Castaway Cove by Joann Ross Page B

woman in town wants to marry you.”
    “I’m sure that was an exaggeration.”
    “Kenny’s mom sure was after you. She was looking to trap you the same way people do those crabs they pull up off the dock. You need to watch out,” she warned. “Because having a bad mom would be a lot worse than not having my mom live with us.”
    “Is that hard on you?” he asked with a casualness he was a very long way from feeling.
    “I miss Mommy sometimes.” Her voice was small and sad, which reminded him of himself so many years ago.
    Their situations weren’t exactly the same, but he sure hadn’t talked to any grown-ups about losing his dad. And although his mother hadn’t dated all that much, he remembered resenting any man who’d come to the house. Until Dr. Boyd Buchanan, who had not only possessed the patience to ignore Mac’s less-than-compliant behavior, but had proven to be the real deal.
    He might not have been a fighter pilot with a cool uniform and helmet, but he had taught Mac how to build a radio, and encouraged him to follow his own dream instead of going to medical school, like Mac sometimes suspected his mother would’ve preferred.
    “I love your grandpa Buchanan a whole lot,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my first dad. And sometimes I wish he could see what a wonderful granddaughter he has.”
    “Poppy says people who die go to heaven and can see everything. So Grandpa Culhane probably knows all about me.” Her small forehead furrowed as she considered that for a minute. “I hope he isn’t disappointed that I hit Kenny.”
    “He’d understand. I would’ve done the same thing,” Mac admitted. He wasn’t certain that was the right lesson to teach his daughter, but he’d promised both her and himself that he would never lie to her.
    “Poppy always says family’s the most important thing,” Emma said. “And it was wrong what Kenny said.”
    “True. But you have to promise me, no more hitting.”
    She sighed again in a way that had him wondering if all little girls could be so expressive, or if, just perhaps, he had a budding actress on his hands. More to worry about, as visions of his innocent daughter moving to Hollywood and running into guys like he’d once been flashed through Mac’s mind.

13
    Emma loved visiting her daddy’s grandfather. Unlike her daddy and granddaddy, who she knew sometimes got busy and weren’t paying her their total attention, Poppy always leaned forward in his chair, his eyes right on hers whenever she’d tell him things. Sometimes his lips even moved right along with her, as if he knew just what she was going to say before the words came out of her mouth.
    “What the blue blazes happened to you, girl?” he’d asked as soon as she walked into his room at Still Waters, where he lived with a lot of other grandmas and grandpas who’d gotten the Alzheimer’s. There were also cats and dogs living there, which sometimes was her favorite part of her visits.
    Although her daddy had made her go home and change out of her dirtied clothes and put a Disney Princess Band-Aid on her elbow after he’d washed it and put cream on it, her poppy’s eyes had gone straight to her
eye.
Her grandpa, who was a doctor, had put frozen peas on it, but she could still feel it swelling up.
    “I hit a mean boy. Then he hit me back.”
    “Did he deserve it?”
    “He said a bad thing about your Alzheimer’s. That it was like chicken pox and people could catch it. So I gave him a bloody nose.” She may have had to apologize, but the memory of that moment still made her smile.
    “Good for you,” he said.
    “Pops,” her daddy said in that quiet, warning way of his.
    “Girl was sticking up for family,” her poppy said. “Which was exactly what she should do.”
    Emma beamed as she reached into her book bag and took out the picture she’d drawn for him. “It’s the Fourth of July fireworks,” she said. “I’m sorry you won’t be able to come see them