Dockside by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online

Avalon’s local establishments, the Inn at Willow Lake had an Arthurian theme with rooms named after characters from the old legend.
    “Guinevere. Wasn’t she the one who cheated on her husband with his best friend?” Daisy asked archly.
    “That was never proven. The French added it later.” Greg felt a strange and unjustified sense of solidarity with his ex. It was probably because of Daisy’s situation—unmarried and pregnant, with the monumental struggle of single motherhood ahead of her. Despite his differences with Sophie, he shared with her the sense that Daisy was going to need all the support and compassion they could offer. “I’m sure she’d be honored to be your coach.”
    “And you wouldn’t?”
    “Honey, of course I would. But I’m…” Damn. “It would be…” He paused, got up and paced the room, searching for the right word to describe attending your teenage daughter giving birth to your grandchild. “Weird,” he concluded. And that was putting it mildly.
    “Listen, it’s just classes. You learn about the process and signs to watch for, and what to do when things start happening. And in the delivery room, everything is all draped, and you can just deal with me from the neck up. Maybe, um, hold my hand and talk to me, give me ice chips, stuff like that. It didn’t look like that big a deal in the video the doctor gave me to watch.”
    “That’s assuming everything goes according to the video.”
    “Okay, fine,” she said. “Whatever. A birth coach is optional, anyway.”
    “Right, like I’m going to let you do this on your own.” Greg stuck his thumbs in his back pockets and stood at the window, looking out but seeing only memories of his own child being born. He hadn’t been there for Daisy’s birth, of course, thanks to the way Sophie had manipulated the situation. But he’d been present for Max. He remembered the long night, the glare of lights, the pain and the terror and the joy. God, it was yesterday.
    Then he turned back to Daisy, his daughter—his heart. “I’ll do it.”
    “Do what?” asked Max, coming in from the kitchen, trailing shoelaces and backpack straps in his wake. He was eating again. Of course he was. It had been a half hour since dinner. Max, who had the appetite of some hypermetabolic creature in a sci-fi flick, had taken to refueling a couple of times per hour. At the moment, he was eating a Pop-Tart, stone cold out of the wrapper.
    “I’m going to be your sister’s birth coach,” he said. “What do you think of that?”
    “I think you’re out of your freaking mind,” Max said with a shudder.
    “Gosh, and I was going to invite you, too, Max,” Daisy said. “Having you there, holding my hand, would have meant so much to me.”
    “It would mean you finally lost what’s left of your marbles. Geez. ” He shuddered again.
    Greg ground his teeth. Despite the fact that she was pregnant, she still bickered like a third grader with her brother. Although it took some restraint, Greg knew it was best not to intervene when the two of them went at it. The bickering usually played itself out and sometimes even seemed to relieve tension, oddly enough.
    With an older brother and two older sisters, he understood the dynamics of siblings. The main thing was to stand back and let the fur fly. He found this surprisingly easy to do, zoning out while they picked at each other about everything from the way Max ate a Pop-Tart to their cousin Olivia’s upcoming wedding, in which Daisy was to be a bridesmaid, Max an usher.
    “You know you’re going to have to take ballroom dancing lessons,” Daisy told her brother with a satisfied smirk.
    “Better than birthing lessons,” he shot back. “You’ll be, like, the world’s largest bridesmaid.”
    “And you’ll be, like, the world’s dorkiest uncle. Weird Uncle Max. I’m going to teach the baby to call you that.”
    Greg figured if these kids could survive each other, they could survive anything. He left