Page 66 of A Texas Hero

“I thought you never went back to high school reunions. The last time you went, they had to hire extra security.”

“I don’t.”

“Did you reconnect on classmates dot net or something?”

“Believe it or not, it was through a celebrity dating app.”

“You joined a dating app?”

“Yeah, I was…talked into it.”

“So this Robin is a celebrity?”

He shook his head. “Not at all.”

That meant she’d somehow lied to get herself on the celebrity app. It sounded like Robin just wanted to marry someone famous. Zoey didn’t understand how her poor father couldn’t see through this ruse. She obviously had an agenda.

“She has a good friend who’s a movie producer,” her father continued. “And when this friend was scrolling, she saw my name and told Robin. Apparently she…used to talk about me.”

“Hmm. No doubt. So, this friend simply got you two together, off the app?”

“Exactly. She made the connection, told Robin, then when Robin said she’d be happy to meet, her friend told me through the app. We decided we’d just get together, you know, catch up. We’d definitely lost touch.” Daddy cleared his throat. “We had one date, and it felt like we just picked up where we left off. Like no time at all had passed.”

“She’s your age?”

“Actually, she’s a year older.” Patch chuckled. “She never forgot me. But she was married, too, just like me. She’s a widow. All these years later, we have a lot in common. Even our pasts are similar.”

Zoey’s stomach hurt. More and more, this sounded like one of the second-chance reunions she loved reading about. It was different in real life, watching it happen to your own father.

“Anyway—” her father sighed “—that’s why it happened so fast. We know each other, we fell back in love, and I’m not willing to waste any more time.”

Zoey felt like a hypocrite. She didn’t want this kind of love for her father, not now. It was too soon, but she didn’t know how to stop it. It wasn’t in her nature to be cruel and accuse Robin of being a gold digger, even though that’s what she thought she was. But she’d have to thoroughly vet this woman who dared to take her mother’s place.

Her daddy left not long after dropping his truth bomb. Zoey walked him to the door, hugging him goodbye. Even if she hated all this, she loved her father. She would try to give this woman a chance, for his sake. Robin would be flying in tonight, and he wanted Zoey to meet her tomorrow. They were to have dinner at Le Ouragan the restaurant at the hotel where they were staying. Just the three of them and their three bodyguards. Perfectly normal. They were simply a normal, average, American family. Right.

This was all so unexpected that Zoey’s brain had a ton of rearranging to do. She was going to have to remodel and build entire new rooms in her mind for this to fit. She didn’t even know her father had been on dating apps, or that there was some exclusive dating app for celebrities called Shhh. Really?

What a strange experience. Surreal. Her father had loved somebody else before he met Zoey’s mother. She’d always thought they were each other’s first love, but they’d met in college.

Zoey didn’t know how long she’d been sitting on a stool in the kitchen when Archer walked in and said, “Are you okay?”

“I had never heard of this woman before. Why did I never hear about her?”

“Just going out on a limb here, but maybe because she was firmly in his past. He married your mother. Robin wasn’t important before.”

“But she is now.”

“Zoey,” Archer said, voice low and filled with compassion. “I know this is hard.”

“No, you can’t imagine! Hard? This is like a root canal without anesthesia!”

“That bad, huh?”

“I don’t want him to marry again so soon. It’s not right.”

Archer cocked his head. “Is this coming from the lover of love? From the woman who decorated her store with yellow and orange hearts for the season? Who mailed out engraved invitations to a house party? Who celebrates Sweetheart Day because Valentine’s Day isn’t enough?”

Zoey flashed him a scowl. Oh, gosh, she hated when people called her out on stuff. That had always been her mother’s job. Sometimes Twyla tried, but she didn’t have the temperament for it. Too sweet and understanding.