his drooping eyes and looked straight into her face. For a minute, recognition seemed to clarify things for him. “April, sweetheart. When’d you get home?”
“I just now arrived,” she said, sniffing back tears as she briskly wiped her face. “I should have been here sooner, Daddy.”
He waved his hand in the air, then let it fall down on the blue blanket. “No matter. You’re here now. Got to make things right. You and Reed. Don’t leave too soon.”
“What?” April leaned forward, touching his warm brow. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I’m going to stay right here until you’re well again.”
He smiled, then closed his eyes. “I won’t be well again, honey.”
“Yes, you will,” she said, but in her heart she knew he was right. Her father was dying. She knew it now, even though she’d tried to deny it since the day the family doctor had called and told her Stuart Maxwell had taken a turn for the worse. The years of drinking and smoking had finally taken their toll on her tough-skinned father. His lungs and liver were completely destroyed by disease and abuse. And it was too late to fix them now.
Too late to fix so many things.
April sat with her father until the sun slipped behind the treeline to the west. She sat and held his hand, speaking to him softly at times about her life in New York, about how she enjoyed living with Summer and Autumn in their loft apartment in Tribeca. About how much she appreciated his allowing her to have wings, his understanding that she needed to be out on her own in order to see how precious it was to have a place to call home.
Stuart slept through most of her confessions and revelations. But every now and then, he would smile or frown; every now and then he would squeeze her fingers in his, some of the old strength seeming to pour through his tired old veins.
April sat and cried silently as she remembered how beautiful her mother had been. Her parents had been so in love, so perfectly matched. The rancher oilman and the beautiful, dark-haired free-spirited artist. Her father had come from generations of tough Texas oilmen, larger-than-life men who ruled their empires with steely determination and macho power. Her mother had come from a long line of Hispanic nobility, a line that traced its roots from Texas all the way back to Mexico City. They’d met when Stuart had gone to Santa Fe to buy horses. He’d come home with several beautiful Criollo working horses, and one very fiery beauty who was also a temperamental artist.
In spite of her mother’s temper and artistic eccentricities, it had been a match made in heaven—until the day her mother had boarded their private jet for a gallery opening in Santa Fe. The jet had crashed just after takeoff from the small regional airport a few miles up the road. There were no survivors.
No survivors. Her father had died that day, too, April decided. His vibrant, hard-living spirit had died. He’d always been a rounder, but her devout mother had kept his wild streak at bay for many years. That ended the day they buried Celia Maxwell.
And now, as April looked at the skeletal man lying in this bed, she knew her father had drunk himself to an early grave so he could be with her mother.
“Don’t leave me, Daddy,” April whispered, tears again brimming in her eyes.
Then she remembered the day six years ago that Stuart had told his daughter the same thing. “Don’t leave me, sugar. Stay here with your tired old daddy. I won’t have anyone left if you go.”
But then he’d laughed and told her to get going. “There’s a big ol’world out there and I reckon you need to see it. But just remember where home is.”
So she’d gone on to New York, too eager to start her new career and be with her cousins to see that her father was lonely. Too caught up in her own dreams to see that Reed and her daddy both wanted her to stay.
I lost them both, she thought now. I lost them both. And now, I’ll be the one left all alone.
As dusk turned into night, April sat and cried for all that she had given up, her prayers seeming hollow and unheeded as she listened to her father’s shallow breathing and confused whispers.
Reed found her there by the bed at around midnight. Horaz had called him, concerned for April’s well-being.
“Mr. Reed, I’m sorry to wake you so late, but you need to come to the hacienda right away. Miss April, she won’t come out of his room. She is very tired, but she stays. I tell her a nurse is here to sit, but she refuses to leave the room.”
She’s still stubborn, Reed thought as he walked into the dark room, his eyes adjusting to the dim glow from a night-light in the bathroom. Still stubborn, still proud, and hurting right now, he reminded himself. He’d have to use some gentle persuasion.
“April,” he said, his voice a low whisper.
At first he thought she might be asleep, the way she was sitting with her head back against the blue-and-gold-patterned brocade wing chair. But at the sound of his voice, she raised her head, her eyes widening at the sight of him standing there over her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, confusion warring with daring in her eyes.
“Horaz called me. He’s worried about you. He said you didn’t eat supper.”
“I’m not hungry,” she responded, her eyes going to her sleeping father.
“Okay.” He stood silent for a few minutes, then said, “The nurse is waiting. She has to check his pulse and administer his medication.”
“She can do that around me.”
“Yes, she can, but she also sits with him through the night. That’s her job. And she’s ready to relieve you.”
April whirled then, her eyes flaring hot and dark in the muted light from the other room. “No, that’s my job. That should have been my job all along, but I didn’t take it on, did I? I…I stayed away, when I should have been here—”
“That’s it,” Reed said, hauling her to her feet with two gentle hands on her arms. “You need a break.”
“No,” she replied, pulling away. “I’m fine.”
“You need something to eat and a good night’s sleep,” he said, his tone soft but firm.
“You don’t have the right to tell me what I need,” she reminded him, her words clipped and breathless.
“No, I don’t. But we’ve got enough on our hands around here without you falling sick on us, too,” he reminded her. “Did you come home to help or to wallow in self-pity?”
She tried to slap him, but Reed could see she was so exhausted that it had mostly been for show. Without a word, he lifted her up into his arms and stomped out of the room, motioning with his head for the hovering nurse to go in and do her duty.
“Put me down,” April said, the words echoing out over the still, dark house as she struggled against Reed’s grip.
“I will, in the kitchen, where Flora left you some soup and bread. And you will eat it.”
“Still bossing me around,” she retorted, her eyes flashing. But as he moved through the big
