Hand on the banister and foot lifted to walk up the stairs to my room, I stilled when my Dad’s voice hit me.

“I know what he is to you.”

I turned at the foot of the stairs to see him standing there, his fingers curled around a cut crystal glass of Scotch. He rarely drank. He let Mom do the drinking. His addiction was betrayal and he indulged in that liberally.

“Hey, Dad,” I said quietly, my mind reeling to find the right way to play this.

“You think you two are being clever but you didn’t hide it. Maybe your mother missed it and his kids are too young to understand, but I didn’t miss it,” Dad declared and I looked at him.

He was angry.

But I was thirty-nine and I didn’t need my father’s approval in regards to who I spent time with.

So I straightened my shoulders and declared, “Hop and I have known each other for a long time. Recently, we got together. His kids don’t know yet.”

He shook his head and took two steps toward me before he stopped and asked, “Lanie? Seriously?”

“Seriously what?” I asked back.

“Seriously, you didn’t learn a lesson that it was impossible to miss when your last choice got you in Critical Care for six days?”

That was a blow he meant to land viciously, and he succeeded brilliantly.

“Dad—”

“And this one, this… this… man is worse. By far. My God, when was the last time he cut his hair?”

“I’m not sure when Hop does or does not cut his hair is the measure of a man, Dad,” I replied.

“You would be very wrong, Lanie, and I’ll point out again, not for the first time,” Dad shot back.

Blow two. Direct hit.

“You don’t know him,” I returned.

“I don’t need to know him. One look at him and I know the kind of man he is.”

God, I hated that from anyone, but especially my father.

“Sorry, but unless you have clairvoyance, something like that is impossible,” I bit out.

“I don’t need clairvoyance when I have age and wisdom, Elaine Heron. The first of those are creeping up on you without you seeming to realize it, your life wasting away, and the second seems to have escaped you.”

“I’ve known Hopper for eight years and you’ve known him less than a day and you think you can stand there and tell me you know him better than me?” I asked.

“We can start with that. What kind of name is Hopper for what kind of man?”

I had to admit, unlike all the other guys, Hop didn’t have a nickname that the brothers used almost exclusively to refer to him and I’d always been curious about that. One of the many inconsequential (but I found fascinating) facts I’d learned about Hop before I was with him was that his name actually was Hopper Kincaid. Seeing as he already had a name that fit, the boys didn’t bother giving him another one.

And I liked it.

But I wondered at it.

“I don’t know,” I answered Dad. “The name his parents gave him?”

“That’s ridiculous,” he bit out.

“I like his name,” I returned sharply. “I like pretty much everything about him.”

Dad took two more steps toward me, stopped again and hissed, “Lanie, wake up. Do it now before you waste your life. No children, no decent man to look after you, no future. Before you’re dragged into yet another world that is not good for you in any way, by a weak man who takes the easy path of life, and you find yourself paying for his choices.”

His words, each one…

No.

Each syllable slammed into me, breaking something I was holding together by a miracle.

And when it broke, there was no way to hold back what it was keeping at bay.

So I let it rip.

“Would that Papaw took the time before he died to warn Mom of that very thing,” I clipped and Dad’s head jerked. “You gave her children but you took away everything else, being a weak man who chose his own selfish needs over his family. You cannot stand there and say Hop is not decent, at the same time sinking in the mud you stepped in your own damned self. All that while Mom’s passed out cold upstairs, losing herself in a bottle because she can’t cope with the fact she lost her husband three decades ago. But he didn’t have the courage to cut ties and walk away so he tortures her with his selfishness every single day.”

His face turned to stone before he made an attempt to do something he couldn’t do. That was, putting the lid back on his boiling over pot of deceptions.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you,” I leaned toward him, “fucking do.”

“Remember who you’re speaking to and who you are, Elaine. That language—”

“Go fuck yourself, Dad,” I snapped and his head jerked again.

“I cannot believe you would dare—”

I took a step toward him and hissed, “Believe it!” I leaned back and threw out both my hands. “You know, when you go to her, you don’t just fuck over Mom. You fuck over Lis and me. Every time. Every time you go to her, it says, straight up, you do not give one single,” I leaned into him again, “shit about any of us.”

“This, this right here is the effect of spending time with that Tyra friend of yours and the kind of people her husband and your friend Hopper are.”

“Yes,” I agreed, nodding my head. “Yes, Dad. This right here is the effect of being around people who are loyal, decent, and honest. This right here is the effect of being around people who do not let other people mess with their heads or screw them over. This right here is the effect of exactly that. And, in about five seconds, there’ll be another effect. The effect of me walking upstairs and packing my bag. After that, the effect will be me walking out of here. After that, the effect will be you having to explain to Mom tomorrow where I’ve gone. And after that will be the effect of me explaining to Mom that I’ll speak to her if she doesn’t call me drunk off her ass but I am never again speaking to you.”

“You play that game, just like your sister, you’ll be cut off,” he warned.

“Newsflash, Dad. Just like Elissa, I wanted a father who was loyal and true to my mother and, if he couldn’t be that, he could at least let her go so she could find happiness in herself or someone else. Money and cars and houses, nothing holds a candle to that, so you can’t buy my love and loyalty and you can’t hurt me by taking things away I never wanted in the first place.”

“You say that now but—”

“Save it,” I bit off, lifting my hand and throwing it out at the same time turning on my boot and stomping to the stairs.

“Lanie, you leave, you do this, your mother will be devastated,” he called to my back. Four steps up, I turned back to him.

“You’re right. She will. And that sucks. But you know what? She’s lived with devastation a really long time. She knows the drill.”

On that, I turned again and stomped up the steps.

I yanked out my suitcase while pressing buttons on my phone.

“Lady,” Hop greeted after one ring.

“I… uh, Hop…” I trailed off mostly because my throat closed and I couldn’t force words out of my mouth.

He heard it, sensed it by Hop Magic or both.

I knew this when he ordered low, “Talk to me.”

I forced down a swallow and tossed my suitcase on the bed. “There was a, um… some unpleasantness… when I got back. Actually I would say it was more like… extreme unpleasantness.”

He didn’t ask.

He didn’t hesitate.

He just clipped out, “Pack. Text your address. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

My body stopped dead and my eyes closed tight.

“Lanie? You hear me?” Hop called.

“Yes,” I whispered.

His voice was gentle when he replied, “Pack, baby.”

“Okay.”

“Text me first. I want to be waiting at the door when you’re done.”

“Okay.”

“See you soon.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, lady.”

“Bye, Hop.”

We disconnected and I moved, flying through the room, packing with haste.

I was nearly finished when Dad appeared in my doorway.

“Don’t say another word,” I warned, not looking at him.

He didn’t heed my warning.

“Please understand. I started that downstairs because I’m worried about you, Lanie. Your mother and I are both worried. Very worried, and we have been for years. You’ve been alone for a long time and a beautiful girl like you, a girl with your heart… honey, that’s just not natural.”

I made no reply, just kept packing.

“I love her,” he whispered, and pain seared through me.

“Not another word, Dad.”

“I love both of them.”

Oh God!

I stopped and whirled on him. “Not another word, Dad.”

“Can you imagine, living years, loving two women, knowing what you’re doing to both of them?”

“No, I can’t and I don’t want to and furthermore, what is the matter with you that you’d even ask me that shit? I’m your daughter.”

He winced.

I went back to packing.

“I love you too, Lanie,” he said quietly as I zipped up my case.

I yanked it off the bed, stomped to him and stopped.

“Then prove it. Pick one or the other. If it’s Mom, get her in a program. But do something, Dad, because this is going to end in tragedy one way or another. You’ve had a good run but you lost one daughter to this, and you’re losing another right now. Two tragedies. Don’t court more.”

With that, I shoved by him, hauling my case with me. I struggled down the stairs (it did weigh half a ton) grabbed my purse off the side table by the front door and took off through it.