Page 4 of Desired Hearts (Bachelor Pact #2)

PARKER

“Morning, Mr. Scott.”

“Always so formal,” my dad said, heading to the coffee pot.

“Military guys,” I said of Mason. “Also just good manners.”

“Well, it makes me feel old. Parker will do just fine.”

“Doesn’t it get confusing?” Mason asked. “Same name and all.”

Dad and I exchanged a glance. It was like looking into a mirror of the future. Though my brothers were more of a mix, I was 100 percent my father. Add a sprinkle of white hair, some wrinkles and a few extra pounds in my belly, and our similarities didn’t stop at our names.

“Eh, we manage okay.” My father sat down beside me.

“Good time last night,” he said. We’d gone to O’Malley’s, as usual. Although my father only spent about half of the night with us.

“Who was the woman you met?” I asked.

“I’m going to help Pia,” my traitor of a friend said. “See you later, Mr.”—Mason cleared his throat—“Parker,” he amended.

Left alone with him, I tried to dredge up the same feelings I had for the guy when I was younger. When I looked up to him. Before he cheated. Before he left.

“A loan officer,” he said. “Divorced and pretty good-looking too.”

It had been a number of years since my parents split, but I still wasn’t comfortable talking about dating with my dad.

Probably never would be. Maybe if Mom dated too, it would be different.

But she didn’t, despite urging from my brothers and me.

She said her sons and friends were enough, but I had a feeling she’d just been burned too much by Dad’s infidelity to try again.

“You still up for cross-country skiing?” I asked. One thing Dad and I still had in common was anything to do with the outdoors. I had to give him credit for that, at least. He’d taught me all sorts of things, from skiing to fishing and hunting.

“Sure thing. But have to skip out on dinner.”

I’d have asked why, but I already knew. My dad was so goddam predictable. Just to be sure, I said, “The woman?”

“You don’t mind, do you?”

To not have to make small talk with him all day and night? “Nah,” I said, meaning it. “I’m heading into town first to pick up some materials. Do you need anything?”

“Where is Lakeside Pharmacy?” he asked.

Strange question. “It’s just off the square. Why?”

“Can you stop and grab a script for me?”

“For?”

“Nothing special, just forgot one of my meds. Doc called it in this morning. It should be ready by now. I thought we could stop on our way out.”

Dad took a slew of medications. High cholesterol. High blood pressure. He claimed years of owning a car dealership were responsible for both, but it was more likely his affinity for bacon accounted for at least some of his problems.

“I’ll grab it. Be ready in, say, an hour?”

Dad lifted up his coffee mug. “Sounds good.” His smile, so familiar because it often mirrored my own, was disarming. This was probably, among other reasons, why Mom had taken him back so many times. The guy really was a charmer. It was hard to stay mad at him. “I’ll be ready.”

I could hear my mother’s voice in my ear.

He was a shit husband, but a good father. Remember that.

It was my mom who got me speaking to him again after the third affair.

My brothers had no choice since they both worked at the dealership, but Dad and I had a rocky go of it for a while there.

Things still weren’t back to “normal,” whatever that was, but I supposed this weekend was a good thing, even if he was skipping out on part of it.

Him taking two days off from the dealership was a big deal, so I’d at least make an effort.

Grabbing my jacket, I stepped out onto the thin layer of snow that had fallen last night. When I’d get back, I’d toss some rock salt on that. Mason hadn’t left the inn and probably had no idea it had even snowed.

Walking up the hill, I ran to the hardware store first. Cedar Falls town center was a perfect square, its trees and gazebo now barren. In warmer weather, tourists would fill the square and blocks of shops and restaurants around it, but today there were only a handful of stragglers, mostly locals.

“Millie.” I ran up to an older woman trying to open the door of a coffee shop. “Let me get that.” I took her grocery bag. “Why didn’t you have these delivered?”

Escorting her inside, I walked the widow to the counter.

“Walking keeps me young,” she said, pulling the scarf around her neck tighter.

“Understandable, but you have to be careful. Let me bring these to your house while you get coffee,” I said, already knowing she would argue with me.

“Oh, no, no,” she started, but I wasn’t listening.

“I’ll put them by your door. Enjoy your coffee,” I said as Millie chastised me until I was outside. She was a staple at The Coffee Cabin and I’d had more than one cup with her since moving here.

It was only a few blocks out of my way to Millie’s house.

Hers was one of my first construction jobs when I’d moved to Cedar Falls, her husband having hired us to tear down and rebuild their front porch.

By the time I headed back to the square to hit the pharmacy, forgoing another coffee, my dad had texted, asking if we were leaving soon. Patience was not one of his virtues.

Opening the door of Lakeside Pharmacy, I tried to remember the last time I’d been inside. It wasn’t long after I’d moved to Cedar Falls, though I couldn’t remember what I’d needed a prescription for.

It was a small place with a few drug store-type items with the check-out counter and pharmacy in the back. A long, empty counter greeted me. Not completely empty, actually. A bell with a small index card with the words “ring me” scrawled on it was apparently my signal.

I rang the bell.

A woman stepped out from behind the rows of medications. I’d never seen her before.

Her red, medium-length hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked like an actress, though I couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Very little makeup and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks gave her a very wholesome look.

Wholesome. And very, very pretty.

Her white lab coat gave the woman away as a pharmacist. A young one, late twenties maybe? As she approached, it was her smile that enraptured me most. That and the unusual blue-gray color of her eyes.

“Can I help you?”

Her voice was sweet. Peppy. Endearing. Like the woman herself.

“Yeah,” I managed, not used to being tongue-tied. “I’m picking up a prescription for Parker Scott.”

She moved to a box of bags behind her, rifling through them. “Sorry about the service,” she said. “Our clerk called off, and no one was available last minute.”

“You’re the pharmacist?” I asked, silently kicking myself for such a dumb-ass question. Obviously she was.

“I am.” She turned back around, punched something into the register and looked up as I handed her my credit card without asking the price. “Do you have any questions about this?”

Her expression was unreadable, but I was sure mine was anything but. I probably looked like a lovesick teenager or someone who’d never seen a pretty woman before.

But damn, there was something about her. It was the smile.

Lip gloss and mascara. That was all she wore, lip gloss and mascara. Why bother with anything else if you were that naturally pretty?

“No,” I managed. “No questions.”

It’s for my dad.

Thankfully, I didn’t say that out loud too. She probably already thought I had the emotional maturity of a fourteen-year-old.

“Are you from Cedar Falls?” I asked. “I don’t remember seeing you around.”

“I am.”

My phone rang.

She handed me back my card and looked at my pocket as if to ask, “Are you going to answer that?” Why the hell wasn’t my phone on silent, like usual?

I wanted to ignore it. Keep talking to her.

But since our transaction was over, there was no good excuse to stay, especially with my phone being really fucking annoying.

Grabbing it from my pocket, I mumbled a “thank you” and headed back out of the pharmacy.

Not surprisingly, it was my father.

“I’m in my snow pants,” he said, “sweating my balls off.”

Rolling my eyes, I headed out of the pharmacy and back toward the inn.

“I’m on my way,” I said, feeling even more like a teenage kid than I had inside the store.

My father had a way of putting me on the defensive, as if I weren’t a thirty-two-year-old man.

“And why the hell are you wearing your snow pants?”

Thinking better of it, I added, “Never mind. I’ll be there in five.”

“Good,” he said. “Oh, and Beck just woke up. Wanted me to ask you about grabbing a sausage and egg sandwich from The Coffee Cabin.”

“Tell him I’m already running late and to eat a piece of fruit.”

“He said to eat a piece of fruit,” my dad told Beck, who was apparently with him still. “I won’t repeat what he said.”

Beck. What a piece of work.

“Fair enough. I’ll be there in five.”

Hanging up, I turned off my ringer and headed back down the hill, thoughts of a certain redhead floating through my mind.

Who was she?

It wouldn’t take much to figure out. I’d ask Mason or Beck. Between the two of them, they knew every single person in Cedar Falls, especially the women. Hell, chances were that one of them had even dated her, judging by her age, unless she was an implant, like me.

Please, just don’t let it be Beck.