After All (Cape Harbor #1)(45)
The girl shrugged. “Nowhere really. During the summer I stay with my grandparents in Seattle or with Nonnie here.”
If he had been the friend he was supposed to be, maybe he would’ve been a part of the girl’s life. He could’ve been a father figure to her, unless Brooklyn had someone filling that void. Bowie hadn’t given much thought to what Brooklyn had been up to or where she had been until this moment. He found himself wanting to know everything about her, much like he had fifteen years ago. “And your mom?” he asked, letting curiosity take over. “Does she come stay here as well?”
Brystol shook her head. “My mom works a lot, different places.”
“In Seattle?”
“No, we came from Arizona the other day. Before that we were in Tennessee.”
He was thoroughly confused by her answer. Surely, Brooklyn had a home where she raised her daughter, and where her daughter went to school. But from the sounds of it, that wasn’t the case.
“I know your mom travels for work, but where do you live? Where’s your house?”
“Oh, we don’t have one. We just move from job to job.”
The kid was kidding, right? There was no way Brooklyn was raising her daughter like they were in a traveling circus. Bowie was at a loss for words. He wanted to pump her for more information but didn’t know where to start. If she suspected anything, she wasn’t saying, choosing to focus on Luke and not his idiotic questions.
“Brystol, come get cleaned up so we can go downtown.” Simone’s voice rang out, causing the girl to jump.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” Bowie heard her say to his dog. “Bye,” she said to him, giving him a little wave as she ran toward the house. From where he was standing, he could see Simone holding the door open for Brystol. By chance, he looked toward the second floor of the house, just in time to see the curtains sway and a shadow move out of view. Was it Brooklyn? Was she watching him with her daughter?
He decided to snoop more and went over to her car. “Florida?” He looked back at the house, tempted to go knock on the door and beg her to just talk to him, but he couldn’t. The less he knew, the better off he’d be when she left.
Bowie hopped into his truck and banged his hands against the steering wheel. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand his frustration. Brooklyn had left him. She had left all of them. He shouldn’t care why she was back or what she had been doing the last fifteen years.
But he did, and he hated himself for it.
He had long forgotten her, given up on trying to find her, and yet, here she was. He had thought things would be different when they came face to face, that she would apologize for leaving, beg him to forgive her, but she had simply brushed him off as if he were a stranger.
Bowie drove home in a daze, his cell phone vibrating on and off in his pocket during the entire journey. He had to carry Luke from the truck because the dog was dead tired and refused to budge. He couldn’t even lift his head when Bowie told him they were home. As soon as he stepped onto his porch, he set his dog down so he could open the door. There was a slight movement off to his side. The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose in warning. If someone or something were to attack him, Luke wouldn’t be able to defend him. In fact, his dog wasn’t even growling. “Some guard dog you are,” he mumbled into the open air.
He looked to his side and saw Monroe standing there, holding a six-pack. “What are you doing here?”
Monroe held up the pack of beer, tilted her head, and smiled. “I thought you could use someone to talk to.”
Bowie hung his head. Monroe never came out and asked if he had feelings for Brooklyn, but he never hid them either. When they were teens, he had done everything he could to be near her, even if it had meant being a third wheel with her and Austin. Bowie held the door for Monroe and followed her into the house. He took the bottles of beer from her and motioned for her to go out onto his deck.
“I can’t believe she’s back. Part of me is elated because I’ve missed her. The other part is pissed off.”
He nodded and took a long pull off the bottle. “Yep.”
“She’s the talk of the town.”
“Small-town gossip is all.”
“People seem to think the world of her. They’re not even mad at her or anything.” He took another drink while Monroe continued to talk. “I heard she has a kid.”
“Daughter, named Brystol.”
“I’m trying not to be mad, but it hurts. She just left us. I get taking a vacation, but to just outright abandon us like we hadn’t lost someone important too is just rude.”
“You seemed chummy at the Spout the other night.”
“I try not to hold a grudge. Plus, she apologized for our earlier encounter.”
“At least she’s speaking to you. She doesn’t talk to me, although I don’t really give her a chance.”
“Why not?”
That was an open-ended question that Bowie wasn’t willing to answer. There wasn’t a need to rehash an old crush, especially when it couldn’t go anywhere.
“Don’t have anything to discuss, I guess.”
“What’s it like working with her?”
Against his will, his lips turned up into a smile. He could tell Monroe that watching Brooklyn work was easily becoming his favorite hobby and that he thought about purposely skipping parts of his job so he could watch her take care of it. If it were Graham sitting next to him and not Monroe, he’d probably come clean about his lurking. As it was, Monroe only had suspicions about his crush and not actual facts.