color against his suntanned skin and shaggy black hair.
God, she’d missed him all these years. All these years that she gave him up so he didn’t have to be saddled with a girl who had a monster for a father and now—
She banged the heel of her hand on the steering wheel.
He took care of the bastard? It didn’t seem possible or right or reasonable in any way she could imagine.
Like it or not, Guy was her parent. If he had to be put in a home, she’d do it. But before she could tackle this problem with a list of possible solutions, she had to figure out exactly how bad the situation was and how far gone he was with dementia.
The word settled hard on her heart. She knew a little about Alzheimer’s—knew the disease could make a person cranky and mean. Wow, Guy must be a joy to take care of, considering he’d already been a ten on the cranky-and-mean scale. Why would Will volunteer for the job?
Because Will had one weakness: the softest, sweetest, most tender of hearts. And wasn’t that what she’d once loved about him?
That and those shoulders.
She pressed her foot against the accelerator, glancing at the ranch houses and palm trees, the bicycles in driveways, the flowers around the mailboxes. This was a lovely residential neighborhood where normal families lived normal lives.
Right. Where dysfunctional families made a mockery of normal. Where—
Oh, Lord. Guy was on the porch.
He was sitting on the front porch swing, hunched over a newspaper, his mighty shoulders looking narrow, his giant chest hollowed as if it had been emptied of all that hot air.
Looking at him was like looking at something you remember as a child, only as an adult, that something doesn’t seem nearly as big or daunting or dangerous.
Mom had bought that swing, Jocelyn recalled, with high hopes that the family would sit out there on warm evenings, counting the stars and watching the moon.
Fat chance, Mary Jo.
There were no such things as family nights in the Bloom household. And right there, in a faded plaid shirt and dusty gray trousers and a pair of bedroom slippers, was the reason why.
As Jocelyn slowed the car alongside the curb, Guy looked up, a sheet of newspaper fluttering to the ground. He looked right at her, icy fingers of awareness prickling her whole body.
She waited for his reaction, some emotional jolt of recognition by him, but there was none.
Okay, then. He wasn’t going to acknowledge her. Fine. That would make the whole thing easier. It was entirely possible he didn’t recognize her, if what Will said was true.
But her knowledge of Alzheimer’s said he’d be able to remember things that happened long ago but not what he had for breakfast. If so, he must be wallowing in some unhappy memories.
Good. That’s what he deserved.
He stood slowly, frowning now, angling his head, and even from this far she could see his gray eyes looked more like rain clouds than sharp steel, and his hands shook with age, not rage.
“Can I help you?” The question came out hoarse, as though he hadn’t spoken to anyone all day.
She turned off the ignition and opened the door. “You don’t recognize me?”
He shook his head. What was he? Sixty-five? Sixty-six? He looked ninety.
“What do you want?” He sounded scared. Was that even possible? Nothing scared the former deputy sheriff.
“It’s me, Jocelyn.” She stepped onto the lawn, her heels digging into the grass like little spikes into her heart.
“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”
“Guy, it’s me.” She wasn’t about to call him Dad; he’d relinquished that title on a hot summer night in 1997 when he threatened to ruin the life of a young man. The same young man who now took care of him.
Injustice rocked her, but she kept a steady path toward him.
“Do I know you?”
“You did,” she said.
“You do look familiar.” He rubbed a face that hadn’t seen a razor in quite some time, frowning. “Pretty, too. What’s your name, young lady?”
Had he ever called her pretty? She couldn’t remember. Maybe when she was little, before his violent streaks became the norm rather than the occasional nightmare.
She ran her tongue under her front teeth, a tiny chip on the right front tooth her sacred reminder of just what this man could do.
“I’m Jocelyn. I’m your daughter.”
He laughed, a hearty sound, and another thing she had no memory of him doing. “I don’t have a daughter. I have a son.” He reached out his