Page 41 of Return of the Bad Girl (Rock Canyon, Idaho 4)

Covering the older woman’s hand with her own, Caroline took a breath and blinked. She didn’t want to cry before she saw the old man. “Thank you.”

Teresa pulled away first, wiping at her eyes and huffing, “Well, you stayed away far too long. I’m sure your father will be happy to see you.”

Ha. Not if his reaction at the hospital was any indication.

Caroline followed Teresa to her father’s bedroom and waited behind her as she knocked on the door. “Mr. Willis, there is someone here to see you.”

“If it’s Kyle with the new figures, tell him—”

Caroline stepped around Teresa and pushed the door open. “Hi, Daddy.”

Edward Willis looked up from a pile of papers on his lap, and although he appeared stronger than he had in the hospital, seeing her once-imposing father sitting in bed in the middle of the afternoon was still hard to get used to.

He had aged twenty years, in Caroline’s opinion. His once-dark, silver-flecked hair was nearly white

. His reading glassed perched on his nose, and the hard eyes gazing out at her were surrounded by more wrinkles than she remembered. Even his skin looked weathered, although he was still a handsome man. He was like Clint Eastwood; immortal even as he aged, his presence was still strong.

Caroline tried to remember the few times in her childhood when he’d been caring or affectionate—hell, even just proud of her—but they were hard to come by. She felt like those memories belonged to someone else. This wasn’t her home, and this wasn’t the man who’d raised her. They were just strangers who shared the same blood.

Things could have been so different if he had just tried. Opened up and listened to them.

Acted like a father, you mean?

But the past was the past, and she couldn’t change it. She could only try to move forward.

No matter how terrifying it was.

“I thought I made myself quite clear that you were no longer welcome here.”

Caroline heard Teresa suck in a breath behind her, but she refused to be rattled. “I thought maybe we could bury the hatchet—preferably not in each other’s backs.”

Edward watched her, his face flushed as he reached for something from his nightstand.

“How much?”

“How much what?” Caroline asked, knowing full well he was talking about money but wanting him to say it aloud.

“How much money do you need?” Edward asked, enunciating each word with a sneer.

Caroline wanted to wipe that condescending look off his face. Pulling out her scratched cell phone, she opened her bank account app and walked around the bed until she could hold out the screen to him.

“As you can see, Daddy, I’m doing okay for myself. I am here strictly on a personal level.”

Edward looked positively ill as he stared at her online bank statement.

Don’t smile. You are an adult who made good and do not need to rub it in his face like a child. Don’t smile.

She grinned. “Aren’t you proud?”

God, why do you have to revert to an angry, snotty teenager?

“If you don’t want money, then there is nothing for you here,” he snarled.

“So, let me get this straight,” she said, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “You don’t want me around, but if I did need money, you would be okay with that?”

“Anything to keep an embarrassment like you away from me,” he said.

Her eyes stung as if he’d slapped her, but she choked back her tears on a harsh laugh. “You are such a dick.”

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