“That’s…Wow, Tess. That’s fantastic.” He chuckles softly. “Your mother is going to wanna whoop your ass when she finds out you kept all this a secret.”
“I didn’t want to tell you until I had good news,” I explain. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“Get our hopes up?” He cocks his head. “This is your thing, kiddo. We would have just wanted to support you, is all.”
“About that…” I chew on the inside of my lip, trying to find a way to come out and say what I need to say. “I haven’t told you about the signing bonus,” I say. “It’s thirty grand, Dad. It’s enough to schedule that operation.”
His breath catches as he rears back, confusion painting his features. My dad is a proud man, and I’ve prepared myself for some pushback on this, so I’m already preparing my ten-point argument when he surprises me by throwing his arms around me, hugging me tight as he buries his face in my hair.
“Oh, hon,” he says, his voice thick. “My sweet girl.”
My fingers tangle in his shirt, my eyes prickling with tears. “I need you to be okay,” I say, sniffling. “This will make sure that you are.”
“Baby girl,” he chokes out. “I’d have been okay regardless. You didn’t need to do this for me.”
“Of course I did,” I argue. “Someone has to look out for you.”
He chuckles as he pulls back, wiping at his eyes. “You’ve gotten real good at that over the years, haven’t you?”
His hand touches my cheek, and I cover it with mine, feeling a tear slip out to collide with his fingers. He brushes it away, smiling.
“Tell me why you look so sad,” he says.
I startle, my brow wrinkling. “What? Of course I’m not sad. I’m happy, Dad. Really happy. This is what I’ve been working toward for months. Why on earth would I be sad?”
“Kiddo,” he laughs. “You’ve spent most of your life taking care of people, and I’ve always been so proud of you for that.
It’s just who you are. Ever since you learned how to walk, you’ve been offering up a helping hand to one person or another, but you can’t fool me.
You never could. I know when my baby is hurting. ”
My traitorous eyes begin to well with more tears, and I feel them spilling like I’m a little girl again, my heart aching. “They want me to start right away.”
“And that’s…bad?”
“I don’t know,” I cry. “I just…It’s just…”
“Deep breath,” Dad says. “In and out.”
I do as he says, drawing in a steadying breath and releasing it slowly until the panic rising inside me starts to quell. I have so many feelings right now that I don’t know what to do with.
“I met someone,” I tell him. “In Colorado.”
He looks surprised but masks it quickly. “You did?”
“I did,” I say with a nod, and his hand falls from my cheek to hold mine in my lap. “And he’s…Well. He’s wonderful, really.”
“And that makes you sad?”
I shake my head at his playful tone. “No. No. But he’s—he’s tied to that place.
His entire life is there. He’d never leave it.
And here I am in another state, about to be tied down to a contract for at least six months.
Maybe more. I won’t have time to breathe, much less visit.
How can I ask him to wait for me? He barely knows me.
I can’t do that to him. But he’s…he’s lost so much already.
I don’t want to be another thing he loses. I just don’t see how I can avoid it.”
“That…” Dad nods solemnly. “That is a tough one.”
He doesn’t know the half of it. If I were to tell him everything—about my new designation, about the heats, the shifting, all of it—his head might explode.
Probably a conversation for a time when I’m not already falling to pieces.
Besides, I think that’s definitely something I want to tell him and Mom at the same time.
“You know,” Dad says. “You don’t have to take this job. Not if you don’t want to.”
“Of course I do,” I tell him chidingly. “Don’t be silly. I want to. I just…I want him too. I want both, and I don’t know if I can have that, and it’s killing me.”
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” he says, sounding sincere. “I wish I had better answers for you.”
I nod morosely, wishing the same thing.
“But I do know this,” Dad says. “Love is rarely simple. It’s not always like the storybooks or the movies.
Love is damn hard. We don’t always meet our person at the perfect moment, and we don’t always get the ending we thought we would.
” He chuckles softly. “Trust me, I know. I’ve thought about endings a lot lately. ”
“Don’t say that,” I say, my voice tight. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Maybe I will,” he says. “Maybe I’ll get that pacemaker and last another fifty years, or maybe tomorrow I’ll be a hit by a bus. No one can know for sure.”
“If you’re trying to cheer me up,” I say, my voice breaking, “you’re doing a terrible job.”
“My point is,” he goes on, “you gotta take what happiness you can when you can. There’s only so much of it in this world, and when you find something good, you gotta hold on to it real tight and not let it go. Because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, hon, and happiness doesn’t deal in what-ifs.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying if you care about this man of yours, you should tell him that.”
“I don’t want him to feel like he has to—”
“If you don’t tell him,” Dad stresses, “you’ll regret it forever. Because, Tess? Take it from someone who’s had to stare death in the face.” He squeezes my hand. “There’s no greater ache than the words we don’t say. They’re what haunts us forever, you hear?”
I press the heel of my hand to my eye, stanching the tears there. “I don’t remember you being so poetic.”
“Yeah, well. You live as much life as I’ve had to live these past few years…you start looking at things differently.” He gives my hand another squeeze. “You gonna think about what I said?”
“I’ll…think about it,” I agree warily. Even if I’m not sure telling Hunter would do us any good.
“That’s great.” He pats my knee. “And, hon? I’m so proud of you. It’s one of those things I don’t say nearly enough. You really have spent your whole life taking care of us in one way or another, and I want you to know I see that. I just wish someone could take care of you for a change.”
Someone did, I don’t say.
“Now,” Dad goes on. “How about some coffee? We could slip a little whiskey in and celebrate.”
“You know damn well you shouldn’t be drinking,” I scold.
He raises his hands placatingly. “Worth a shot, I guess. Besides, didn’t you hear? Practically getting a new heart, it seems like.” He winks at me. “Got my daughter to thank for that.”
I give him a watery grin, shaking my head. “Go make the coffee.”
“Can do, kiddo, can do.”
I watch him shuffle off into the kitchen, mulling over everything he’s said.
I really didn’t mean to spill my guts like I did, but my dad has a way of seeing right through me like no one ever has.
I’ve never been very good at hiding things from him.
It’s a wonder I kept the HGTV thing a secret for so long without caving.
I lean back into the couch as I wipe my eyes, trying to focus on all the good that happened today.
Trying not to think about everything I may have to give up because of it.
I know I was right when I told my dad that Hunter is tied to that lodge, that there’s nothing on earth that could make him leave it—and how could I ask him to? Not after everything he’s suffered.
Maybe it’s just one of those things that’s not in the cards.
Maybe we didn’t meet each other at the right time.
I can’t even say if telling him how I feel would do anything but cause him heartbreak, and deep down, I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to do that to him.
I almost think it would be better to keep it all inside, if only to protect him.
You really have spent your whole life taking care of us in one way or another…I just wish someone could take care of you for a change.
I laugh scornfully under my breath.
Seems my dad was right.
A knock at the door makes me sit up, and I can still hear my dad moving around in the kitchen, so I holler at him that I’ll get it as I rise from the couch, wondering if maybe Mom forgot her keys again and came home early.
That thought makes me wince, because there really is a good chance she’ll whoop my ass when I tell her the things I’ve been keeping from her.
God, I wonder if I can hide all the shifter stuff until I’m dead. That would be ideal.
I reach the door and wrap my fingers around the handle, preparing myself for one of her bear hugs that nearly crush me, already opening my mouth to explain my being here when I pull the door wide.
And then I freeze, shock trickling through me when I see who’s on the other side—sticking out like a sore thumb in the California sunshine with his beanie and his flannel and his larger-than-life presence, because how on earth is he here?
I take a deep breath, barely managing to get a word out, and when I do, every feeling, every raging desire hits me with the full weight of a truck, coming back to me like I never left him, because—
“Hunter?”