Page 14 of Lake + Manning (Something in the Way 4)

“You hoped?” I asked quietly.

She turned back to me. “That you and Manning had found your way to each other? Yes. After his divorce, of course.”

“But why?” I asked.

She shook her head, as if she wasn’t quite sure herself. “I guess it was the only comfort I had. Manning is such a strong, capable man. And loving, too. It gave me peace thinking he was with you.”

It was a nice sentiment, but also a reminder of the fact that my connection with Manning had always been impossible to ignore—and yet they had. Ignored it. All of them. I pulled back, wary of forgetting the past, even though I didn’t necessarily want to put more distance between us. “Is it a problem that I’m here?”

“Of course not. I’ve got plenty of food—”

“I mean for Dad.”

Manning rounded the island, taking a beer from the fridge on his way.

“He’ll have to accept it or stay in his study all night,” she said.

The fear that Tiffany or my dad would walk in stopped me from reaching for Manning’s hand. He winked at me, acknowledging that the same was true for him. “What do you want?” he asked. “Wine? Beer? Water?”

“Water’s good,” I said.

“You should go to the study to say hello,” Mom added. “Might be easier for him to swallow this on his territory.”

It all had to be on his terms. It wasn’t surprising but that didn’t mean it wasn’t also frustrating. “On second thought,” I said to Manning, swallowing as my nerves kicked in, “I’ll take some wine.”

Manning nodded and left the room, presumably to raid my dad’s bar.

Mom picked up an oven mitt. “Almost forgot about the candied yams,” she said, opening the oven and waving heat away. “I recreated Christmas dinner in case Manning hadn’t gotten one.” She looked over her shoulder at me and hesitated. “Has it always been him?”

“Always.”

“And is it . . .” She straightened up, moving the baking dish to a trivet. “Is it good?”

I crossed my arms in front of me as the contents of my stomach tumbled. “If he weren’t the best thing that ever happened to me,” I said, “do you think I’d put all of us through this?”

“Surely not,” she agreed, smiling again with tear-glossed eyes, despite my defensive tone.

I inhaled deeply. “About Tiffany—”

Mom waved a mitt at me. “Don’t worry about her.”

“But—”

“Pinot Noir and a peace offering,” Manning said, returning with wine and a tumbler of amber liquid. “He’ll be in the mood for this midday.”

I took both drinks. “Thanks.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“It’s okay.” Walking into my dad’s study after all this time with my sister’s ex-husband—a man my dad had tried to keep me from—didn’t seem like the right way to approach this.

“I said I’d be by your side with you the whole time,” Manning reminded me.

“Knowing you’re here is enough. I should do this alone so he doesn’t feel ambushed.”

“When you get to the part about you and me, I’d like to be there.”

A conversation with my dad wouldn’t last long. On his best days, he wasn’t one for idle chitchat. The thought of being alone with him beyond formalities was enough to make me shudder. “Give us a few minutes,” I said to Manning, “but no longer.”

He squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll be right outside the door.”

If my mom had an opinion on how I should do this, she didn’t volunteer it. She just watched as Manning walked me out of the kitchen. Once in the foyer, there was nothing left to do but knock. Since my hands were full, Manning tapped on the door.

“Grab a bottle of bourbon and come on in,” came my dad’s voice.

“He must’ve heard me earlier. He thinks you’re me.” Manning jutted his chin at me, urging me in as he turned the knob. “You’ve already got the Maker’s Mark. Go on.”

With a steeling breath, I entered the lion’s den armed only with liquid courage and the comforting knowledge that when it came to my relationship with my father, things couldn’t get much worse.

5

The door to my dad’s study closed behind me, sealing me into a room I knew about as well as the man himself. Quiet, tidy, and eerily still, the room only held things my dad loved. Expensive liquor bottles and crystal glasses. Business textbooks that dated back to his time in school. Guns. File cabinets I’d never seen the contents of—important items that kept our household running but that had been sealed away from the women in his life. It occurred to me that Manning probably knew this office better than I did and had maybe even been privy to its secrets and mysteries.

It took Dad a moment to look up from his computer. With his double take, the beginnings of his smile faded. “What’s this?”

Taking him by surprise had been a risk; he didn’t like to be caught off guard, but this way, he wouldn’t have time to work himself into a fury, either. At least not right away. “I . . . I came for dinner.”

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