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  She leaned her arm against the wall and peeked into an empty stall. “I’m glad you’re sure. Sometimes I don’t know.”

  “He has a daughter you know.”

  Hailey nodded. “I heard. He moved home so his mom could help him take care of her when she was a baby. No one knows anything about her mother.”

  “It’s hard to imagine any of us from school with kids of our own. What is she, five?”

  “Almost six.”

  She heard Rhonda’s feet hit the ground and then her footfalls. “Really? You’re still hung up on him?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Didn’t mean it wasn’t true though. Hailey turned, leaning back against the wall and facing her cousin. “It’s a small town. Jake has actually become pretty good friends with him over the years. I hear things.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re protesting too much.”

  Hailey shrugged. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the choices I’ve made in life. Being out of work gives you a lot of time for introspection.”

  “Sounds like you’ve spent too much time examining the past, if you ask me.”

  “The decision to leave Nate behind and head to college early was huge. Things might have turned out differently if I’d let the rest of the summer play out.”

  “And things might have turned out differently if my family had left fifteen minutes later or sooner to come over here for Christmas dinner. You’ll drive yourself mad thinking about all the ‘what ifs.’”

  Hailey nodded, crossing her arms in front of her chest. It didn’t stop the questions from rolling through her mind. But Rhonda was right about one thing, she couldn’t make any decisions based on hypotheses. She needed to gather facts, and her dad’s health was a good place to start. “I guess it’s time to go have that talk with my brother and sister.”

  Chapter Two

  Nate picked up the last glass out of the soapy water and rinsed it before handing to his daughter. After turning off the faucet and releasing the drain stop, he wiped his hands on the edge of the dishtowel Lori was using to dry the glass.

  Thank you for helping, he signed.

  Lori put the glass in the cupboard and laid out the towel on the edge of the counter before signing her reply. I like to help.

  “Hey, quiet down. You two are making such a racket!”

  Lori giggled, turning toward the door her aunt had just come through.

  “She’s pretty silly, huh?” Nate said.

  Lori nodded, as Anna picked her up off the chair, and then set her back down on the floor. “Thanks for doing my job for me.”

  Nate patted his daughter’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go brush your teeth and pick out a book? I’ll be along shortly to read to you.”

  Lori looped her arms around Anna’s waist. “Love you,” she whispered.

  “Love you too, sweetie,” Anna called off to the girl’s retreating frame, then turned her attention to Nate. “You fixed such a big meal for just the three of us. Not that I’m complaining—it was wonderful—but we have enough leftovers for a week.”

  “I did it for Lori,” Nate whispered, filling a coffee cup from the pot. He then flipped the switch on the coffee maker and took a seat at the table. “She deserves memorable holidays.”

  Anna joined him. “She’ll remember this Christmas for a long time. Not because it looks like a Toys R Us exploded out there, but because you made the whole day about being with her.”

  “It is about her. Every day. I’ll do anything to see that smile of hers.”

  Anna shifted her weight in the chair, leaning in a little closer to Nate. “She does have the best smile. And laugh.”

  “There’s nothing else like it, huh?”

  Anna pressed her lips tightly together, holding back something she wanted say. Nate knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself long. A moment later, she proved him right. “It doesn’t help her when you encourage her to sign.”

  “It doesn’t hurt either. In fact, the doctor said it was like learning a second language and showed intelligence that she’s been able to pick it up so fast.”

  “I never equated her speech disorder with a mental deficiency.”

  If there was one person he could let his defensive walls down around it was sister, but the partition he’d built between Lori, him, and the rest of the town was a comfortable place for him, and protecting his daughter was an automatic reaction. “I know you didn’t mean it like that.”

  “She talks at the barn, you know, because I make her.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t put her in embarrassing situations.”

  “Her therapist has told you it’s not going to get better if she doesn’t speak.”

  “What you’ve been doing with her and the horses proves that’s not true.”

  “She is responding to hippotherapy but that will only help so much. She needs to converse.”

  Nate pushed his chair back a few inches from the table and twisted it sideways. He took a deep breath, trying to hold his frustration in check. “I know that. I’m grateful for what her doctor and you’ve been able to accomplish, but I will not make communicating with my daughter hard. I work with her on her exercises, but we use sign language too.”

  Anna didn’t back down. Not that he expected her to. “I just want what’s best for her. For you too.”

  “You think I don’t?”

  “I know you do. You’d give her the world if you could. I also think you sometimes encourage the sign language because it makes her dependent on you. It gives the two of you this device for shutting out the rest of the world.”

  “Well, sometimes the rest of the world sucks. Is it a wonder she doesn’t want to talk when the kids at school pick on her for stammering?”

  “That happened once or twice, yes, but the teachers dealt with it and it’s in the past. I’m not denying the sign language has helped—been a blessing even when her disorder was really bad. All I’m saying is I think you should be actively pushing her to speak. It’s the only way it will continue to improve.”

  Nate nodded, but didn’t meet his sister’s gaze. He knew she was right on many of her points. Maybe he did hold Lori a little too close sometimes, but wasn’t a daddy supposed to protect his little girl?

  “We’d be lost without your help.” He took a long sip from the coffee mug. “I should get in there and read to her.”

  Anna reached over and gripped his wrist. “Sit a minute. You deserve a few quiet moments to yourself and you know she could play with those toy ponies you bought her for hours.”

  “If all goes the way I hope, by spring I might be able to get her that real horse she’s been asking for. Jake Lambert says the farm will be available to lease in a few weeks. I just need to figure out how I’m going to squeeze enough money out of my budget to pay what he wants.”

  “You’re really going to do this?”

  “It’s past time Lori and I got a place of our own.”

  “When Mom and Dad retired to Arizona they said we could both stay here as long as we wanted. Maybe I should be the one to get a different place?”

  Nate fidgeted with the handle of the coffee cup. “It’s about more than leaving this house and having a place that’s ours. The therapeutic horse riding has helped her so much, but when she’s in school, there aren’t enough hours in the day to get her out to Sunnydale. If we move into the Lambert place, I can get her a horse of her own and she’ll be able to ride daily.”

  “If it’s going to be a struggle to make the lease, how are you going to afford a horse too?”

  He scraped his hand across his jaw. No matter how many times he refigured the budget, he always came up short. “I’ll make it work. I have to do what’s best for Lori.”

  “You give her your best every day, with or without a horse of her own.” Anna insisted.

  “Thanks for saying that.”

  “It’s true.” She twisted in the seat and then stood, picking up Nate’s now empty coffee cup and taking it to the sink. “It�
��ll be quiet around here without you.”

  “I’m not moving half way around the world. It’s just a mile outside of town. Maybe. If it all works out. I’ll still be at the diner every day. I’ll still need you to help out with Lori.” He leaned back in the chair. “And it won’t be until after Bill goes into Pioneer. Probably not until after the first of the year.”

  Anna turned and leaned back against the counter. “I ran into Kelly at the grocery store the other day. She says Hailey is fighting her and Jake about putting their father in the nursing home.”

  Hailey. “Is she home?”

  “I think Kelly said she was coming in yesterday.”

  Why after all this time did just hearing that name send him tumbling eight years into the past? After the way she’d treated him, thinking of her should make him angry, or remind him of the pain. Instead, his pulse quickened.

  Just as it had when he’d seen her at the beach with her cousin and her cheerleading friends. It was late June and even though there were half a dozen girls in the group deepening their tans and cooling off with occasional dips into the water, he only had eyes for her.

  He and his friends from the basketball team crashed the outing. The two groups formed one and they’d spent a few more hours soaking up the sun together before heading across the street to the Dairy Queen.

  For him, it’d marked a beginning. She’d been flirty with him, and for the first time he started to believe she might actually be interested in dating him.

  But it must have meant more to him than it ever did to her.

  “I wonder why she cares. She couldn’t wait to get far away from here.” And me.

  Just a couple of weeks after that afternoon and a day after their one and only date, Hailey packed up her car and fled town as fast as she could.

  No goodbyes.

  That night, he’d thought she returned all the mixed-up feelings he’d felt for her throughout high school. Her rapid exit sent him on a downward spiral.

  A feeble attempt to get her out of his mind and heart resulted in the short-term fling that blessed him with his daughter.

  Convincing Lori’s mother not to put an end to the pregnancy hadn’t been easy. Watching the woman walk away from both of them just hours after giving birth had reaffirmed one truth for Nate. He was the kind of guy women easily left.

  Over time, Nate accepted the tradeoff. His world revolved around his daughter. She needed him to be there, completely devoted to her needs. He had no spare time to give to a woman who would disregard his daughter and eventually leave him.

  “Bill is her dad. Of course she’s concerned about his health.”

  Nate nodded. Anna was right. He shouldn’t be questioning Hailey’s motives surrounding her father. However, it did seem that once again she was complicating his plan for happiness.

  Chapter Three

  Didn’t it go against some primal law of nature to talk about putting your father in a nursing home on Christmas Day?

  Hailey wished they didn’t need to have this conversation, but knew it was necessary.

  Once the extended family had left, the three siblings gathered in the kitchen. Kelly’s husband gave Jake’s family a ride home, and Jake would return the favor, dropping his sister off as soon as they’d come to a final decision.

  Hailey was glad her father had gone on to bed. She had questions that would be more difficult to ask in front of him and believed his absence would make it easier for her siblings to be candid.

  Kelly sat at the head of the kitchen table. Her elbows on the oak surface and her forehead resting against her hands. Her words were drenched with the same sorrow that picked at Hailey’s heart. “If you’re so against this, are you going to move home to take care of Dad?”

  “It’s not that I’m against it,” Hailey tried to explain. “I just want to be sure it’s needed. If moving home would help delay the need, maybe I could. At least for the short term.”

  Hailey knew a return to Caseville would be viewed by everyone as a step down the corporate ladder, but family was more important than the small town’s perception that she’d failed. Even if she kind of, sort of, had. Being unemployed for six weeks wasn’t exactly a success story.

  “How would that even work?” Jake asked. “You have a job in New York. Besides, I really believe Dad’s illness has progressed too far for any of us to manage—even as a team.”

  “I care about Dad more than any job.” Especially a job she didn’t have any more. She asked herself if she’d be offering to do this if she still worked for Cooper, Smith and Bradley. She liked to think the answer would be yes.

  “I know you care. We all care. It doesn’t change the fact that he really needs around the clock medical attention.”

  Hailey still wanted to be told of specific incidents that indicated the need. “I know he’s getting older and his health is on the decline. But a nursing home? I just don’t see how he’s reached that point.”

  Kelly twisted in the chair. “Some days are better than others, and he’s strung together a couple of good ones since you’ve been home. Unfortunately, he’s had some bad moments that could have become disastrous if not for well-timed interventions.”

  Jake paced back and forth in front of the counter. “You’re just not seeing a clear picture with your twice a month calls and seasonal trips home. Kelly and I are with him every single day.”

  “Both of you have homes big enough to take him in.”

  “And we both have full time jobs,” Kelly said. “Besides, my house isn’t accessible to him. All my bedrooms are on the second floor.”

  “You can’t turn the kids’ play room into a bedroom?”

  “He has a hard enough time climbing the two steps into this house, how’s he going to manage the broken down stone ones out at my place. I have to think about my kids. He left the stove on last week, you know. He could have burnt the house down.”

  Hailey moved to the table, sitting next to her sister. She fiddled with the quilted placemat the two of them had made as a Christmas gift for her mother when they were in junior high school. It had adorned the table ever since.

  What she’d give for a little of her mother’s guidance right now.

  “Does that mean he has diminished capacity? You’ve never started to cook something and got busy? I burnt a grilled cheese sandwich last week. Maybe I should be put in a nursing home too.”

  Jake bent his knee slightly and leaned back against the refrigerator. “None of us want this.”

  She turned to her brother. “Then why can’t he live with you? Courtney stays home with your kids.”

  He shook his head. “We talked about that, but with these episodes he’s had…I won’t put her or the kids in danger.”

  Hailey narrowed her focus on her brother. She knew her siblings were well intentioned, but couldn’t help but wonder if they were exaggerating the truth. “Dad wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “You’re right. Not the father we grew up with, but a few times now he’s become violent when he doesn’t remember Mom is gone. I really believe Pioneer Senior Care is the best answer.”

  As hard as she tried, Hailey couldn’t reconcile her siblings’ account of the last few months with her memories of the man she idolized. “Maybe I’ll take him home with me. I can hire a nurse to care for him while I’m at work.”

  But can I? It was one thing to stand up for what she believed in, but six weeks without a paycheck was taking a toll. Her severance package was running out too.

  Jake crossed his arms in front of his chest and shook his head. “You live on the fourteenth floor of a high rise in a city he knows nothing about. Do you really think Dad would be happier there? I can’t see him wandering around a city he doesn’t know. No, it’s not a good option.”

  Hailey closed her eyes, hoping to keep back the tears that now pressed against her lids. “You think a nursing home is better than living with family?”

  Jake sat next to his sister and patted her hand. “Yes. I do. P
ioneer is small. He knows a lot of the staff and we can monitor his care.”

  “It’s still a nursing home.”

  “He’ll be with friends he knows when his mind is firing correctly, and people who will be compassionate when it’s not.”

  “I’m not saying they’re bad people but family should care for their own. Isn’t that how we were raised? I keep wondering what Mom would say about all of this.”

  Jake softened. “I hate it too, but I’m sure it’s the right decision.”

  “We’re not going to put him there and abandon him,” Kelly said. “Larry and I will take the kids to visit. Jake will take his family too.”

  “Still, I haven’t seen any evidence that he’s as bad as you say.”

  Kelly narrowed her gaze. “You think we’re lying?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m just having trouble processing it all.”

  Jake squeezed her hand a little tighter. “Like Kelly said, he’s had a nice string of good days. I’m sure you’ll witness a bad one before long. Trust us, please. Pack up your old room. Let me know what you want sent to your apartment and what you want me to put in storage. The rest we’ll give to the Salvation Army.”

  Hailey looked away from her siblings. Her left knee bounced venting the pent up frustration she was having a hard time communicating. “I’m going on the record as being against selling the farm too.”

  Kelly stood and walked away from the table. “We’re not selling it. Leasing it, for now. The added income will help pay for Dad’s care.”

  “I can pay for it.” The moment the words passed her lips, she wanted to reach out and pull them back. She was used to having plenty to live on, but that didn’t reflect her current status. Her bank account had nearly disintegrated over the last six weeks, but they didn’t know that and now wasn’t the time to tell them.

  Besides, she’d find work right after the holidays and rebuild her bank account without dipping into her savings too much.

  Jake shook his head and took a sudden interest in his shoes. “That’s not right. We’ll split it among the three of us. Besides, I’d rather have someone here, keeping up the property. It’s better than it sitting empty.”