I climb the front steps two at a time, unlock the front door, and shove it open.
“Chloe!” I yell as soon as I cross the threshold. When she doesn’t respond immediately, I shout her name again. “Chloe! We need to talk right now!”
I circle around the front stairs and go down the hall to the kitchen. She’s not there, so I walk into the den, over to the back staircase, and take those steps two at a time on my way to her room. As I approach, an open door becomes obvious. With just that, I know she’s probably not in there, but I continue until I’m far enough to look inside anyway.
“Chloe!” I yell again, a little edge of panic starting to make its way in alongside the anger.
Where is she?
I jog back down the stairs with ankle-snapping speed and circle back into the den, my head swinging back and forth and coming up empty once again. I’m just about to head back out to my truck to find my phone when she steps inside from the back patio, an undeniable look of culpability on her face.
“Chloe,” I say, this time as calmly as I can manage.
A lone tear runs down her cheek almost immediately, but I try to stay strong in my role as a father who needs to question his daughter when she does something incredibly stupid.
“What were you thinking?” I ask, my voice rising in irritation.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, and a few more tears stream down her cheeks.
Shit. For as angry and desperate for answers as I am, I still can’t ignore the power of her sadness on my own emotional scale. It’s incredibly ironic that I, the former Navy SEAL, can crumble like a ton of bricks at the mere sight of my daughter’s discomfort.
With two long steps, I pull her into a tight hug.
She shoves her face into my chest, and the waterworks amplify in intensity.
“Hey, Chlo,” I say softly. “Calm down, okay? Shh.”
Gah, I hate when she cries. Why does it suck so much when a woman cries?
“So, it’s safe to say, you’re familiar with why I’ve come home?” I start, and she nods into my chest, squeezing her arms tighter.
I sigh and let my lips fall forward to her hair.
“Calm down, and let’s just talk, okay?”
She shakes her head, and I almost laugh. Apparently, the music Chloe thinks she’s about to face sounds like the song they play at funerals in New Orleans.
“I’m not going to yell. We’re just going to talk,” I promise.
She takes her face out of my chest and looks up at me, her mascara a smeared mess not entirely unlike that of an almost-drowned Holley Fields. “You’re not going to yell?” she asks to confirm.
I smile. “I wanted to. But no. There’s no need anymore. I just need you to be honest with me. No lies, no details left out. I need to know what exactly you were thinking. And, Chlo?”
She looks up at me with quivering lips.
“I need to know it right now.”
Finally, she nods, stepping back and wiping the skin under her eyes with both hands. “Okay,” she agrees. “But I really need cookies for this, so can we please go into the kitchen?”
I laugh before nodding in agreement. “Yeah, cookies sound pretty good right now.”
She nods. “I’ll make some.”
“While we talk,” I order. “No delaying the inevitable, got me?”
She nods yet again. “I can bake and talk at the same time.”
“Good.” I walk her into the kitchen and into the pantry where she can gather the ingredients she needs. I decide I’ll give her the peace to do that without me barking questions in her ear, but not much else. After all, baking is pretty precise, and despite everything, I really would like to be able to eat some of these cookies.
“You get started getting everything you need,” I tell her. “I’m going back out to my truck to get my phone. I’ll be right back.”
She nods mutely, and I turn and make my way to the front door, walk down the steps, and lean in the passenger side of my truck to get my phone, keys I left in the ignition, and the article from the front seat.
When I get back inside, I lock the front door and head for the kitchen again. Chloe is already at the kitchen island, adding ingredients to the bowl.
I toss the paper onto the counter next to her, the heart-circled ad right there for her to see.
“Single Dad Seeks Juliet?” I question simply, pulling out a stool at the island and sitting down across from her.
She winces, cutting open a bag of chocolate chips, dumping them into the bowl and stirring them in with a wooden spoon.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time?” she says, the inflection of remorse tinged with an obvious air of excuse-making.
She regrets getting caught; that much is certain. But I don’t think she regrets doing it at all. And I desperately need to know why.
“Chloe,” I prompt, and she sighs.
“Okay, fine. I…maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I had to do it.”
I furrow my brow. “I don’t understand.”
“I had to, Dad. I had to try everything—do everything I could—to look out for you the way you looked out for me.”
“I’m not your responsibility, Chloe. And my love life certainly isn’t. I’m the parent, and you’re the child. Simple as that.”
“No,” she dissents immediately. “It’s not that simple, and you know it.”
“It is,” I insist. “I take care of you. Not the other way around. It’s my job as a parent.”
“It’s your job to make sure I’m fed and clothed and loved, Dad, but you’ve always gone way, way, way above and beyond that, haven’t you?”
“Chloe—”
“No!” she snaps, and I almost open my mouth to tell her to cut the attitude, but she beats me to the verbal punch. “It wasn’t your job to join a single dads’ club when I was a toddler to make sure you were doing all you could to help me adjust to growing up without a mom.”
“Chloe,” I whisper.
“And it wasn’t your job to take me to tea parties when everyone else was there with their mom, or dance on stage to help me at my first recital when I couldn’t remember the moves.”
Emotion crawls into my throat and thickens it so much I don’t know if I’ll be able to swallow.
“It wasn’t your job to take a lesson at the salon so you’d know how to do my hair, or go to the women’s center to research all you could about getting your period so it wouldn’t catch me off guard.”
She stops stirring and leans into the counter to look me in the eye, her amber ones shining brightly with unshed tears.
“You went the extra mile to be the absolute best father you could be, but that wasn’t your job. Just like taking care of you isn’t mine. But I’m going to do it anyway, and I’m going to do it the way you always did with me. Maybe signing you up to be the bachelor in some newspaper thingie was extra, but I stand by it.”
“Chloe.”
“I’m grown, Dad. Grown,” she emphasizes. “My needs are different than they used to be. Now, I need to know you’re set. You’ve been my best friend for my entire life, and if you don’t want happiness for your friend, you’re not really a friend at all.”