Page 43 of Snowed In with My Best Friend's Dad

I returned her eye roll. "That's not long enough to decide to live with anyone. Not at this stage in your life. You need to finish school, get a job... heaven forbid if you got pregnant.”

"You don’t look as old as you act."

"I'm an old man who is your father.”

"Can we just eat?"

"Right." I turned back to preparing dinner as Lindsay set the table. We were silent, and I knew that our behavior when things got tense wasn’t necessarily right.

But once I got the meal on the table, the evening went well as long as we stayed away from the topic of Liam. Even so, my mind was never far from wondering what happened to Miranda. Why the hell did she pack up and leave and not want to be contacted by Lindsay?

The question nagged at me for the next week. So much so that I hired a private investigator to find Miranda and to let me know what she was up to.

"Are you looking for anything specific? Cheating? Stealing?”

“No. I just want to know that she’s okay. Is she still in school? Working? Where is she living?"

The PI seemed perplexed by my request but took the job. Two weeks later, he returned with a report and photos.

"She's living with her father." He handed over a photo while he rattled off an address. The house looked tired and in need of repairs. It made me think of the home I grew up in.

"What about school?" I had a gnawing worry that she quit to get away from Lindsay, not because of Lindsay but because of me.

"She's taking her courses virtually."

Thank fuck, and yet, it was still strange.

"She's student teaching at a nearby high school."

Relief flooded me. It was bad enough that I’d been so cruel to her. I didn't want it to have impacted her life.

“Is she working?"

"She has a part-time gig as a tutor. She does some in-person and some online.”

Even better. She was finishing school and pursuing her dream.

"She mostly stays home except for her student teaching or tutoring, which she does at the local library." He handed me pictures of her at school and the library. I felt guilty looking at them. I was a voyeur into her life.

"The only other place she's gone in the last two weeks is a women's clinic. "

I looked up at him. "Is she sick?” The idea of it unsettled me, especially since Lindsay indicated that she’d been ill on New Year’s and pushing herself too hard in school.

"That I don't know, and with privacy laws, it would be difficult to get that information.”

“You got the school information.” Surely, the school had privacy laws.

He smirked. "I said she was up for a job after graduation so they confirmed that she was still enrolled but was taking courses virtually. As far as the clinic, it's one used by people in the area who don't have good insurance or any insurance at all. It provides free screenings for women, so it was probably that. My wife goes to the doctor every year to get her ‘girlie bits’—her words, not mine—checked out."

That made sense but didn't fully alleviate my concern. “Thank you.” I slid the pictures back to him.

"They're yours. And here's my report.” He put the pictures into an envelope and handed it to me. I felt dirty for having them. Like I'd violated Miranda all over again.

I stared at the envelope on my desk, determining I’d take it home and burn it.

After the PI left, I followed him out for a meeting with Dunc. As expected, the gyms were doing well. Dunc ran over ideas for the "getting ready for the beach" promotion.

"It’s barely even March." The bitter cold told me summer was still several months out.

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