God, she was lucky to have Harper as a friend. Who would have thought that first night she’d returned home, when the small town of Misty Peak had felt like it was stomping on her, that Harper would serve her a drink and become her closest friend.
Tilly: I’d love that. I’ll let you know.
She hadn’t even set the phone down before something sounded from the other side of her closed bedroom door.
What the hell? It almost sounded like the front door opening. But that wasn’t possible. She’d locked her front door. Shealwayslocked her front door.
Quickly, she shoved her phone into her pocket, then, with slow steps, moved toward the bedroom door and opened it quietly.
Her heart stopped, one single word slipping from her lips. “Dad…”
His green eyes swung to her. He stood in her living room, a framed photo of her and her mother in his hand. “Matilda—”
“How did you get in?”
He set the photo back onto the mantel before turning to face her. He looked older. More gray to his hair and new lines beside his eyes.
He held up a key. “Under the potted plant to the left of the porch. Your mother used to hide the spare key in the same place in case she locked herself out.”
An irrational part of her wanted to leap across the room and grab it.
Her father was in her home? And itwasher home because her mother had left it toher, not her father. “You shouldn’t be in here. This is my house.”
He pocketed the key. “Yeah. Frustrating that this house was still in your grandmother’s name when your mother and I separated. If it had been in your mother’s, it would be half mine.”
“Didn’t you take enough from her?”
He took slow steps toward her. “Baby, I loved your mother.”
“You’re a goddamn liar. If you loved herorme, you wouldn’t have done what you did. I don’t even think you know what love is, unless it’s a love for money.”
Her father had always holed himself up in his office to work. As a kid, she’d told herself that he was working hard for the family. But that wasn’t true. It was all for him. And when the opportunity arose to acquire money that wasn’t his, he’d taken it.
“Sometimes we have to make hard decisions,” he said quietly.
She laughed, but the sound was almost manic. “Hard decisions? You mean like robbing eighty-year-old Harvey Clinter of his entire life’s savings so he had no retirement? Or maybe you’re talking about stealing Toby Walker’s money, a man who was supposed to be your friend, which forced him tosell his family home and mortgage his bar. Or perhaps you’re talking about deserting me and Mom with nothing but the roof over our heads!”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t enjoy doing any of that. But I’d made some bad investment calls, and I needed money.”
“And that made it okay?”
“No. It made it necessary. It was all about survival.” He stopped in front of her. “Matilda—”
“It’s Tilly.”
“I need your help, baby.”
He was shitting her, right? He wasn’t actually standing here, in her home, years after what he’d done, asking her for something? “Get out.”
“I can’t do that. This house should be half mine. We both know that. Your mother and I had lived in it since before you were born.”
He wanted herhouse?
“I’m in a bad position, baby. I need money, and with the sale of this house—”
“Get out!” The words were almost screamed, so loud her voice bounced off the walls.
“No.”
