LITMIR.BIZ

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even though there were a few people back there, I’m actually short-staffed right now. And anyway, I’m kind of in the business of training women for the workforce.”

      “Really?”

      She nodded definitively. “Yeah,” she said, “that’s what I do. I mean, in addition to baking kick-ass pies.”

      “I’ll take two,” he said.

      “Two?”

      “Pies. Kick-ass pies.”

      “Which kind?”

      He lifted a shoulder. “The kind that kicks the most ass?”

      “That seems subjective.”

      He really was out of practice with the flirting thing. Of course, he didn’t want to flirt with her. No, what he wanted to do was throw her down on the nearest flat surface and deal with all of the pent-up sexual energy that was roaring through his body. And he shouldn’t want to do any of that.

      “Well, in your opinion.”

      “Okay,” she said, making her way over to the pastry case and frowning. The concentration she was putting into selecting the right pie was a little too fascinating for him. He liked the way her eyebrows pleated together, that little crease it made in her forehead. The way her full lips pulled down at the corners.

      She had been wearing makeup last night. A bright tint over the natural skin tone on her mouth. But he liked it better now. A soft wash of pale pink. He wanted to taste it. Wanted to bite it.

      “I’m ready to go.”

      He looked up, in the middle of thinking about how he wanted to bite Alison’s lip, to see his daughter coming out of the kitchen. Well, that was a great underscore to the first specific sexual fantasy he’d had in about a million years.

      “Okay,” he said, “I’m just getting pie.”

      “That’s all I’ve eaten for three days,” Violet said.

      “If you’re whining about pie now, then you really can’t be helped.”

      Violet treated him to a shrug that he had a feeling looked like the gesture he’d just made. “Maybe I don’t want to be.”

      “Fine. Eat a salad and be sad. I’m going to eat pie.”

      Alison walked over to the register and punched in the code. “Employee discount,” she said.

      Violet frowned. “You don’t have to do that. Especially since I ruined that last cake.”

      “I’m the one paying for this,” Cain said, “maybe consider that before you reject my discount.”

      “I already told you, Violet,” Alison said, “the cake isn’t a big deal. It’s part of learning.”

      Surprisingly, Violet smiled. An expression that looked both genuine and not sullen. “Thanks,” his daughter said, modulating her tone into something much softer than he’d heard in at least a year.

      “Lemon meringue and blackberry,” Alison said, looking at him.

      “Lemon meringue is my favorite.”

      Her cheeks turned pink, and he had to admit he enjoyed that. Enjoyed the idea that she wasn’t any more immune to him than he was to her. Even if it was futile, it was a nice feeling. “Good. That’s... Good.”

      “Nice to meet you,” he said. “Ready?” He directed that question at Violet.

      Violet already had her phone out and was texting someone. She looked up just for a moment, just long enough to give him a dry look. “I said I was.”

      “Okay, then.” He took the plastic bag that contained two pie boxes and waved at Alison, then headed out the door with Violet. “You could be a little bit friendlier,” he commented when they were back out on the street.

      “I was friendly.”

      “You were standing there texting.”

      “I already said what I needed to say.”

      He let out a long, slow breath. These kinds of conversations with Violet were futile. She had decided that he was being ridiculous, and she was going to hold on to that no matter what he said. Just like he always did, he wrestled with how to handle it. He could ground her, but then, the only thing he could ground her from was her phone.

      Which was reasonable enough, except summer in a new town meant that it was her only source of social life. There was no school to go to, she had no friends around here. Anyway, she was mad enough. He didn’t want to make it worse. He didn’t want to cut her off from everyone.

      That phone represented her entire life right now. And if she was a different kid in a different situation he might handle it differently. But Violet hadn’t been the same since her mother had left.

      It had taken a couple of years for Violet to stop looking at him like she thought he might disappear. Like she was surprised that he’d come home. For all of that time she’d been almost supernaturally well-behaved. Quiet. And now, it was like she was making up for lost time. Like she had spent the first two years terrified that he might leave her too, and the second two realizing that he wouldn’t. Or maybe now she was testing his staying power; he didn’t really know.

      All he knew was that being a parent was hard. And doing it by yourself when you knew jack shit about kids—about teenagers—was even harder.

      Sometimes he looked at his daughter, at this girl who was closer to being a woman than a kid, and wondered where all the years had gone. Wondered how the hell he was standing on a street in a small Oregon town with a sixteen-year-old. Sometimes he didn’t know at all how he’d gotten here. He would have thought that sixteen years into parenthood he would feel like he knew something. Would feel like he understood the gig.

      No, if anything, he seemed to be worse at it now. When she was three it hadn’t taken any work at all to get her to smile at him. Now it took an act of God.

      “Do you want to go out to eat tonight?”

      “No,” she said. “I’m ready to go home.”

      It was somewhat encouraging to hear her refer to the ranch as home. Usually, she said something about going back to Uncle Finn’s house. This new terminology made him wonder if maybe they were making progress.

      “Sure. I bet there’s a bunch of food in the freezer that Lane made.”

      Violet shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”

      “You will be later.”

      “You don’t know that.”

      He gritted his teeth. This actually did remind him of when she was a toddler. All kinds of screaming about not being hungry anytime food was placed in front of her. And of course, she would whine about not having anything to eat the minute it was taken away.

      “You’re right,” he said, not doing a great job of keeping his tone even. “I don’t know that. I don’t know a damn thing.” He jerked the driver’s side door of the truck open and got in. Violet climbed into the passenger side, slamming the door hard enough that he was afraid she might have broken something in the old rig.

      She didn’t say anything in response to that. Rather, she just gave him a standard eye roll and long-suffering sigh. He was tempted to tell her she didn’t know anything about long-suffering. He was pretty sure he had the monopoly on that at this point.

      They drove the rest of the way back to the homestead in silence, and he was grateful. He didn’t know how to talk to her. At least, not in ways that didn’t do more damage.

      When he parked, Violet got out of the car wordlessly and headed toward the house, her eyes fixed on her phone. He looked at the front door, which she slammed behind her, not waiting for him. He decided he was going to avoid the house for a while. He looked back up toward the barn that he was preparing

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