Grace felt like her feet were glued to the floor. Her hand gripped the straps of her purse so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“I’m sorry, this is probably a huge surprise,” Lewis continued, shifting his weight. He grimaced. “But I didn’t know before and I then I talked to your mother–”
“You talked to my mom,” Grace said in a monotone voice that sounded strange even to her ears.
“She said she was going to come see you.”
Grace’s lips parted. She felt sick.
“Grace?”
She couldn’t move. She hadn’t seen her mother in years. Never even met her father before now.
“Grace?” It was Nathan. He’d stepped closer, put a supportive hand on her back, voice full of concern.
“I…” She shook her head slowly. It took effort to form words. “I think you’d better take me to lunch now.”
Nathan didn’t need to be told twice. He ushered her toward the door, moving around Lewis and onto the sidewalk.
“This conversation is going to have to wait,” she heard him tell Lewis.
The man only gave a slight nod. “I’m sorry. I thought maybe she’d told you.”
Grace could only shake her head.
“Not now,” Nathan said. He pulled Grace off the sidewalk and opened the door to his truck for her, waiting as she climbed up. She plopped her purse into her lap, staring ahead as he closed the door.
Lewis lingered on the sidewalk, looking lost. He dropped his cap back on his head. If Grace had been able to get control of her thoughts, she might have told him to give her some time and try again. But she wasn’t sure that’s what she wanted. In the midst of closing the store, working toward opening the youth center, and trying to find the star, this was the last thing she expected.
The star…No, this had nothing to do with the star. It was just bad timing.
Nathan hopped in next to her and shoved his keys into the ignition without hesitation. “Seatbelt,” he murmured.
When she didn’t respond, he started to reach across her. Grace grabbed quickly for the belt and fastened herself in. “Where are we going?”
“We’ll go to Ruby’s.”
“We can walk there, Nathan.”
In response, he pulled smoothly out of the space. “It’s faster this way.”
Grace let her eyes stray to Lewis once more, too many thoughts swirling through her head. Beside her, Nathan looked focused and serious.
As he drove them to the familiar diner, she found herself wishing he would say something. Wishing he would distract her with one of his comments–which had never failed to irritate her in the past. Or one of his solutions–which had always grated on her nerves. Now they sounded welcome.
Nathan was safe. She knew where she stood with him because she knew her own mind. Her father…her father, she couldn’t even think those words without wincing…was a whole different topic. Completely unsafe. Just like her mother.
“Are you okay?” Nathan asked.
“I don’t know if I can eat anything.”
He gave a quiet chuckle and turned into the parking lot at Ruby’s anyway. “That’s not exactly what I was looking for.”
Grace shifted to look in his direction. He turned the wheel, tucked them neatly in a tight space, and killed the engine. “What are you looking for?”
Nathan unhooked his seatbelt to face her. “I want to know if you’re okay.”
“I am.”
“Still not what I’m looking for.” His eyes searched her face. “You don’t look okay. The truth, please.”
Grace didn’t know what else to give him. She wasn’t okay if she was acting like this. But she couldn’t seem to get the old Grace back into place so she could deal with things like she usually did. Smart and efficient.
“I don’t think he was lying,” she whispered, something like amazement in her voice.
“That man. Lewis?”
Grace reached down to release the belt. Suddenly it felt too tight. “It seemed like he was telling the truth.”
Nathan appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “He did seem sincere.”
“That’s not good.”
“It isn’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Grace clutched her purse again, trying to think of something to do with her hands. “I’ve never even met my father before.”
“What about Riley? Would he remember his dad?”
Grace closed her eyes briefly, her mind on overload. “It doesn’t matter.”
Confusion clouded Nathan’s hazel eyes. He ventured out a hand. She let him touch her arm gently, understanding he was only trying to help. “Grace, he might want to know about this.”
“No.”
“Grace–”
“Let’s go in.” She grabbed for the handle.
His sigh was a struggle for patience. “Please, Grace, wait.”
She fought against the natural response to ignore him and get out anyway. She fought to see his side. He didn’t know what she knew.
“Nathan, Riley might remember him but it doesn’t matter. My dad is not his dad.”
A flicker of understanding passed across his face. Nathan blew out a quiet breath. “I didn’t know.”
“You’re not the only one,” Grace told him. “Riley’s my half-brother. But it doesn’t feel like it. Besides Grandpa, Riley is the only one who’s been there for me.”
The sympathy in his eyes almost broke her. “Come on,” she murmured, reaching for the handle again. “Let’s eat.”
His looked reluctant, but hopped out of the truck and followed her in.
~ ~ ~
Instead of being irritating, the busy noise of the dinner soothed his nerves. The casual chatter of diners and clinking of dishes was a nice bit of normality after the last thirty minutes of events.
The only other time he’d seen Grace so rattled was last fall in the cemetery when Maddy had found her piece of the star. After they’d been stalked by the ghost of a black wolf and buried in a blizzard.
And he knew it was just the beginning.
Grace pulled the menu in front of her but only rested her hands on the surface. Nathan kept an eye on her over the top of his own menu as he scanned his choices. When the waitress came by for their order, Nathan kept it simple. Cheeseburger and fries. The waitress looked to Grace.
“I don’t think I’ll have anything,” she began, but Nathan caught the waitress’s attention.
“She’ll have the same thing. Cheeseburger and fries.”
“Nathan–”
“Onion rings instead?” He grinned.
Grace frowned.
He smiled at the waitress. “Just the cheeseburgers and fries, then.” He tucked the menus at the back of the booth, and the waitress looked amused. “Thanks.”
Because it looked like Grace had returned to her old self for the most part, he switched modes and went for a lighter tone. “I got together a few layouts I thought you might like to look at for the youth center website.”
“You did?”
“I did. But I’ll be able to do more when you let me know what you want on it.”
Grace’s eyes traveled to the entrance and around the tables of diners. “I…have a list. But I need to talk to Maddy and Kara about it to be sure.”
“Grace?”
He waited as she dragged her eyes back to him. Her eyebrows winged up at the expression on his face. “What?”
“I don’t think he’s coming here,” Nathan said gently, reaching out and touching her hand.
She straightened. “Of course not.”
He kept his voice mild even though her frustration threatened to transfer to him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“What if it has something to do with the star?”
This seemed to intrigue her. She tilted her head, considering. “Then maybe I should go back and talk to him.”
He frowned. Was she trying to get something to happen?
Grace’s blue eyes turned cool. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“How do you expect me to look at you when you make a comment like that, Grace?”
She fiddled with the edge of the paper placemat on the table, folding the sides down. “You sound like Riley.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment. If Riley and I would both be asking you the same thing in this circumstance, then clearly something is at fault with your logic, not mine.”
Her mouth opened wordlessly. A subtle flush of color crept into her cheeks. “Maybe I should take that cheeseburger to go.”
Nathan calmly slid his own paper mat closer and proceeded to fold it down the center. “Don’t leave because you’re mad at me for making a comment like that. Try to understand why that came as a shock.”
“What came as a shock? The fact that I might actually want to talk to my father?”
He folded the paper in a V, lifting his eyes to hers briefly. “That you’d do it just to move things along with the star.”
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing?”
He started to answer but was surprised when she reached out and stilled his hand for a minute, causing his eyes to raise again. “Think about it. Really think about it. I only have three months. I have a deadline. And nothing has happened yet. What do I do when the time gets shorter and still nothing has happened? Clearly that means I’m not looking in the right direction. So I need to look somewhere else.”
“It hasn’t been that long since Kara found her star,” Nathan reminded her, casually making another fold, then another to gather his thoughts.
“What would you do, then?”
Probably the same thing you’re doing. But it was harder to say that aloud. He was making it a double standard and the idea of that really pissed him off. Nathan finished the last few folds, then balanced the paper design next to him before grabbing her paper and sliding it to his side.
Grace narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Origami.”
“How do you know how to do origami?”
He chuckled at the frustration he still heard in her voice. “I had to go to Japan on business. Probably the most boring international trip I’ve ever taken.” Nathan ripped off the excess paper along the edges of his fold. “I was working on a project for a man named Mr. Kimura. Doing some programming, creating a Web design for his expanding business and some random media projects. Anyway, he had me over to his house a lot but ended up spending a good deal of his time on the phone for business. His daughter, Ayumi was about thirteen and took to following me around everywhere, asking all sorts of questions about the U.S. She taught me a dozen designs and made a zoo of animals for me before I left.” He glanced up again and saw she had propped her chin in her hands, leaning forward against the table as he told the story. “I still have all of them at home in a photo album.”
“Do you have a picture of her?”
Nathan smiled, linking the two papers together. “A few. They’re in the album, too. Here.”
She sat up straight when she saw what he’d created. A flower. Something like a tulip with a long stem and a leaf. Grace reached for it, a smile in her eyes.
The waitress came to drop off two plates. Not only did Grace accept the cheeseburger without asking for a to-go box, but she slid the flower to the side to make room and grabbed the ketchup.
“What are the plans for the youth center today?” he asked, sprinkling his fries with salt.
“Some of the kids from the old youth center are going to stop by. They said they’d paint a mural for the rec room.” She lifted a fry with a smile. “I have no idea what they have in mind but they assured me it will be awesome.”
“Awesome?”
Grace nodded. “That’s what they said. Awesome. And appropriate.”
“Appropriate is good,” he said with a chuckle. “And the rest of us? What do you need us to do?”
“You get to paint some more.” He raised his brows. “Want to change your mind about helping?”
Nathan lifted his burger. “Nope. I’ll paint.”
“Good. Oh, one more thing.”
“What?”
Grace swirled a French fry in ketchup. “Could you just…not tell Riley about what happened earlier?”
“Which thing?”
“What do you mean which thing?”
“About you seeing your father–”
“I don’t know if he’s really my father.”
“Okay, about the man who claimed to be your father,” he amended, “or about trying to get something to happen with the star?”
Grace frowned at the second part of his question. “I was talking about the first thing,” she mumbled.
“So the second is fair game?”
“I thought we already cleared this up. I need to find the star.”
Nathan wiped his hands on his napkin and leaned back against the cushion of the booth. “I think it’s worth talking about some more.”
She didn’t respond.
“I think it’s a decent compromise,” he told her seriously, “if you don’t want me to say anything to Riley.”
Grace shook her head. “That’s not fair.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt and I don’t want you to deal with this on your own. You’re making it difficult. Now, that’s not fair.”
Their gaze held for a long moment, then she broke eye contact and looked to her plate again. “Fine. We’ll compromise.”
“Good.” He went back to his burger, satisfied with the deal for now. At least she was being reasonable.