“Back up?”
The way he said it made her feel as though the idea was going to be a massive flop. “I’m good at putting things together. You know that.”
Her mother consoled her father in the background and April smiled. Good on her for putting out the flames. The girls could always count on Mom to help keep their father calm. Living in a house as the only male probably tipped him over the edge more than he liked.
“Honey, you’re good at everything you do. That’s the problem. Once you tackle a project and learn how to do it, you move on. I don’t want to see you do the same with a business that you’ve had to put money into. Your mother and I want nothing more than to see all of our girls happy. You know that but I worry more about you than the others.”
April sighed. “Because I’m the flighty one. Yeah, I know.” She screwed her face up in disgust. It was true and normally she didn’t care when people gave her a hard time about how often she changed her mind and updated her lifelong dreams. But hearing it from her father, especially now she’d signed on the dotted line, hurt. There was more to come though. She might as well spit it out and get it over and done with. “Daddy, there’s more.”
A strangled cough came over the phone before silence met her words.
“You know you and Mom were making noises about moving to Cherry Lake to be with the girls? Since you’re coming up to retirement and all. Well, I’ve got a shop there.”
“You did what?”
“I signed a lease on a shop there in a large building that has a doctor’s practice in one side and it’s even got an apartment upstairs I can live in. It’s close to Mari’s hotel. At least that’s what she said. And I can help her if she’ll let me once she gets the wedding business up and running again. I want to do her wedding displays, make the bride’s day the best it can be. I can help her. It’ll be fun working together.” She held the phone away from her ear knowing there was going to be some serious yelling any second. She was right.
His voice rose to a higher octave and she grimaced. “You don’t even know where the shop is? April, did you not even bother to go and look before you leapt?”
“It was too good a deal, Daddy.” When the realtor said he had another interested party, she had no choice but to make an offer unseen. Hopefully, he wasn’t leading her on, and Mari had assured her they were pretty honest in the small family-run business, even if he was a newcomer to town. She’d find out shortly when he handed over the keys. How bad could it possibly be? “I couldn’t let it slip between my fingers. I can live over the shop and save money there. Really make a go of it.” She could. She would. “There was someone else looking at it.”
“I suppose the agent told you that, did he?”
“Yes. But it’s too late now. I’ve signed the papers.”
The tone of her father’s voice changed to resignation. “When do you take over?”
“I get the keys today. I’m already in Cherry Lake, Daddy.”
*
Dr. David Morrison turned off the stereo as the last strains of the opera died away, leaving him bathed in a sense of peace. The perfect way to start what would no doubt be a hectic day. He rinsed his coffee cup in the kitchen sink, placed it in the draining tray, and folded the tea towel, lining it up on the oven door. He straightened the chairs at his dining table and brushed off a speck of dust from the blonde Scandinavian timber.
It’d been an early start to his day. An uninterrupted jog through town, along the lakeshore and back home again before breakfast with his little friend. The scratch on the mudroom door was followed by a plaintive whine. “Oscar, you can’t come in when I’m not here. You know the rules.”
Why his elderly aunt had thought to leave him the small wire-haired terrier when she passed on, was beyond him. He understood leaving him the house as he’d always loved it and she was a spinster, with him being her only relative besides his parents. She knew he didn’t like animals much, especially her boisterous Oscar. The little brown and white dog made it his mission in life to jump all over David every chance it got. Each visit he made to Cecily when he was home to see his parents, was fraught with tension between him and her faithful companion. Oscar would target his leg every time he walked in the door, either jumping up running his claws down his shins or humping it without a care in the world.
“He likes you, dear.” Aunt Cicely had been bedridden for the final years of her life and the dog was keeping her going more than modern medicine was, David was sure of it. It made it hard to be too angry when it gave her such pleasure and peace in her last months.
“So long as he leaves some skin on my legs, I’ll like him back.” How could he tell her dogs weren’t really his thing?
“You’re such a good boy, David. You don’t have to keep checking on me, you know.”
“You’re family, Cecily. Of course I want to keep an eye on you. You were the one who looked after me when my parents were
