“You wanted to come back?”
“Desperately, but even after your fellow showed up, I was afraid to agree.”
“He’s not my fellow,” Isabelle insisted, wondering how long it would take for the town to accept that she and Zach had been pretend all along. Soon enough, he’d be gone, and it wouldn’t matter what anyone thought.
“You sure about that?” her father interrupted her thoughts. “It took me some fast-talking to convince him to let me be the one to come after you.”
“He tried to stop you?”
“It wasn’t so much that he wanted to stop me as it was that he was headed after you.”
Zach had been coming after her? Her father had stopped him? What was it Morgan had said about them being the two most important men in her life? They weren’t… only, they were. Leaning back against the bench, Isabelle closed her eyes, the image of the spotlight-lit flag imprinted on her eyelids taunting her.
Voice breaking, she whispered, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
“You’re not supposed to say anything. There’s no need. Just—” He took a deep breath. “I plan to stick around Pine Hill, and with time, I hope you can forgive me.”
He made it sound so simple, and yet nothing could be more so. There was so much pain, so much that couldn’t be undone. Looking his way, she asked, “What about Mom?”
His hands shook to where he slid them beneath the quilt’s edges. “I never stopped loving her.”
Isabelle’s breath caught. “Have you told her?”
He shook his head. “Guess I’m afraid of doing that, as well.”
“She deserves to hear it, to have the opportunity to tell you to get lost again, if that’s what she wants.”
“She does. That and a lot more. Do you think that’s what she’s going to do? Tell me to get lost again?”
“I’m not sure.” Over twenty years had passed. “She’s never dated, but I doubt she could ever trust you to not leave again.”
Turning on the bench, the quilt wrapping him in evidence of Sophie’s love, his blue gaze met hers. “What about you, Isabelle? Can you trust that I’m here to stay?”
Could she? Pain pulsed through her in hurtful waves. “I-I don’t think so.”
He studied her a moment, then placed his hand over hers. Isabelle’s entire body zeroed in on the warmth, the first time she’d felt her father’s touch in over twenty years. Tears pooled in her eyes, a few running freely down her cheeks.
“Are you willing to try?”
Swallowing her pride, her pain, her desire to pull her hand free, she fought to keep a sob at bay. “I suspect you aren’t going to give me a choice.”
“If by that you mean that I’m never going to quit trying to earn your trust, then you’re right. I’m home, Isabelle.” With that, he took hold of the quilt about his shoulders, stretched out the material to envelop her within its warmth, and held her close. “Finally, I’m home.”
*
“I invited yourfather over to stay Christmas Eve so that he could be with us Christmas morning.”
Fighting to keep Bobbin off the Christmas paper of the gift she was attempting to wrap, Isabelle glanced toward her mother. What did she expect her to say? Her father had been home for a week and had wormed his way back into their lives. Who was Isabelle to argue if her mother wanted him there at Christmas?
“If that’s what you want.”
“Want?” Darlene sank into the chair close to where Isabelle sat cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by wrapping supplies. “It’s a lot to take in, this past week. But I think he should be here, rather than at Sarah and Bodie’s for Christmas, don’t you?”
As awkward as it would be having her father there, what her mother said made sense. “You’re right. This is Jeannie’s first Christmas. Dad shouldn’t be there.”
Her mother eyed her. “You think he shouldn’t be here, either?”
Bobbin swiped at Isabelle’s hand as she taped the paper edges together.
