Page 16 of The Forever Christmas Tree

He had been passing her to meet his daughter, but he stopped. “You really are clueless, aren’t you?” He stared at her for a long moment, then said, “Dead. Beth Anne is dead.”

She gasped.

“And, no, there are no other children.”

Then he walked away.

It was news to him . . .

As Ethan drove off the ferry a half hour later, he was alternately fuming and feeling like an ass.

Okay, I overreacted. Big-time. Now she’ll think I still care.

Which I do not.

But she makes me so damn mad. I have enough stress in my life. Why did she have to come back now?

She didn’t even know about Beth Anne. Or whether I ever actually had a baby, or multiple babies. Hell, she thought I was a practicing vet somewhere off the Outer Banks. What does that say about how little she cared for me?

I should have just walked away when I first saw her.

She cut off her hair, all that beautiful hair. Not that she doesn’t look good now. Just different.

He pictured her as he’d seen her on the ferry. Black jeans tucked into knee-high boots. That old Lands’ End jacket. Short, mahogany curls cupping her face. Big brown eyes wide with shock. If she wore makeup, he couldn’t tell, though her cheeks had been flushed from the wind, or the sight of me.

She’d chopped off her hair the day she left, that’s what she said. His heart ached at the thought. But damn, he recalled that day, vividly, and her hair wasn’t the only thing she’d sliced and diced. His heart had been chopped out, trampled on, and left for roadkill . . . figuratively speaking.

She was so distraught when I confessed, so disappointed in me. I was disappointed in me. But I never expected that she would skip town. Maybe we could have worked things out. Or else, I should have been the one to leave.

Her father had been alive then. Why hadn’t Doc Alan stopped his only child from making the mistake of her life?

But was it a mistake for Wendy? She finished college, and, although she never went to med school, she’s made a name for herself in that female Navy SEAL program. Which I cannot imagine. Yeah, she was an athlete, a state champ in swimming, and she probably aced the special ops physical training, which is supposed to be grueling, but my Wendy toting a gun, killing people? Impossible!

No, no, no! I have to stop thinking of her as “my Wendy.” She was never mine, apparently, if she could walk out on me the way she did, without ever looking back. And she sure as hell isn’t mine now.

“Dad, you’re talking to yourself,” Cassie said.

“Was I?” He shook his head to clear it. “Maybe I was going over the Christmas list in my head. I need to mail it off to Santa tonight, and I have to be sure I covered everything a certain princess wants.” He winked at her as she sat primly in the passenger seat of his Lexus sedan. He usually preferred to drive his pickup truck, but the height was a little difficult for Cassie to maneuver with her hip problem. So, his Lexus or his grandmother’s Volvo were the preferred modes of transportation when Cassie was on board.

She giggled. At eleven and a half, she probably didn’t still believe in the jolly old fellow, but she wasn’t taking any chances by scoffing or saying it out loud. And she did look like a princess, all in pink, including her boots which had inserts for ankle support when her legs were weak. Like today, after her lengthy exercise session at the rehab center. “Did you see the latest votes, Dad?” she asked then, glancing down at the iPhone in her lap, an extravagant gift after her last operation.

He groaned. That stupid grinch contest! There were posters and cash jars at more than a dozen sites around town, including his own Christmas shop, dammit! Every evening Laura tabulated the results for the day and posted the results in the newspaper office window, as well as on The Bell’s website, which was what Cassie must be looking at now.

“You and Mister Baxter are tied for first place, but Delbert Brown from the fish store is gaining. And three new people are nominated. Nineteen altogether now. And, oh my gosh! Guess how much money is raised so far?”

“I haven’t a clue,” he grumbled.

“Eleven thousand dollars!”

“What? That’s impossible. In less than one week? Some people must be stuffing the ballot jars.”

Cassie gave him a sideways glance of suspicion. Then grinned evilly, or as evil as an eleven-and-a-half-year-old could. “Can I nominate Miss Elders, my math teacher? She gave us three quizzes last week. Just before Christmas break!”

“I don’t think that qualifies as grinchiness.”

“I do!”

“And, no, I don’t want you wasting your money on that cr . . . contest.”