Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [59]
Lindsay smiled thinly. “Nice to see you again, Richard. You’ve put on a little weight, haven’t you?”
The comment caused Richard to immediately suck in his stomach, and Cici struggled to keep a straight face.
“Lori,” she said, “Lindsay and Bridget have to get back to the house. They’re leaving now.”
Hugs and kisses followed, promises that everything was going to be fine, inquiries as to whether Lori needed anything from home. As she passed, Lindsay said to Cici, seriously, “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Really,” Cici said, “I’m good.”
“Because we can stay,” Bridget insisted, glancing at Richard.
Cici hugged her. “Thank you.” She hugged Lindsay. “Thank you both.”
“Call if you need anything.” Lindsay held the embrace a moment longer than Cici did.
“Anything at all,” Bridget added, looking anxious.
Cici smiled. “I’m good. Promise.”
When they were gone, Richard observed, “Your friends certainly have aged, haven’t they?”
Cici glared at him. “My friends,” she responded deliberately, “were up all night with your daughter.”
He returned her cold stare measure for measure. “Well, they could have saved themselves the trouble if someone had bothered to let me know what was going on.”
“This is ridiculous,” Cici said. “What are you doing here, anyway? Whoever would have thought you’d fly three thousand miles just because you couldn’t get an answer on the telephone?”
“I’ve flown three thousand miles for dinner,” he replied coolly. “And this is my little girl you’re talking about. Who, might I point out, never broke anything when she lived with me.”
Cici’s smile was as convincing as a circus clown’s and her voice dripping with saccharine as she said, “I really want to slap you right now.”
“I can hear you,” Lori said, but when they both turned, guiltily, to look at her, she was smiling at something that had just appeared on the screen of her telephone.
Richard took her arm and gestured, with a curt nod of his head, toward the door. Lori didn’t even notice when they stepped outside.
Cici had already drawn a breath for rebuttal to whatever it was he was about to say, but he cut her off. “Listen,” he said lowly in that way he had of commanding attention without demanding it. “I can see you’re in a mood, and I understand why. I know it’s been a rough night for you. But whatever else you think of me, Lori is my kid and I’m crazy about her. You scared the hell out of me, okay? Leaving a message like that—accident, surgery—what was I supposed to think?”
Cici could see the remnants of raw emotion in his eyes and she felt a stab of remorse. “I’m sorry” she mumbled, dropping her gaze. “I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his thick wavy hair. “I guess I can understand that. But how about we call a truce for a while, huh? Just give me a break and let me enjoy the fact that I get to spend a little bonus time with my daughter and not...” There was actually a catch in his voice. “Attend a funeral. Okay?”
“Oh, Richard.” Cici tried to imagine what the cross-country plane trip must have been like for him, but her mind balked. She touched his arm, feeling miserable.
He looked down at her hand, and then at her eyes, and she was surprised by the tenderness she thought she saw there. She quickly withdrew her hand.
“I think,” she said, shifting her gaze away, “I’ll go to the hotel and wash my hair.”
Richard regarded her appraisingly. “Good plan,” he replied, and, just like that, the Richard she knew was back, and whatever sympathy she had begun to feel for him evaporated.
Cici scowled. “Tell Lori I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
But Richard had already turned away, pushing through the door to Lori’s room, and as she left she heard his voice booming cheerily, “So, sweet pea, killer motor scooters aside, how do you like the school?”
And, perhaps even more irritating, Lori actually looked up from texting long enough to reply. Neither one of them noticed when Cici left.
At the corner of the driveway to the house, there was a sign, hand-painted by Lindsay and decorated with