“Which he won’t.” Dad’s sigh was heavy with decades of frustration. “Has he finally come to his senses about that place?”
I closed my eyes.Here we go.“What do you mean?”
“That bar. It’s always been a ridiculous endeavor. A medical doctor serving drinks to alcoholics—the irony is absurd. And now it’s literally killing him.”
“The customers are not alcoholics, and it’s not killing him, Dad. His blood pressure and stress levels are what caused the TIA.”
“Which are directly related to running that establishment.”
“No, actually. The doctor said his social connections are likely what’s kept him going all these years. The bar is the center of his life.”
Dad scoffed. “He had social connections in medicine. Respected ones.”
I leaned against the bar, suddenly bone-tired. “This isn’t the time to rehash old arguments.”
“It’s precisely the time. He needs to sell that place and retire properly.”
“That would kill him faster than anything.” My voice sharpened. “This is his home. These people are his family.”
“We’re his family.” His tone shifted, softening. “And Gillian, what about your work? Harcourt mentioned you’ve been difficult to reach. This isn’t the time to jeopardize your career trajectory.”
How dare my dad use his buddy-buddy connection to one of my bosses to check in on me? That, combined with the undisguised concern for my job over his father’s health made my blood boil. “Difficult to reach? I submitted the Anderson revisions at dawn. I’ve been working around the clock.”
“While bartending.”
“While taking care of your father.” But the implied criticism didn’t land. Dad just kept on beating the same dead horse.
“By enabling his unhealthy attachment to that saloon.”
“By helping him keep the one thing that matters to him.” My voice rose. “Have you even asked how you could help? Offered to come down? Anything besides suggesting he sell his life’s passion?”
“Don’t be dramatic, Gillian. It was a retirement hobby that got out of hand, not a passion.”
“How would you know?” The words burst out before I could stop them. “When’s the last time you even visited him here?”
Silence stretched between us. When he spoke again, his voice was cool, controlled. “I’m concerned about both of you. This diversion from your career path isn’t healthy. You’ve worked too hard to throw it away on some small-town nostalgia.”
“It’s not nostalgia, Dad. It’s family. And right now, Doc needs me.”
“What he needs is to listen to reason.”
Something snapped inside me. “No, what he needs is someone who actually cares about what he wants, not what fits into their idea of success!”
“I see.” His voice turned to ice. “You’re exhausted and emotional. We’ll discuss this when you’re thinking clearly.”
“I am thinking clearly! Maybe for the first time?—”
The line went dead. He’d hung up on me. Because of course he had. He wouldn’t accept even the slightest deviation from what he thought was best.
I slammed my phone down on the bar, hands trembling with fury and hurt. Tears pricked at my eyes—angry tears I refused to let fall. I’d wasted enough of them on my father and his opinions.
“Everything okay?”
I whirled around, my heart lurching in my chest. Diego stood in the doorway, his broad frame silhouetted against the pale morning light filtering through the saloon’s front windows. Thesight of him there, unexpected and somehow inevitable, sent a jolt through my already frayed nerves.
Frozen in place beside the bar, I stared at him, humiliation and bone-deep exhaustion washing over me in equal measure like twin tides threatening to pull me under. The phone still lay where I’d slammed it down, and the heat of embarrassment crept up my neck. How long had he been standing there? How much had he heard of my father’s dismissive tirade—the cold disappointment in his voice, the way he’d reduced everything I was feeling to “small-town nostalgia” and emotional instability?
Diego stepped inside, his movements careful and deliberate as he closed the door quietly behind him. The soft click of the latch seemed unnaturally loud in the heavy silence that had settled over the saloon. He moved toward me with the same measured pace he’d use approaching a spooked horse, his face etched with genuine concern that made my chest tighten with an emotion I was too afraid to name.
