Sleeping ’til Sunrise by Mary Calmes Page B

times—that her mother was altogether gone and all she had was me.
    A lot of that pain and desolation had run through her system by the time we reached the sleepy little coastal town, but I still thought she’d disintegrate more often. She had moments of falling completely apart, and though there were hundreds in the past, once we moved to Mangrove, she suffered only a handful. I blamed the town. It wasn’t Detroit, full of memories and pain for her. Instead, everywhere she looked was new and shiny and God, so very bright. I’d never worn sunglasses so often in my life.
    “I gotta go,” she said, brushing me off, as she ran to catch up with… Derek. I was pretty sure that was it.
    “Davis!” she called, and he turned and waited and had the balls to wave to me.
    I growled.
    Davis, not Derek, had been on my porch the first weekend they’d met and every one after that. I’d said no, but he was relentless.
    “Why are you here?” I’d asked, irritated, as I stood there in the entryway of my home.
    His smile was blinding. “Mr. Dodd, you realize that I have the utmost respect for your daughter.”
    I sighed deeply. “I’m sure you do, Derek—”
    “Davis,” he corrected. “But you can call me Derek if you want.”
    Which was where the confusion came in. I had the kid’s own permission to re-christen him. “No.”
    “But sir—”
    “She’s fourteen,” I reiterated, as I’d done the last five times he was on my porch.
    “And a half,” he added.
    “Sixteen,” I told him again. “That’s the magic number you’re waiting for here. She doesn’t get to date until she’s sixteen, Der—crap, Davis.”
    “But we can hang out, right?”
    He himself was sixteen, and I knew that because he’d told me so on a number of occasions. “Not alone,” I explained, “because I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
    “She’s the only one who can hurt me, sir, by taking away her smile.”
    He was seriously going to make me vomit.
    Ivy sighed from behind the screen door like she was a character in a Jane Austen novel, and Davis leaned sideways and smiled the smile that would serve him well later on in life when he became President.
    And now he was waving, and she slipped her hand into his as they turned and walked away.
    “I thought she couldn’t date until she was sixteen?” Lazlo Lassiter, formerly Maguire, reformed rent boy, now full-time father, shop owner, and new husband to Britton Lassiter—they had been married at Brenner Manor right on the beach—volleyed as he walked by.
    “She can’t,” I snarled.
    He tipped his head at my girl and her suitor. “That looks like more than friends to me.”
    “I will kill you where you stand,” I warned.
    His shrug, along with a giggle from Katie, his adorable little girl he was currently walking to preschool, told me I wasn’t scary in the least. “It’s sweet,” he assured me.
    I rounded on him and pointed down at the cherub at his side. “I will remind you of this conversation years from now when she starts to date.”
    His eyes bugged out and he looked suitably horrified.
    “Yeah, see that?”
    He muttered something under his breath before tugging his daughter after him, leaving me alone on the side of the road to think about my daughter.
    Ivy had friends, activities, she was grounded and happy. I was needed, of course, but not nearly to the extent I had been.
    My job as fire chief was easy, mostly kittens in trees, CPR classes, checking fire extinguishers, and talking to Mrs. Halsey about bonfires on the beach and getting the correct permits before she and the other seniors got naked and danced around the blaze. Having a group of them all looking at me while I averted my eyes was problematic. I also helped Mr. Sutherland, the deputy mayor, talk to local businesses about fire lanes and how packing boxes in front of emergency exits was not kosher. It was tame, my life, and so I had no excuse, none at all, not to focus on my love life. Or, in Ivy’s