Take a Chance on Me(41)
“Why? This is my home. I like it here.”
He just stared at her.
“Don’t you?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Of course not. I get that. But . . . see, I don’t know what I’d do. Play music? Make pizza? I do that here. And my grandfather’s here. I don’t want to go. I want to stay and take care of him.”
“Then stay.” Jensen didn’t know where the words came from, but they came out of him with power. “Stay.”
“How? Grandpop can’t live in that house, at least not until he’s better—”
“What if we installed ramps, made it handicap accessible?”
“I don’t have money for that.”
“But I do. I have my entire trust fund, just sitting there gathering interest. And believe it or not, I’m pretty good with a saw and hammer.”
Jensen still couldn’t believe the words emerging from him, but he let them hang there, not caring that they were edged with a sort of sad desperation. And hope. He could nearly taste it. Please, let me help, Claire.
He could admit a small bit of satisfaction that Darek wouldn’t win again, wouldn’t take the land Jensen wanted. But even more, he wanted to help Claire. Anything to make her come back to life. Maybe the last good thing he did before they took him away in handcuffs. He wasn’t going to fulfill his hours before the deadline anyway. This felt like a better project than a useless fight for his freedom.
“You’d do that for me? Help me take care of my grandfather?”
His smile emerged slowly, from deep inside. “If you’ll let me stay and listen to you sing.”
A beat passed before, “I don’t sing much.”
“You should. You have a beautiful voice.”
She blinked at him. “I do?”
He lowered his voice, met her eyes. “You do, Claire. Why do you think I keep hanging around the back of the room?”
She stared at him. Then her mouth clamped shut and she turned away.
And he’d blown it. He knew it in her posture, the way she watched the dark water, the moonlight catching the waves like the glint of a blade.
He’d moved in too fast, reminded her too much of . . . of what they should have had, maybe.
Then, suddenly, she nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Good grief, too much surprise in that. He made a face but erased it fast when she smiled.
There was a softness, a touch of friendship in it. Even a hint of what might have been.
“Okay, Jensen. You can stay.”
Ivy fit into his family so easily that it felt to Darek as though she might have always belonged. She laughed at his mother’s lame jokes and asked his father a million questions about the resort, acting genuinely interested in his endless stories of days gone by. She praised Grace’s new potato salad recipe and posed for Amelia’s photos. She and Eden exchanged favorite hot spots on the University of Minnesota campus, Ivy’s alma mater, although clearly she’d spent more time in the library than his sister. She asked the right questions about hockey to Owen and didn’t even act annoyed when he went on about his new digs and shiny new sports car.
She pried stories out of Casper while she helped Tiger roast a marshmallow and create a gooey s’more. She even laughed and cleaned him up when he showed her his sticky fingers.
Now, Tiger sat beside her on the beach of the Deep Haven harbor, on a stadium blanket Darek remembered to bring. She’d donned a University of Minnesota sweatshirt over her lemon dress, and the wind had tugged her hair down from her ponytail, whispering it around her face and sending him the slightest hint of some clean vanilla scent.
She’d purchased a neon-lit glow stick and fashioned it into a circular crown, which she placed on Tiger’s head. A sea of fellow spectators surrounded them, sitting on blankets or folding chairs, waiting for the Elks Club to start the annual fireworks across the bay. The Christiansens had arrived in time to stake out their traditional perch—next to giant boulders that cordoned off the beach from the rest of the shoreline. As children, Darek and his siblings had loved to climb on the rocks, daring each other not to fall into the lake.
Sometimes, looking back at his childhood, he wondered how they’d ever lived through it. Or how their mother hadn’t lost her mind with worry.
Darek picked his way through the crowd, holding a tray of cones from the local Licks and Stuff. He hunkered down next to Ivy and Tiger, handing them their orders.
Ivy took her cone—butter brickle and vanilla, double scoop. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Tiger, let me . . .” He tucked a napkin into his son’s jacket. It stuck out like a beard, but maybe it would keep the five-year-old from walking away a sticky mess. At the rate Tiger had been eating tonight, he’d probably be sick, but Darek had never seen his son so happy—and easy to control. He hadn’t wandered away once, and there wasn’t even a hint of a meltdown on his face.