Western Christmas Wishes. Brenda Minton

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      “Yeah, well, my mom is your second cousin, Tarin. She’s not exactly a role model.”

      “Where is she these days?” Laurel asked as the brick facility came into view.

      “Tarin? Who knows? We were living with a friend of hers in Grove and she took off one night, left me sleeping on their couch. After a few days they called Family Services because I’m not their responsibility. DFS found Gladys and she took me in. My grandmother was Gladys’s sister. She passed away years ago.”

      Laurel had to give it to the girl—she was an optimist. Laurel thought about romance in terms of the father she’d never known because he’d failed to tell her mother he was engaged to someone else. He’d dated her mother on summer break, but his fiancée was the woman he’d met in college.

      “You don’t know why your mom left?” Laurel asked as she parked.

      “Who knows? She’s an addict. Aunt Gladys says everyone’s an addict these days and who knows what society is coming to. Anyway, Tarin’s a rotten mom and a horrible person.”

      “She’s an addict, Rose. She probably didn’t plan for that to happen. Sometimes it happens to really good people.”

      “Yeah, I guess. She told me one time that she was a straight-A student until her junior year, when she fell in with the wrong crowd. One time, one wrong friend, and her whole life changed. I guess I kind of wonder why she doesn’t just change it back.”

      Easier said than done, Laurel thought. But she didn’t say it out loud. She’d lost friends to addictions. Knew the devastation it could do to a family. She cleared her throat and moved on, because Rose had a shimmer of moisture in her eyes.

      “Hey, there’s Cam.” Rose opened her door to get out.

      Laurel let her go. She knew about deflecting, about changing subjects and trying hard not to let things hurt.

      Cameron Hunt waited on the sidewalk in front of the nursing home. Laurel took her time getting out of her car. She wasn’t quite ready for this visit. It had been too long since she’d seen her grandmother. Gladys had visited Chicago but her last visit had been for Laurel’s college graduation, just over eight years ago. Laurel’s mom had visited Hope but Laurel had avoided the town that held too many bad memories.

      She’d been a small-town girl whose mom had made a mistake. She knew all about gossip, whispers and dirty looks. Her mom had never told anyone the name of the father of her child. She’d said it didn’t matter. But it must have mattered to her, because she’d never married.

      “You made it,” Cameron said as she got out, joining him on the sidewalk.

      Rose was ahead of them, nearly to the front door of the facility. Laurel let the girl go because she obviously knew her way and hopefully couldn’t get into trouble between here and there.

      The man walking next to her switched sides, giving her the unscarred side of his face. She started to tell him it wasn’t necessary, but she didn’t know him well enough to tell him what was or wasn’t necessary.

      “We made it. I was afraid she would purposely get me lost.”

      “Your fears were well-grounded,” he agreed with a grim look. “I headed this way shortly after you left with Rose, to make sure you found the place. And yet, I beat you here. That must have been you pulled over on the side of the road.”

      The gesture of kindness surprised her. From the look on his face, it surprised him, as well. He obviously hadn’t meant to get involved. After knowing Rose for less than two hours, she could see how the girl would drag someone in, not giving them the opportunity to decide if they wanted to be involved or not.

      They were close to the entrance when the door opened and a man exited. Laurel glanced his way, but then she took a longer look as he stopped to talk to Rose. He was tall with dark auburn hair and hazel eyes. Laurel hesitated as the world seemed to spin a little too fast.

      “You okay?” Cameron Hunt asked.

      She watched as the man, a stranger, turned toward her. He saw her and his smile faltered. He drew in a breath and seemed to hold it.

      “I’m good,” she lied. “Please go inside with Rose.”

      She could be wrong, she told herself. He was a stranger with hair a darker shade of red than her own. It meant nothing. The way he looked at her meant nothing.

      “I think I should stay here with you.” Cameron’s hand was on her arm, steadying her. She thought she didn’t need to be steadied but realized that her legs were weak and the world had faded a little. She shook her head to clear the strange fuzziness.

      “Laurel?” Cameron’s voice seemed to come from far away. And then Rose was next to her, staring at her, looking concerned.

      “I’m okay,” she assured them.

      But she wasn’t. The man who had left her mom to be a single mother, the man she’d spent her life resenting, was standing in front of her.

      After all of these years of wondering, it had been this simple. The two of them on a sidewalk, instantly recognizing one another. That he was here brought up questions, but those questions weren’t for him. They were for her grandmother.

      Cameron and Rose disappeared into the building. She stared at the man who had given her red hair and fair skin that burned too easily in the sun. She didn’t even know his name.

      Her own father and she couldn’t call him by name. She didn’t know his age, where he lived, what he did for a living. A small voice inside her told her that her mother shared some of the blame for her lack of information regarding her father.

      “What are you doing here?” She asked the first question that came to her mind.

      He seemed surprised by it.

      “I was visiting my mother,” he said simply, gently. “I guess I should introduce myself.”

      “You’re about thirty years too late for that.” She shifted her gaze away from him, from the sympathy in his expression. A wreath hung on the door of the nursing home, a sign of the coming holidays. Thirty Christmases. Missed.

      “Yes, I know.” He reached out to her but let his hand drop before touching her. “Your grandmother called me to let me know you’d be in town. She thought that perhaps this would be a good time for us to meet.”

      “I doubt she meant like this, on the sidewalk, with no one to introduce us.”

      “No, I’m sure this isn’t what she intended.” He looked around, as if trying to think of a better plan. It was too late. “We could sit down and talk.”

      “I don’t think so.” For years she’d rehearsed what she would say and do if she ever met him. When she’d been younger, she’d dreamed of him walking through the front door and being everything a little girl wanted a daddy to be.

      As a teenager those dreams had turned to anger and resentment.

      Anger was easier to deal with than disappointment. Anger worked as a shield to keep her heart safe.

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