But was she ready, after all, to leave her father? The notion of his living alone broke her heart. Who would cook for him? Share cleaning chores and laundry? Sit with him in the evenings while they watched television and tried to figure out who’d really murdered the victim on The First 48? Every night, he’d be sleeping in the house without her there. She was already gone more than he liked. Would he feel abandoned? Or worse? She knew what he thought of Calvin.
He edged toward the hallway. “Let’s talk outside.” He glanced at the Realtor. “We’ll be back in a minute. Want to take a look at the yard.”
The woman wore a faint frown, as if she too sensed Becca’s new hesitation.
The outdoor space was big, though there were bare spots in the lawn under the large maple tree. “There’ll be good shade,” she pointed out, “but the grass needs work.”
“Becca, I thought you wanted to live together. Now I can tell you’re not sure.”
She drew a breath. “Calvin, let’s not jump into this, okay? There might be a house closer to Clara’s so you wouldn’t have to drive as far every day to work and I’d be near my dad’s.”
His gaze sharpened. “Why? So you could run home to him whenever something’s not going right with us?”
“I’m worried he’ll feel lonely.”
“Okay, but he doesn’t like me. I know I made some poor decisions, but I did what the law required, Becca.” His mouth tightened. “I may not be a big prize, and I don’t have much, but if we pool what we each make, we’ll have our start. Or don’t you really care about me?”
“I love you, Calvin. But we shouldn’t rush into anything.”
“That’s a mixed message. And I’m not good at reading those,” he said.
Becca’s stomach churned. “It’s not as if everyone in Barren wants to rent this house. I like it okay, but let’s wait a few days. See if we feel the same way about it then before we tell the Realtor we’ve decided.” A dozen scenarios kept running through her mind. What if she moved in with him and they couldn’t agree on anything? Like this place right now? And signing a lease with Calvin might send her dad over the edge.
Calvin looked at the ground. “You know what? You sound like Willow Bodine.”
Becca’s best friend. “That’s not fair.”
“But you know how she and Cody were. Her dad wasn’t keen on him either, and that’s partly why they broke up. Maybe that rubbed off on you. Fine,” he said, throwing out a hand in defeat then starting back toward the house.
Becca stood there a moment before she followed, as if a dark shroud had dropped around her shoulders, weighing her down. A fresh bout of nausea threatened. She hadn’t meant to ruin things, but this was a huge step and maybe she hadn’t thought it through. Without his embrace, more exhausted than she’d been when he picked her up tonight, she felt cold, alone.
The Realtor was standing at the back door, gazing out into the yard. Calvin climbed the steps ahead of Becca. He muttered, “Let’s not do this, then. I wouldn’t want you to make the wrong decision.”
CHAPTER TEN
“YOU OKAY?” AT THE picnic table in Lizzie’s backyard she and Dallas were supposed to be discussing the rodeo—a business meeting—but she didn’t seem to be paying attention tonight. Even in the dim light, she looked pale and wan, worried, and Dallas saw that same distance in her eyes as he had at the kids’ rodeo.
She yawned. “Sorry, I never seem to get enough sleep. Becca and I spend the first hour at work each day trying to stay awake. And I talked to the kids this morning. When I mentioned cleaning house before they come home, Seth said, ‘You didn’t throw out my stuffies?’ Then Jordan whined about spending his summer with the baby, and Stella wouldn’t even speak to me at first.” Lizzie moved her glass of herbal iced tea around on the table. “Then I made the mistake of asking about Harry. They all said he was downstairs but would be right back. There’s apparently a Starbucks in the resort lobby.” She sighed. “I was upset that he’d left them alone, but Stella finally said, ‘We’re big enough to take care of each other,’ and all I could think was—without me.”
She kept shooting looks toward her driveway, the street and the house on the other side where her nosy neighbor lived. Dallas didn’t buy her explanation. “What else?” he asked.
Her unhappy gaze met his. “When I told Stella I disagreed about Harry leaving them alone, Jordan piped up, ‘He doesn’t care, Mom,’ with an air of disdain that sounded remarkably like Harry. ‘You’re divorced,’ he told me. ‘Dad can do what he wants.’”
“Aw, Lizzie.” She couldn’t keep him from thinking of her that way, and he couldn’t keep the name from coming out now. Dallas tried to take her hand, but she drew back.
Her mouth turned down. “Harry has too much time in a different state to indoctrinate them, turn them against me.” Her eyes flashed. “I won’t be his pawn to move around on the chessboard, giving him an advantage. The kids are vulnerable, open to suggestion, eager to please their father, who was largely missing from their lives last winter and this past spring, which doesn’t give Harry the right now to subvert my role as their mother.”
“I’m sure they don’t see it that way.”
She rubbed the frown line between her brows. “Why am I telling you my troubles? The
