And though she’d never considered herself a nurturer, it made her feel good to be needed.

She waited until they were at the table, until he was well into his meal and on his second glass of wine. “Tell me what happened.”

“Just a lousy day. What did you do with these potatoes? They’re amazing.”

“Secret Ukrainian recipe,” she told him in a thick and exaggerated accent. “If I tell you, then I must kill you.”

“I couldn’t do it anyway. My kitchen wizardry with potatoes ends with my poking a few holes into one and tossing it into the mike. You speak Ukrainian? I heard you speaking French the other day.”

“Yes, I speak Ukrainian, more or less. I also speak and understand English very well. So talk to me, Brody. What happened in your lousy day?”

“One thing, then the other.” He moved his shoulders. “I got two guys out sick—your ballet flu’s making an appearance in West Virginia. Since I had the rest of the crew on another job, it left me pretty shorthanded. Then I mistook my own hand for a sheet of drywall, bled all over the damn place, fired my father and spent a couple hours waiting to get sewn back together in the ER.”

“You had a fight with your father.” She laid a hand over his uninjured one. “I’m sorry.”

“We don’t get along—never have.”

“But you hired him.”

“He’s a good plumber.”

He slid his hand out from under hers, reached for his glass. “Brody.”

“Yeah, I hired him. It was a mistake. It’s tolerable when the other guys are around, but when it’s just the two of us like it was today, it’s asking for trouble. I’m a screwup, always was, always will be. The job’s not being done right, my life isn’t being done right. I’m chasing around after a fancy woman instead of seeing to my own.”

“Now I’m a fancy woman?”

Brody pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I’m sorry. That was stupid, and typical. Once I start on him, I can’t seem to stop.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind being a fancy woman.” She stabbed a bite of steak. Her temper was on slow burn, but a rant wasn’t what Brody needed right now. “He’s probably as miserable and frustrated about what happened as you are. He doesn’t know how to talk to you any more than you know how to talk to him. But that’s not your fault. I hope you can make it up with him, in your own way.”

“He doesn’t see me.”

Her heart broke for him. “Honey, that’s not your fault, either. I wanted my parents to be proud of me, maybe wanted it too much, so I worked, sometimes brutally hard, to be sure they would. That wasn’t their fault.”

“My family’s not like yours.”

“Few are. But you’re wrong. You and Jack—the family you’ve made—it’s a lot like mine. Maybe, Brody, your father sees that, and wonders why he never made that connection with his own son.”