much care as if they were choosing lifelong mates. Deciding which mustard to buy took on the significance of selecting the perfect present. He would have chosen the cheapest of everything and been out of the store in ten minutes. Annie and Val seemed to have very definite—and often diametrically opposed—opinions. They’d been debating white sweet corn versus yellow for the past five minutes.
“Slade, what do you think?”
“Corn’s corn,” he said.
“No, Daddy. Silver Queen is the best. Grandma says so.”
“And I’ve always liked sweet yellow corn,” Val said.
“Get some of each.”
“A compromise,” Val said, beaming at him as if he’d single-handedly brought peace to the Middle East. “What a novel idea.”
“How much longer is this going to take?” he grumbled. “I have chores to do.”
“Harlan Patrick said not to worry about the chores,” Val informed him. “He said he’d take care of them.”
Slade scowled. “You asked Harlan Patrick to take on my chores?”
“Settle down, cowboy. He volunteered. He knew we were going to be getting ready for the party. If you’re going to follow us around with a scowl on your face, you might as well wait in the car.”
He stared hard at her. She was serious. She was dismissing him as if he were an unruly kid.
“Can’t do it. You need me to pay for all of this.”
“I’ll pay,” she said, facing him stubbornly. “You can pay me back.”
“If I’m forking out all this money, I want to see what I’m getting,” he insisted.
“Fine. Suit yourself.”
“I will.”
Annie watched them intently, then sighed. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”
“What’s your fault?” he and Val demanded in a shocked chorus.
“That you’re fighting. You probably never fought till I came.”
“We barely spoke till you came,” Val said with sincerity. “Don’t worry about it, Annie. Your father and I are used to it. This is the way we communicate.”
She tucked Annie’s arm through hers. “Let’s check out the steaks. I want really thick ones. How about you?”
“Daddy likes thick steaks, too,” Annie said, as if trying to convince Val of their compatibility.
“Give it up, sweetie. Making peace between us is not your job,” Val assured her, then leaned down to whisper something that had Annie grinning.
They moved off to the meat section, giggling. Slade watched them with their heads together and sighed heavily. Would he ever have that kind of easy relationship with Annie again? Or had he ruined it forever by abandoning her at her grandparents?
She and Val were still laughing when he found them loading up on steaks. As he got closer, he realized they were talking about dresses, of all things. Judging from Annie’s recent wardrobe choices, he hadn’t imagined she knew what a dress was. Val gave him a wink.
“Your daughter and I were just discussing whether or not we should get new outfits for the party. After all, we can’t spend the whole day in bathing suits. What do you think?”
What he thought was that his entire life savings were going into this party. But even he was smart enough not to say that.
“I say go for it, if it’s what you want.”
“Will you help us pick them out?” Val inquired with a glint in her eyes that made him very uneasy.
“Me? In a dress shop? I don’t know.” The quest for a bathing suit had been disconcerting enough. He’d reduced his daughter to tears over that.
“Maybe I should just wait in the car,” he suggested. “And you can’t take too long because we’ll have all this food. It’ll spoil in this heat.”
“Come on, Daddy. Please?” Annie said.
It was the first time in a long time that she’d actually asked him for anything. After what she’d said earlier about him running out on her, how could he refuse?
Which was why he ended up spending the most unnerving two hours of his life sitting on a puffy yellow ottoman surrounded by frills and watching two females parade around in silk and satin that was more suited to a formal event than a barbecue. He got the feeling that they were just having fun playing dress-up.
Watching his daughter was one thing. Watching Val was something else entirely. The woman made very sure that she ratcheted his temperature up to white-hot before she showed an ounce of mercy. One of these days he’d make her pay for that, and he was getting some fascinating ideas about how.
“Have you two decided yet?” he asked eventually. “The steaks will be barbecued in the car pretty soon.”
“One more dress,” Annie pleaded.
“One more,” he agreed.
When she