BY DINNERTIME THE day after, Cade was about ready to lock both girls in their room and blare something depressing and painful to drown out the bickering and cartoons.
Instead, he opened the door to their room to get them to wash up for dinner. Lora made an odd noise and quickly shoved something under the messy covers of her bed.
Cade frowned at her. “What did you just hide from me?”
“Nothing,” Lora said, sitting straight up on her bed, hands shoved under her butt, blue eyes wide.
“Lora May. What are you hiding from me?”
“Nothing!”
“She stole something from Grandma June’s house,” Ellie blurted.
Cade could only stare, dumbfounded, at his angelic, good-hearted youngest. “You stole?”
“Yesterday. She took one of Grandma June’s paperweights from JJ’s room,” Ellie continued. She didn’t even sound like she was smug over getting Lora in trouble. She seemed troubled.
“I wasn’t stealing!” Lora shouted as she glared at Ellie.
“Taking something from someone without them knowing it is stealing, Lora May Mathewson. I’m so disappointed in you.”
Lora’s face crumpled and she immediately burst into sobs. “It’s pretty and... I just wanted to have it.”
He wanted to bundle her up and tell her it was fine, but of course it wasn’t. She’d stolen something. His baby, who was old enough to know better.
“Get it. Then get your shoes on. We’re going to JJ, and you’re going to tell her what you did.”
Cade didn’t wait for the wailing and begging. He marched into the living room, trying to keep some semblance of calm.
He’d never had any real problems with the girls. Sure, tantrums and talking back. But they were angels at school, and only tried his patience at home.
Lora had stolen. Something from JJ, the number one woman he didn’t want to see right now.
He couldn’t be a coward if he didn’t want his daughter to be one, though. He gathered his wallet, keys and hat, then put on his shoes while Ellie gently pulled Lora to the door.
At least that he could be proud of. When push came to shove, the girls loved each other and helped each other out.
Lora sniffled and begged all through getting her shoes on and marching out to the truck. Cade didn’t know how many times he almost caved, but it only took a look at the little paperweight clutched in Lora’s hand to remind him this was necessary.
Lora had taken something of June’s. It wasn’t just a dollar, or some random toy. It was a prized possession of June’s—irreplaceable to those June had left behind.
Cade drove to June’s in relative silence, only punctuated by Lora’s occasional sniffles and Ellie’s sad sighs.
As Cade pulled up the drive, he frowned at the fact there was a truck in the drive. A strange twist of jealousy and longing, completely out of place, washed through him.
“Daddy. Can’t you tell JJ?” Lora implored from the back.
Broken from his reverie, Cade shook his head. “No. We’re all going up there and you’re going to tell JJ what you did.”
Lora sniffled, and Cade had no doubt she was crying again. No matter how it broke his heart, he would not let his daughter ever think taking just because she wanted was acceptable.
He pulled her out of her booster seat and set her down even when she held on to him.
“You’ll walk, young lady. You’ll walk up there and explain what you did and give it back.”
Lora stalled and dragged her feet and took approximately a million years to make it up to the front door, but Cade refused to snap or give in. He held Ellie’s hand behind Lora’s interminable progress, and didn’t go up the stairs until she did.
When she looked back at him with tears in her eyes, he only nodded toward the door. With a trembling mouth, she turned back and knocked so lightly on the door Cade doubted a mouse would have heard it.
Then Ellie about broke his heart and stepped forward and knocked for Lora.
JJ opened the door with a bright smile on her face, but it died when she saw him. Which broke the rest of his heart. Then she looked down at the girls and immediately dropped to a crouch. “What’s wrong?” she asked, resting her hands on Lora’s shoulders.
Lora held out the paperweight. JJ took it with a confused frown. “How did you get this?”
“I... I’m sorry, but I put it in my pocket and took it home.”
JJ cocked her head, studying Lora and then the paperweight in her hand. “You meant to take it home with you?” she asked gravely.
Lora nodded, hanging her head, and making little crying noises again. JJ took a deep breath, but if she was angry she didn’t show it.
“Taking it without asking me was wrong,” JJ said quietly. “I know you know that.”
Lora launched herself at JJ, nearly knocking her over. “Please don’t hate me,” she sobbed.
“No. I don’t. I could never hate you.” JJ held her tight, giving Cade a brief pained look before returning her gaze to Lora. “I’m sad that you took something from me, but I’m proud of you for apologizing and admitting you did something wrong. People make mistakes, sweetheart—it’s fixing them that matters.”
“Daddy made me,” she whispered dejectedly.
“But you did it.”
“I’m sorry, JJ.”
“I know you are.” She gave Lora a squeeze, then gently set her back on her feet. “Thank you for coming to tell me the truth. Apology accepted.”
Lora sniffled and stepped back toward him.
“Well, I wanted her to give it back and apologize,” Cade said, sounding stiff and ridiculous to his own ears.
Because he wanted this—her. A partnership. Someone to help him with this incessantly hard parenting thing. He wanted her in his house and them in town together as a family. But he’d eased away instead.
Because you had to. Because her life isn’t here. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to take all this on, and even if she wanted to now, he knew how quickly that could all change. Better safe than sorry. For his girls. “So we’ll be going now.”
JJ frowned at him as she stood back up. She didn’t say anything, so he took the girls by the hands and led them back to the truck.
“Can’t we stay, Daddy? It looked like JJ was having a party,” Lora whispered.
“Not tonight, sweetheart.” Or any night. She would still be in their lives what little she decided to be, but he couldn’t...do it with them.
Then what does that make you?
He picked Lora up, plopped her into her seat and, unable to hold on to his anger with her, gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“Buckle up, girls,” he murmured, closing the back door.
“Cade?”
Cade looked back at the house, lit up in the dark. The days were starting to get shorter, inch by inch. Fall would be here before he knew it—back to school and then winter and Christmas, and this house would not be part of any of those things anymore.
It was the house he was worried about losing, not the determined woman walking toward him.
He swallowed, wishing he could run away. Wasn’t that what he’d always done? Used Ellie and Lora as shields against the hurt in his life?
JJ stopped on her side of the gate. “I wanted to let you know I’m staying,” JJ said, her voice firm and sure. Her words...nonsensical.
“Staying where?”
She frowned. “Here. In Jasper Creek. I quit my job, and I’m staying. You know, beyond summer. Forever.”
“Here.” It echoed around the hot summer night and still it didn’t make sense. Staying. Here. Forever.
“That’s what I said.”
“Oh.” He didn’t have anything better to say because he didn’t...believe her. Yes, that was that panic clawing at his chest again. Not fear. Not hope. Disbelief. “Okay.”
“Okay? That’s all you’re going to say? Okay?”
“I...”
“Forget it,” she muttered, whirling around and stomping back in the house filled with other people, apparently.
Which was fine, because they should all forget it. All of them.
He got in his truck and shoved the key into the ignition, ready to drive away from June Gable’s house, and granddaughter, forever. Because running was what he did, damn it.
But when he turned the key, the truck didn’t make any sound at all.