.

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