Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(43)

Liane was fidgeting.

“Don’t be nervous,” I advised. “If he acts like an ass, we agreed, we’ll just walk away.”

“I just…this was a mistake.”

I stopped twisting the stem of my wineglass on the table and scanning the swanky restaurant Dad and Li agreed for us to meet in (this was totally a Dad pick, she just decided not to fight a battle that wasn’t worth her energy) and looked to my sister.

She was a wreck.

I was shocked.

“Li,” I said softly.

“I never, you know, thanked you,” she blurted.

I was confused.

“For what?” I asked.

“We left him. Then Mom had to work full-time. And you grew up,”—she lifted her hand and snapped—“like that.”

I rolled my eyes and teased, “I was always grown up. I was born fifty.”

“You were not,” she said quietly.

At her continued tone, I got serious.

She kept speaking.

“You played with Barbies. Okay, so you were the boss of them, and they all had high-powered jobs, I think one was the President, and one was the CEO of Microsoft, but you played. You ate big bowls of cereal and watched cartoons in your jammies with me. You’d wrestle with Tigger.”

I looked away when she mentioned our dog.

“You were a kid, Hellen. And then you had to be something else, for Mom, for me, so you became that, and you never got to go back.”

I returned my gaze to her. “It was who I was meant to be anyway. So maybe I got there earlier. It was where I was going, so it’s no big deal.”

“Still, thank you.”

“We’re family.”

“Just shut up and let me be grateful.”

I gave her an irritated side eye.

She grinned at me.

“Girls.”

We both looked up at Dad.

But only I sucked in a quiet breath.

Because…fucking hell.

How hadn’t I seen it before?

Product in his hair. Carefully-crafted stubble. Pink button down under a blazer. Dark wash jeans.

Bryan was my father.

“Whoa,” Li said under her breath.

She saw it too.

She slid out of the booth, I came out with her, and we’ll just say the hugs were tortuously awkward.

We slid back in, Dad opposite us.

He looked down at his menu. “You two pick what you want to eat?”

Ummmmmmmmm…

I glanced at Li.

She was glancing at me.

We were both surprised at this opener.

She turned to him first. “Yeah, Dad.”

“Place has a magnificent surf and turf,” he muttered, surveying the room. He found what he was looking for and jerked up his chin in demand of attention.

Right, did Liane and I spend two years out of his company because we were fed up with his shit?

Or had I been in a fugue when we all enjoyed a movie together last weekend so us meeting up for dinner was no big whoop?

The server came.

Dad asked for a Jack and Coke.

After that, he demanded to know where the bread basket was and why it wasn’t yet at the table, explaining to her his history with this restaurant and how that had never happened before. This was delivered in the manner he was a neurosurgeon, and she was his surgical nurse, and her incompetence had cost his patient their life.

He finished berating our server by ordering oysters on the half shell as an appetizer.

Man, I forgot how mortifying it was to be around him when he had someone he thought was lower than him to treat like shit.

Now, I was remembering.

“You girls want anything to start?” he queried magnanimously, still going for the “nothing to see here, just a dad with his daughters” look.

So, was he nervous?

Or was he crazy?

“I’m good,” I said.

“Those mozzarella things,” Li ordered.

The server smiled tightly, promised the bread basket would be there soon and walked away.

Dad looked at us.

And then his lips turned down.

“Really, Liane, this is a nice place.”

My back shot straight.

“You couldn’t put on some mascara?” he inquired.

Liane made a noise.

Now, I hadn’t forgotten that.

No, I had not.

Dad needing to be in control of every nuance about us. What we wore. Our grades being better (I was all As, Liane was an athlete and never slipped off the honor roll either, so what he expected was unknown, and when you’re a kid and a teen, doing very well, and someone expects more, it was immensely and harmfully baffling). Harking back to Li’s sports, lecturing her about her performance in a game he might catch if she was unlucky, and he’d never played lacrosse in his life. Lecturing to me about practicing my flute (I used to love playing, he made me hate it, and as such, I hadn’t picked up my flute in two years), and he’d never played any instrument.

Us being painstakingly appropriate for every occasion because we were a reflection on him.

That last being what he expected right now.

“Seriously?” I asked.

Dad’s attention cut to me, he took in my expression, lifted both hands and pressed down.

“You’re right. You’re right.” His eyes moved between us. “I have two beautiful girls. Makeup or not. That wasn’t the way to start.”