her father’s recent heart attack had made her face the fact that time to address old hurts—or at the very least come to terms with them—was running out. If she wanted to heal the rift between her and her dad, the way her mother had always wanted, it had to be done soon. Whether her dad cooperated or not!
Aware the silence between them had stretched on for too long, Hannah shifted her attention back to Joe and asked casually, “When will you be done with your book?” Last spring, he’d rented a cabin just outside town and used it as a home base for his research on southwest Texas.
“It’s essentially done now. I just want to take one more trip to Big Bend, to check out a couple of the hotels I missed on my earlier visits, write the magazine articles I’m going to use to promote the book, and then I’m off to Australia to start my next project.”
“So you’ll be leaving…?”
“Texas? Right after Labor Day.”
Which meant, Hannah thought sadly, she’d rarely if ever see Joe again.
In another three weeks, he’d no longer be stopping by the Mercantile to chat up the tourists shopping there about their favorite haunts in this part of Texas. He’d no longer be teasing her, or making polite conversation with her father. Or stopping by to see if she wanted to grab some lunch at one of the cafés in town, along with whomever else their age he could round up.
Joe turned onto Main Street. The county courthouse and police station sat across from the parklike grounds of the town square, taking one whole block. Farther down, brick buildings some two hundred years old sported colorful awnings over picture windows. In the past few years, restaurants that catered to tourists and natives alike had sprung up here and there, adding to the length of the wide boulevard in the center of town. But it was the imposing Callahan Mercantile & Feed that gave Summit the Old West ambience tourists loved to photograph.
Built shortly after Texas achieved statehood, the sprawling general store still bore the original log-cabin exterior. Improvements had been made over the years, but the wooden rocking chairs scattered across the covered porch that fronted the building still beckoned a person to linger, even after purchases were made.
Joe eased his SUV into a parking space in front of the store. “Any chance the day’s pastries have arrived yet?”
Hannah nodded. “My dad stops by the bakery personally every morning to pick them up before he comes in. Help yourself to whatever is there. I’ll go find Dad.”
Gus was in back, as she figured he would be.
At seventy, he was still a handsome man with expressive brown eyes the same shade as hers. In the two years since her mother’s death, his thick straight hair had turned completely white. Gus Callahan had never been an easy man. He was set in his ways. Opinionated. He had a strong sense of right and wrong and had never been known to yield to anyone. Including Hannah.
A lump formed in her throat. Wondering when she would ever stop longing for his approval, she managed to choke out, “Dad?”
He looked up from the account statements he was sorting through.
“I’m leaving,” she said wishing, once again, for a miracle.
Gus scowled and set down the stack of billing notices. He looked her square in the eye and said flatly, “It’s still not too late to change your mind.”
IT WAS NOT JOE’S INTENTION to eavesdrop. Never mind get personally involved in a family dispute that was none of his business. But Hannah’s sigh of dismay rang through the silence of the Mercantile, catching his attention.
“Dad.” Her voice sounded thick with tears, in a way it never did with anyone else. “Please.”
Gus stormed out into the grocery aisles, either not noticing or not caring that Joe was there to witness the familial contretemps. Jaw set, he marched over to the card table in the corner where a large stainless steel percolator that had seen better days was set up. He picked up a disposable cup and held it underneath the pour spout. “I’m not going to pretend this is a good idea, Hannah.” Gus glared at her over the rim of his cup. “You want a baby? There are better ways to go about getting one.”
She sniffled. “It’s not that easy.”
“The hell it’s not!” He quaffed his coffee the same way he would a shot of whiskey. “You’ve got cowboys and businessmen lined up from here to Austin, ready and willing to marry you.”
She threw up her hands, angry now. “I don’t love them!”
Gus lifted his scraggly white brow. “How do you know what could be when you won’t even date them?” he demanded.
Hannah’s jaw set, in much the same fashion as her irascible father’s. “I’m not going to lead someone on just for the sake of filling up my social calendar!”
“If your mother were here…”
Now that was a low blow, Joe thought, remembering how hard it had been to get over the loss of his parents.
“Mom would applaud my decision to adopt!” she countered, just as fiercely.
“Your mother, God rest her soul, would be wrong in this instance,” Gus snapped.
Hannah shook her head wordlessly and stared at the floor as if praying for strength. She turned back to her father, her composure intact. “When I return, I’m going to have Isabella with me. I’m going to need your support.”
It was clear she wasn’t going to get it.
The hurt on her face was more than Joe could tolerate. He broke every rule he had about staying out of other people’s business. He strode through the aisles and stepped between the warring Callahans. He looked her in the eye. “If we don’t want to miss our flight, we better get a move on, Hannah.”
Gus looked at Joe with contempt. “You really want to be a friend to her? You’ll do everything you can to keep my daughter from getting on that plane.”
It was easy to see Gus’s words cut Hannah like a knife. Joe’s temper roiled as the color drained from her face.
Tears sparkled on her lashes, then were promptly blinked back. “Goodbye, Dad,” Hannah said hoarsely, stepping forward to give Gus a cursory hug and turning away with a stricken look on her face.
Joe and Hannah walked out to the SUV in silence. Got in.
He felt for her. He knew the pain of wanting a blood relative to love you the way you needed to be loved, only to be turned away. True, his rejection had been a tad more polite. But it had been a rebuff just the same. Joe started the SUV, backed out of the space and headed for the highway.
“Sorry about that.” Hannah’s hands were shaking.
You shouldn’t be, he thought with a wave of feeling that surprised him. Resolutely, he offered what comfort he could. “I’ve been in some of those orphanages, Hannah.” Forty or more cribs sandwiched into a single large room, infants lined up, one after another—sometimes doubling up in a crib—with only one or two attendants to care for them all. “Without people like you, willing to open up their homes and their hearts,” he told her gruffly, remembering their sad little faces and haunted eyes, “those kids don’t stand a chance.”
Hannah exhaled a shaky breath. “My dad…”
“Will come around, once your baby is here,” Joe predicted, wishing he could do more to erase the vulnerability on her pretty face.
“You really think so?” She searched his eyes.
Given his own experiences? If Joe were honest, he’d have to give in to his cynical side and say…no. But that wasn’t what Hannah needed to hear.
“Sure,” he said. And left it at that.
“THERE MUST BE SOME MISTAKE,” a frustrated Hannah told the English-speaking clerk at the registration desk of the five-star Taipei