I hear your dad is struggling a bit. The fall he took last week was pretty bad. When I heard about it, I stopped by his place with a batch of apricot thumbprints and half a dozen cupcakes.”
“Ahh, you’re the best. He loves your thumbprint cookies. Thanks for checking in on him.”
“He’s very excited to have you home.”
“I know.” She couldn’t say too much; her emotions were curled up in a knot about going home to Drew MacDonald. Maybe that’s why she was procrastinating. She’d missed her father, and she loved him. But she was a realist. Her dad would never win a Father of the Year award. Hard fact, but true.
“He’s changed, Drea. He’s trying very hard.”
She sighed. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” She glanced at her watch. “Which is what I should do just about now. I hate to go, but I’ve really gotta get on the road.”
“Will you text me later?”
“Of course.”
They both stood and then Katie went behind the counter. “Just a sec. I’m not sending you home empty-handed.” She packed up a white box with goodies and sealed it with a pastel pink Katie’s Kupcakes sticker. “Here you go,” she said, handing over the box. “Welcome home.”
“Thanks, friend. My hips will never be the same.”
“Your hips and my thighs. We’re all doomed.”
Drea chuckled and kissed Katie on the cheek. “At least we’ll both go down together.”
After she excited the shop, a sense of real doom flashed through her system.
She couldn’t procrastinate any longer.
It was time to go to the place she’d never considered home.
* * *
Drea parked her car in front of her father’s house just as the autumn sun was setting. Splashes of deep pink and purple painted the sky overhead. She’d forgotten the stunning sunsets in this part of Texas. How many years had it been since she’d seen a horizon so rich and vibrant? These wide-open spaces were tailor-made for such amazing spectacles. Texas was known for doing things large and the sight brought a little peace to her jittery heart.
Lordy be.
She chuckled at the slang that had come back to her after crossing state lines.
But she wasn’t that Texas girl any longer.
She gazed toward the cornflower-blue cottage trimmed in white, and saw her father sitting in a rocking chair on the front deck. As soon as he spotted her, he made an attempt to rise. His face turned a shade of red, not from pain, she assumed, but from frustration as he faltered and slid back down onto the seat. On his next try, he pulled himself up and leaned against a post. His hair was lighter gray than she remembered, his body chunkier, but he was still a handsome man, and there was a spark in his green eyes as he waved to her.
She waved back, holding her breath. She reminded herself this wasn’t the same drunken man who’d given up on life after her mother died. He was trying to be a good father. He’d honed his skills on a smartphone so he could send her text messages. He called her every week to talk. He never once made her feel guilty for not coming to visit. He never once asked her to give up her adult life to be with him. But she’d felt bad anyway.
She got out of the car and retrieved her luggage from the trunk. As she approached, wheeling her suitcase behind her, a big smile surfaced on his ruddy face, making him look ten years younger than his sixty-five years.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said. Wow. Whatever possessed her to call him that? She hadn’t referred to him that way since she was a kid.
“Hey there, my girl. Welcome home.”
As far as she was concerned, Thundering Hills, a large parcel of land to the west that was now incorporated into Rising Springs, had been her true home. Before the Boones got their hands on it. “Thank you.”
She climbed the steps to come face-to-face with her father. He was pale and moving slowly but the light in his eyes was bright with excitement.
He opened his arms and took a step toward her, a shadow of fear crossing his face for a moment. He didn’t trust that she’d embrace him. There’d been so many times in her young life when she’d needed a hug from him or a kind word, and he hadn’t been there. For right now, she put that behind her. Well, as much as she could hope to. That kind of rejection was hard to forget.
She stepped into his arms and gave him a brief hug before backing away.
“It’s good to see you, Drea. You look so pretty, just like your mama. You’ve been well?”
“Yes, I’ve been well. How about you, Dad?”
“Ah, I’m doing just fine.”
She didn’t believe him. He’d taken a fall and had downplayed it to her when she’d questioned him over the phone. He’d blamed it on a bad case of arthritis, but according to Katie he’d refused to go to the doctor for a health screening.
Back in the day, her father would lose his balance and crumble in a drunken stupor a few times a day. Now he probably feared she wouldn’t believe he was clean and sober if he admitted to falling down the steps.
God, she hoped he wasn’t backsliding. Not after all this time.
“We have a lot to catch up on, girl.”
“Yes, we do. Let’s go inside. I’ll make us some dinner.”
Her father’s eyes brightened. “It’s already done. I made your favorite, pot roast and red potatoes. I even attempted your mama’s special biscuits.”
“You did?” Nobody made homemade biscuits like her mother. Maybe Katie was right. Maybe her father was really trying. She could count on her fingers and toes how many meals her father had actually cooked for her as a child.
“Well, let’s go inside and try them out,” she said. “I’m starving.”
“Sounds good to me. My stomach’s been growling. But mostly I’m just pleased to have my little girl back home.”
She was twenty-nine years old, hardly a little girl anymore, but she was here now and she’d have to deal with old memories and the pain those reminders evoked.
She forged into the house, wheeling her suitcase easily as her father followed behind her.
* * *
The next evening, Drea breathed a sigh of relief as she arrived back at the cottage after a very productive Mason-free day at the hospital. All day long she’d held her breath, thinking she’d run into him and have to make nice for appearance’s sake, but he was a no-show and she was glad of the things she’d accomplished without having to deal with him. She’d gone over some important aspects of the fund-raiser with the supervisors of various departments and had called to confirm donors for the art sale. The rest of the event details involved the Boones and she had no other option
