“Go to sleep, now,” Tess said.
After she had coaxed Nate upstairs again, it had taken a long while to settle her down enough to get ready for bed.
“But—”
“I told you, honey,” she said gently, “we’ll all have a lot of talking to do in the morning. And, Nate,” she added, forcing more firmness into her tone, “remember what else I told you. Nothing good will come of it if I find you out of your room and anywhere you shouldn’t be tonight.”
“I know,” Nate mumbled, dragging the sheet up almost over her head. “And I said I’m sorry I listened again.”
Torn between tears and a smile, Tess leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She closed the bedroom door quietly behind her.
As she went down the stairs, she cringed, knowing she hadn’t been entirely truthful with Nate. Yes, they would talk in the morning. But by then, the important things would have been said.
She could understand Nate’s feelings at the thought that Caleb planned to go off and leave her. How could she not understand, when she’d once suffered through the experience herself? When she’d dreaded it happening once more?
But she’d learned something tonight, with Caleb’s announcement. While the thought of losing him again had broken her heart, too, this time she was strong enough to handle it.
The idea of losing her daughter was a whole other subject.
For the second time in her life, Tess was going to take a stand against a man who wanted to force her into a situation she wouldn’t accept. And now, it wasn’t just her own future at stake, but her daughter’s.
Caleb was about to find out just how rebellious she could be.
She marched into the living room, where he sat on the couch staring down at a magazine.
She tossed the afghan from the rocker onto the ottoman and took a seat. She didn’t need anything to hold on to now—but her temper.
“Caleb, I haven’t said this to Nate, but I’m saying it to you. You told her you were sorry you weren’t part of her life, and you seemed sincere about it. I’m glad to know that. I’m sorry for the way things worked out for all three of us—though you had a lot to do with that.” She paused, pressed her lips together for a long moment, then went on. “I had a lot to do with it, too.” Clamping her hands on the rocker’s arms, she struggled to keep her voice calm. And failed miserably. “I don’t care how much you regret not being around for Nate. You’ll never be able to make up for lost time with her. It’s gone. Just as you’ll be gone, as of tomorrow. But you are not taking her with you.”
She stared him down, daring him to argue.
He looked back at her for a long time, his green eyes glowing in the light from the table lamp. Finally, he said simply, “Of course not.”
She blinked. “Just like that?”
“Yeah, just like that. I don’t want Nate with me.”
His arrogant tone, so like her grandfather’s, stunned her. His careless attitude made her heart hurt. And as irrational as it might be, as a mother she felt overwhelmed by the need to rage at him for the cruelty of his words. How dare he dismiss Nate so coldly?
“You must have one hell of an opinion of me, Tess, if you think I’d take a nine-year-old away from her mama.” He laughed just as arrogantly as he’d spoken, and she realized his attitude had been directed at her, not Nate. He rose from the couch. “Good night.”
He turned to leave the room. She did nothing to stop him. There was nothing she could do to make the situation any better. Saying anything at all might make things worse.
Nate would stay here with her. That had to be enough.
She had gotten what she’d wanted.
And lost the dream she’d unknowingly been holding on to since the day Caleb had left Flagman’s Folly years ago.
* * *
Caleb had put a good number of miles behind him before the sun sent even a glimmer into his rearview mirror. He’d wanted to be away from the inn and out of town long before anyone else was up.
After he’d left Tess in the living room last night, he’d knocked first on Roselynn’s door and then on Nate’s to say his farewells. Better to do it right away than wait till morning.
Easier than running into Tess again.
Roselynn took the news hard, but he told her she hadn’t seen the last of him. He’d be back. He just didn’t say when.
Nate stared at him, blinking away tears she wouldn’t let fall, and near broke his heart. He tucked her in and kissed her forehead and said goodbye. He told her the same things he’d told Roselynn, but unlike her gram, Nate didn’t accept his word. She wouldn’t let him leave her room until he’d made promises. So he’d made them, wondering how many he could keep.
Tess...
He didn’t want to think about Tess. To think she could even suggest he’d take Nate away from her. It proved how little respect she had for him.
About as much as he had for himself.
He gripped the steering wheel and squinted through the windshield. Now, away from the inn and Flagman’s Folly, he could finally get some perspective. And he didn’t like what he saw.
The road ahead of him was bare. Empty. At the end of it he would find the airport and the flight home to his ranch in Montana.
Behind him lay the only things that really mattered.
Flagman’s Folly itself, the place where he’d found acceptance from folks. Where he’d had it all along, no matter what he’d told himself over the years.
Roselynn and Ellamae, two women who looked out for his interests, something his own mama had never done.
Nate, the daughter who cared about him even though he’d never been a daddy to her.
And Tess.
Again, he didn’t want to think about Tess, but he had to face the truth. To admit she had good reason for feeling the way she did about him.
Yet she’d never given him a chance to make peace with her.
With that thought, he acknowledged what he hadn’t been able to admit before. What he couldn’t put into words even now.
And with that thought, he also knew he couldn’t go.
For better or for worse, he had to tell Tess how he felt. He had to hope she could find it in her heart to let him make up for his past mistakes.
Leaving the bare road ahead, he gunned the engine and swung the truck in a tight, hard U-turn. A loud thump sounded from the back of the truck, and he muttered under his breath. He’d forgotten about his suitcase.
But suitcases didn’t yell “Ow!”
He pulled to the side of the road and parked with his flashers going. After he’d walked around to the back of the truck, he rested his crossed arm on the edge of the tailgate and waited.
When he had put the suitcase into the truck bed that morning, he’d seen the tarps he had tossed in there after he’d finished painting and then had forgotten to bring them back to Sam. He’d shrugged, figuring he would have the car rental place get rid of them. Sam wouldn’t lose sleep over a couple of drop cloths.
Now a pair of hands crept out from the edge of a tarp and pushed it aside. Nate sat up and stared at him.
“Good morning,” he said. “How’s everything?”
“Coulda been fine, except that big bag rolled over and squished me.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m okay.” She paused, then said tentatively, “Are you mad ’cause I’m here?”
“No. But what brings you here?”
“You did.” She sounded surprised. She crawled across the truck bed over to where he still stood with his arms on the tailgate. Slowly, she rose to her knees in front of him and looked him in the eye. “I got in the truck because I didn’t know what time you were leaving. Then I fell asleep.”
“I told you last night,” he reminded her quietly, “I can’t take you with me.”
“But I thought if I hid till we got to the airport, you’d have to.”
“Nate...”
“Never mind.” She gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “I can’t go, anyway. I can’t leave Becky and Gram and Aunt El. And Mom.” She squinted and looked away, but not before he saw the tears filling her eyes. “I know I fight with her a lot. I’ll try to get better about that. ’Cause I really need my mom.” She blinked, swallowed hard and looked back at him. “But I... I need a daddy, too.”
His chest tightened until he could barely breathe. He had to blink several times, himself.
He could see in Nate’s eyes and face how she felt. She couldn’t say the words yet, and he wouldn’t, either. It was too soon for both of them.
But she loved him. As much as he loved her.
His daughter loved him. The knowledge gave him confidence even as it raised another question in his mind.
Could her mother ever love him, too?
“You look kinda funny,” she said. “You sure you didn’t stop the truck ’cause you’re mad at me?”
“No, I’m not mad at all. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Then why?”
“I was headed home.”
“That’s why you almost killed me with that bag?”
Swallowing a laugh, he nodded.
She looked past him and then over her shoulder, east and west along the highway. Her eyes widened in astonishment. “This truck’s going back to Flagman’s Folly!”
“So are we, Anastasia Lynn.”
“Really? Wow!” She grinned. “Okay... Daddy.” She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “Let’s go home.”
* * *
She’d looked everywhere, and still, she couldn’t find Nate.
Tess tried to stay calm, to keep from letting her mom know how upset she was. She must have succeeded, because when she went to the kitchen to share the news of Nate’s disappearance, Roselynn simply gave a rueful shake of her head.
“Oh, sugar, don’t fret. She’s probably just run off again to Lissa’s like she did the other day.”
“I’m not sure about that. I imagine when Caleb told you last night he was leaving, he stopped by Nate’s room, too. I think she’s run away over that, because when I went up there a couple of hours ago, she was already gone.”
That got her mother’s attention. “Before 5:00 a.m.?”
Nate never woke up that early. Tess didn’t often, either, but then, she’d never gone to sleep last night. “Yes,” she said, “before five.”
“Have you called Dana?”
She nodded. “Nate wasn’t there.”
“How about the other girls?”
“I didn’t want to try them too early. Besides, you know Nate would go to Lissa.”
“But it’s been two hours. Or more.”
“I know. I’m going to call the girls after I check the house one more time, just to make sure she’s not hiding somewhere.” She had gotten as far as the dining room when she heard the front door open.
She hurried to the doorway and gave a sigh of relief when her daughter entered the house.
“Nate! Where in the world have you—?”
Caleb stepped into the entryway behind Nate and closed the door. He put a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “She was with me.”
He’d taken Nate with him, after all? Immediately, she shook her head. No, of course, he wouldn’t have done that.
As if he’d read her thoughts, he said, “She stowed away in the truck.”
Nate nodded emphatically. “Yeah, I hid in the back. He didn’t know I was there.”
As calmly as she could, Tess nodded. She and Nate would discuss her new habit of running away some other time. Right now, she felt so relieved to see her daughter, she could have cried.
But she hated herself for the briefest second of hope she’d felt when Caleb had stepped into the house. He had come back only to return Nate.
She looked at him and said stiffly, “Thank you for bringing her home.”
“He was coming back, too, Mom. He turned the truck around before he found me.”
Tess nodded again. But she couldn’t read anything into that. She knew better than to believe in her dream.
“Nate,” Caleb said, “your mama and I have an errand to run. Why don’t you go find your gram and tell her we’ll be back in an hour or so?”
“Sure.”
She smiled up at him, and he ruffled her hair.
Tess had to blink away tears.
Nate crossed the entryway and almost threw her off balance with an unexpected hug. Then she slipped past her into the dining room and shouted, “Hey, Gram, what’s for breakfast?”
Her voice faded, her footsteps did, too, and still Caleb stood in the doorway. “Can we talk?” he asked. “Away from here?”
Shrugging, she nodded. Talk couldn’t hurt her. Not any more than she hurt already.