Willowleaf Lane

Her phone bleeped with a text and that apparently was the end of their conversation. She turned her attention to the device and started thumbing a message, probably about her idiot of a father.

“After I shower, I need you to get dressed and grab your laptop or whatever other gadgetry you want to take.” He tried for a firm paternal tone. “I’m heading into the recreation center today. Until I can hire a housekeeper, I guess you’ll have to come with me.”

She stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why can’t I be serious?”

Her eyebrows nearly reached her fringe of bangs. “I’m almost thirteen. I don’t need a babysitter! I’m old enough to be a babysitter, for heaven’s sake.”

Yeah, how many nights had he spent on his own? After his grandma had died when he was nine, Billie sometimes wouldn’t come home for a couple days at a time. Of course, she didn’t spare a thought for the child she only remembered half the time.

A vivid memory flitted through his mind, the first time she had decided to stay at the bar all night until closing and then go home with somebody who bought her a few drinks. He remembered locking the front door and huddling in his bed, missing his grandmother like crazy. He hadn’t slept at all that night and had been so bleary-eyed, he had ended up in detention for dozing off in class, where he was warm and safe.

He hadn’t thought about these things much in years. He wasn’t sure he liked the way the memories had started to bubble up to the surface since his return, like some geothermal hot spot reinvigorated by volcanic activity deep beneath the crust of the earth.

Peyton probably was old enough to stay by herself but the idea didn’t sit well with him, for reasons he couldn’t fully explain.

“I have no problem with you being on your own for a few hours. Even three or four,” he said. “But this is all day long. I just don’t feel good about leaving you in a strange house by yourself when you don’t know anybody in town yet that you could call in case of an emergency.”

“I don’t want to sit around a stupid, boring recreation center all day!”

He licked the last bit of yogurt from his spoon and tossed it in the sink and the empty container into the trash. “It’s a recreation center,” he reminded her. “By its very definition, you should find plenty to do. Swimming, racquetball, mountain biking. You won’t be bored unless you want to be, trust me on that, ladybug.”

“Would you stop calling me that? I’m not five years old anymore, and I’m so tired of you treating me that way. I don’t want to spend all day at your stupid job!”

He should have known she would dig her heels in about this, as she did about every other damn thing in their lives.

“This isn’t negotiable,” he said, trying not to grind his teeth. “Get dressed. I can give you half an hour.”

She stared at him for a long moment and apparently seemed to know he had drawn a line he wouldn’t let her cross.

“I hate you and I hate this stupid town!” she exploded. “Why couldn’t I have stayed in Portland with one of my friends or with Mrs. Sanchez?”

“You think Mrs. Sanchez would have extended the retirement she had been planning for a year in order to stay with you?”

“If you paid her enough, she would have! You just didn’t want to.”

A bleak sense of futility seemed to settle in his gut. His daughter would have preferred staying with their housekeeper to moving here and having a new adventure with him. She said she hated him. For all he knew, she meant the words.

Like the rest of the world, she blamed him for her mother’s death. He wanted to believe she didn’t think he was literally responsible for Jade’s drowning, that he had held her head underwater or something, but Peyton seemed to think he should have done more to help Jade when her addictions spiraled out of control.

The hell of it was, she was right. But by then, he was tangled in his own legal issues and busy trying to stay out of prison to spend much time worrying about the woman responsible for tangling him up in the whole mess in the first place.

“We’re a family, like it or not,” he said now, trying his best to keep his temper contained.

“I don’t,” she muttered under her breath.

“Look, you’ve convinced yourself you hate it here but we’ve only been here a few days. Give it time. I think you’ll change your mind. And I promise, first order of business for me is to hire a housekeeper. I’m working through an agency and expect to have someone by the end of the day.”

“I don’t see why we need a housekeeper.”

He couldn’t take any more. “Face it, kid. We’re slobs. I haven’t washed dishes in a long time. We need somebody to clean up after us, cook for us, run you around, be here if you break your thumbs with all that texting.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she muttered.

“You will. Once you’ve been here awhile and have a chance to make some new friends, you’ll probably find all kinds of things to do. Meantime, today I would like you to come with me and be my moral support. Please. Just get dressed, Peyton.”

He could tell she wanted to offer more arguments but she finally slid off the bar stool.

He whispered a prayer of gratitude that at least he didn’t get another whatever out of her.

* * *

“GOOD NEWS. NOTHING’S broken.”

“What did I tell you?”

Charlotte shifted her aching ankle to a little more comfortable position on the exam table while her primary care physician, Susannah Harris, examined the X-ray displayed on the wall-hung light cabinet.

Dr. Harris tucked a strand of steel-gray hair behind her ear. “It’s not broken but your ankle is badly sprained. In my experience, sorry to say, a sprain can sometimes be more painful than a fracture.”

Charlotte closed her eyes, foreseeing a difficult week. “This is going to be a problem for me, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to be. But I would recommend you stay off it for at least a week.”

“I can’t do that! What about the store? And my running? I have to exercise!”

Susannah had been with her through her whole weight-loss journey. She knew how deadly a change in routine could be for someone trying to establish new habits.

“Calm down, Charlotte. You can do this.”

Easy for Susannah to say. She was athletic and tough and ran marathons for fun.

“Have you done much swimming?” the doctor went on. “The new pool at the recreation center is wonderful. James and I went up over the weekend. They reserve it for lap swimming in the morning and it wasn’t very busy when we were there.”

When she was young, she used to swim all the time but since she had gained weight, she hated how she looked in a swimsuit too much to subject herself to that humiliation very often.

What other choice did she have? She couldn’t run on her ankle. Right now, she couldn’t even walk. She had a reclined exercise bike but the thought of pedaling made her ankle give an angry throb.

Yet another reason to be angry with Spence Gregory for coming back to town and ruining everything.

She frowned. Okay, in all fairness she couldn’t really blame him. How could he have known she would become so off balance to see him there that she would lose track of where she was running?

She could only imagine the trouble she could get into if he happened to walk past while she was swimming at the community center. Susannah would be treating her for a concussion from heedlessly ramming into the side of the pool.

“I’ll figure something out. Thanks, Susannah.”

“I’m going to write a scrip for some crutches. You can pick them up at our pharmacy here at the clinic. Use them, got it?”