Wish You Were Here by Lani Diane Rich Page B

don’t say things to be nice.”
    Piper shrugged and swiped at her face, not meeting Freya ’s eyes.
    “ Hey,” Freya said. Piper didn’t look at her, so she said it again. “Hey.”
    Piper finally looked up. Freya crossed her legs in front of her as she shifted around to face her.
    “You’re a great kid, Piper, but if you start feeling sorry for yourself, you’re gonna end up being just another whiny little brat who’s pissed off that life didn’t go how she wanted, and that’d be a hell of a waste.”
    Piper sniffled. “Is this supposed to be a pep talk?”
    “ Close as I get to one, yeah,” Freya said. “My point is, if she didn’t want you, that means something’s wrong with her, not you. You understand me?”
    Piper straightened a bit. “Yeah.”
    “ I mean it,” Freya said. “You’re stronger than that and better than that. You need to know, without a doubt, that none of this is because there’s anything wrong with you. You are great.”
    Piper met her eyes, and slowly the doubt in them seemed to recede. “Okay.”
    “ Okay.” Freya stood up and held her hand out to pull Piper to her feet. “You’ve just gone through a hell of an emotional growth spurt, one your future therapist will be hearing about for years to come, and I think we need to celebrate, which means near-lethal doses of fat and sugar.” She eyed Piper. “You like chocolate, right?”
    “ Yeah,” Piper said.
    “ Good woman. Unfortunately, all I’ve got is snowman poop.” She crinkled her nose. “What’s in that stuff, anyway?”
    Piper shook her head. “I don’t know. It looks kinda gross to me.”
    “ Right.” Freya sighed. “What can I say? It was an impulse buy. You got some kind of chocolate back at the house?”
    Piper nodded. “We have Rocky Road. And hot fudge.”
    Freya put her arm around the kid ’s shoulder and led her off the dock.
    “ All right, then,” she said. “Last one back does the scooping.”

 
     
     
    Eight
     
     
    Nate lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He’d been trying to gather his thoughts for an hour, but they were impossibly jumbled. He’d been so close, so close, to having it all figured out. That morning, it had seemed so clear—screw his word, take the money, leave his goddamn father and his father’s goddamn dying wish behind and go back to Cincinnati. It had seemed the obvious best thing for all of them. But Nikkie’s sudden appearance had thrown a new light on everything. Piper didn’t need money, she needed him , she needed his time and attention, and uprooting her from a place where she was happy, where she wanted to stay, to go back to his fifteen-hour-a-day job in a city she hated... it was wrong. Selfish.
    Impossible.
    Almost as impossible as staying there, spending the rest of his life managing a run-down campground in a two-bit town where the only cooking he’d do would be for his tiny family of three. His miserable martyrdom wouldn’t do Piper any good, either.
    Fuck. He rubbed his eyes and, for the millionth time in his thirty-four years, quietly cursed his father.
    The phone rang, and Nate grabbed it off the night- stand.
    “Yeah,” he said.
    “ Brody? That you?”
    It was Clint, one of his partners from the restaurant. Nate pressed his fingers on the bridge of his nose.
    “Hey, Clint. Look, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Can I call you back tomorrow?”
    “ Can’t, man, sorry. I’ve got Eddie here. Gonna put you on speakerphone.”
    There was a click , then the naked hiss of speakerphone, and Nate heard his other partner’s voice coming over the line. “Hey, Nate.”
    “ Eddie. What’s going on?”
    There was a pause on the line, and then Eddie said, “We got a problem. Lulu’s getting restless. She wants head chef permanently, or she’s walking.”
    Fuck. Nate closed his eyes. “Right.”
    “ When are you coming back?” Clint said. “Any idea yet?”
    “ I’m working on it.” Nate sat up and put his