Her father wore a rueful little smirk and his gaze shifted down, telling her he'd already driven way too far down the road of promises he couldn't keep to make this next few minutes easy.
"It's just I have a cousin there. Well, not really my cousin, but-it's a long story. Anyway, the last time I talked to her, she said she could get me a job at her salon. And since Grady recouped there last time, we thought this would be perfect."
Much as Paige would love to help Rosie move out of state, she only offered her a tough-love smile. Rosie was one of those basically nice and decent women who had suffered enough knocks by life that she had wound up floating aimlessly, quick to latch onto anything or anyone that might anchor her. She was the gal whose car was a lemon, whose employer took advantage, and whose boyfriend was a bum. Some guy with big ideas and a small drug problem had brought her to Liebe Falls from an equally rootless life in Tulsa. He had left her with a stolen stereo and no rent money. When Grady had shown an interest, Rosie had attached like a burr to a bear.
But Paige was not calling her ex to ask a favor. Not this kind. No way.
"The divorce just finalized," she reminded her father. "The condo probably isn't even available."
"No, it is-" Rosie looked between them, confused.
"You called him?" Paige widened her eyes at her father, wondering how she could possibly be surprised.
He shrugged. "He said I could have a month right now if you gave up your two weeks next March."
"Rosie, we're going to need a few minutes. Can you-actually, you." She pointed at her dad. "I'll walk you back to your room. You shouldn't be out here anyway. And we have to talk."
Grady made a pained noise and looked around at the faded gardens visible beyond the plastic wall. "I hate being cooped up in there."
Paige bit back the reminder that maybe if he stopped smoking, he wouldn't keep winding up in the cardiac wing.
"Not just about Palm Springs. I came from the factory. Let's go."
With a dismayed look and a deep sigh, he heaved to his feet and grasped at his IV caddy.
"He made it seem like it was okay," Rosie excused in a small voice.
He always does. "Just give us a few minutes to work some stuff out, okay?"
She waited until they were in the elevator to scold, "Don't go behind my back to Anthony."
"I nearly died on top of her. Poor kid was trapped under a spaz." He patted the one empty pocket on his hospital gown and made a face. "Now she's coming here all worried about me. I feel bad for her. A phone call was the least I could do."
"I booked that time in March for me and Brit, to celebrate her finishing school."
"Yeah, well, you should check in with her because I'm not convinced she'll make that date."
The doors opened and he braced a shaky hand on the sensor to hold it open while he shuffled out.
Paige faltered. He knew Brit was pregnant? She bit her lip, not wanting to tip her hand if he didn't, but what else could he mean?
She followed him in silence to his room then closed the door behind them as he settled himself on the bed.
"And I figured if I'm cashing out of Roy's-" her father continued.
"You're not," Paige said firmly. "Not yet." She told him everything.
"I wanted you to do it," he said in answer to her reprimand about not having a proper audit. "Why give the fee to anyone else?"
"Very loyal. But I don't actually want to do it."
"You should take over for me. Clean house properly."
"No."
"Then I'll cash out."
"No! Dad," she said between her teeth. So stubborn.
"He's not going to agree to an audit, Pidge." Something dark went across his expression. "And I'm too old to still be scrapping it out with that son of a bitch. He's right about one thing. It's time I retired."
And just like that he got to her. Most of the time she wanted to wring her father's neck, he was so self-involved and dense to the consequences of his actions, but then he let her see the real man, the one who was tired and human and fought battles of his own. The one who needed her...
Don't fall for it, she could hear Britta cautioning her. Paige had attended enough codependent meetings to know she had a predisposition for enabling, but this was her father.
His skin felt too smooth and loose when she took his hand. His face was deeply lined with not just weariness, but age and ill health.
And he might not have been a perfect father, but he'd been there. He might not have been in the house when she got home from school. He might have skipped the dinners she made him more often than eating them, but he'd never wavered in expressing his love and pride in her. He had never screamed at her for no reason or thrown things at her, or told her to, Leave me alone. I can't be whatever it is you want me to be, or walked out of the house and refused to come back. For all his drinking and womanizing, he'd been the stable, sane parent.
And he'd never said a bad word about her mother except that she was sick. It wasn't her fault she acted like that and it wasn't Paige's fault either.
She loved him for that.
"I want out, Pidge. If you don't go in there and keep the income flowing, I'll sign the papers and be done with it."
~ * ~
Sterling knocked on the door to Grady's room, glanced through the window to see Paige turn her head. Her expression, already dismayed, grew dark with annoyance as she recognized him.
He pushed into the room, forcing himself to send her father a nod of greeting even though he'd never forgiven Grady for that beating. Or heard an apology, either.
What ever happened to a good, old-fashioned, Get your hands off my daughter?
When a man in his fifties left a teenager with bruised ribs, a cut lip and a black eye, the police ought to be called. His parents hadn't wanted to go down that road, though. Dad had to work with Grady and, Damn it, Sterling, what the hell were you doing there anyway?
"Grady," Sterling said, dead neutral.
"Sterling." Grady's lip curled like he knew things Sterling didn't.
How could a man recovering from his third cardiac arrest look better than the one who rarely worked late and ate the high-fibre diet his wife put in front of him? It was those damned Fogarty genes. Like Lyle, Grady had the handsome reprobate look down pat and he was aging it well. Paige had a more Jessica Rabbit femme fatale air with those curves and that sweep of her lashes to hide her thoughts, but the whole damned family was attractive without trying.
"Paige said you weren't planning to move into your father's office," Grady said.
"True." Sterling glanced to where she moved her hand off her fathers to clutch the bed rail.
She lifted her chin, pretty lips flat, gaze bordering on hostile.
"She told me you'd like an audit before you finalize a price. I don't disagree," Sterling continued. He liked that phrase. It was conciliatory without giving up too much.
"No, I want her to take over for me," Grady said.
The statement kicked alarm into Sterling's blood stream. He snapped his gaze to Grady's shit-brown gaze then back to Paige's pinched nostrils and hollow cheeks.
She stared slightly to his left, saying nothing.
"Does Paige want that?" he asked carefully.
"I've promised to quit smoking," Grady said with a magnanimous smile as his daughter swung her attention back to him. "She wants that. Or I can sign the papers as is," he warned her.
"Blackmail. Really," she charged. "I can't just leave my job, you know."
"Why not? I'm giving you a new one."
"Why?" Sterling asked Grady, voice hardening in his chest.
A smirk skated around the old man's mouth. "I appreciate the irony."
"This isn't funny," Paige snapped. "You have debts, Dad. Olinda thinks your selling means she's winning the lottery. If I take over-"
"You can administer the dividends as you see fit. You're the one saying we can do better than the offer on the table," he chided. "Do better."
"I know a white elephant when I see one." Paige snatched up her purse. "I'm going back to Seattle. Don't you dare sign anything." She shook her finger at her father.
"Make up your mind before I leave for Palm Springs."
"You're hilarious," she spat over her shoulder.
Sterling opened the door for her, not so she could escape this conversation, but so they could take it somewhere more private.
"Before you go..." he said as she came even with him.
She gave him the look snarling dogs wore, but didn't try to outrun him. She didn't talk, either, just floated on a cloud of fury as they left the hospital. He followed her all the way to her hatchback, too damned aware of her feminine gait and the subtle bounce of her breasts when he was supposed to be playing hard ball. She'd gone from Wrong Girl to Declared Enemy. What the hell was his libido thinking?
When she blipped the fob to unlock her door, he said, "Paige."