I sleep at home. Not in the mountains, which is usual for me during Syrah harvest, but at home, with Ashley next to me.

And I begin to wonder if maybe I can actually do this. Have a relationship with her.

“Dale?” Ashley says, leaning back in the hot tub after a particularly grueling day among the Syrah vines.

“Yeah?”

“Could I…have your mother’s necklace back?”

My heart jolts—in a good or bad way, I’m not sure. I will give it to her, though. It’s hers. It will never belong to anyone else.

“Of course. I was never sure why you wouldn’t take it in the first place.”

She sighs. “I guess I was hoping… Hoping maybe you’d change your mind and give us beyond two months. But now I want to take things day by day, because each day with you gets better, Dale. Each day I love you more, and even if you can’t commit to forever with me, I want the beautiful necklace to remember our time together.”

“It was always yours, Ash. I knew it as soon as I placed it around your neck. No one else could ever wear it.”

She kisses me on the cheek so hard that I nearly fall over into the water.

“Let’s go get it now!”

I chuckle. “All right. I’m turning into a prune anyway.” I climb out of the tub and hand Ashley her robe.

We—Penny at our heels—head into the house and back into the master suite, dripping water onto the hardwood as we walk. I open the top drawer of my chest and find the velvet box buried under my boxer briefs. I open it and finger the necklace.

It’s worth all of two hundred bucks. I could buy Ashley something so much more elegant, but this is a gift from my heart.

“Turn around,” I tell her, “and lift your hair off your neck.”

Easier said than done, as her hair is wet and sticking to her creamy skin. But she manages, and I clasp the garnet necklace around her.

She turns to face me. “Well?”

“You’re beautiful,” I say. “It was made for you. Now lose the robe.”

Slowly, she unties the terrycloth sash and parts the two sides of the white robe, letting it fall from her shoulders into a heap at her feet.

Her pink skin shines with the moisture left from the hot tub, and the garnets around her neck seem to glow from the light that lives within her.

“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful,” I say on a breath.

She giggles nervously. “With my hair all wet and sticky?”

“You look perfect. Perfectly delectable.” I stalk toward her—

Only to be interrupted by my phone.

“Damn!” I shake my head. “I’m going to ignore it.”

That’s not like me, and Ashley seems to know.

“It’s okay,” she says. “Go ahead. It might be important.”

“Nothing’s important at ten o’clock at night.”

“That’s my point. Anyone who bothers you at this hour will have a good reason. Go ahead. I’d never forgive myself if I made you miss an important call.”

Yeah, she has a point. Still, I resist. I’ve actually felt good the past few days. Telling her about Donny nearly drowning opened up a part of my heart I feared was closed for all time, and the weirdest part? Nothing bad came along with it. Sure, I still have secrets buried inside, but they didn’t come roaring out as I feared they would.

I reluctantly pick up my phone. It’s not a number I recognize. “Dale Steel.”

“Mr. Steel, this is Dr. Jane Forrester. I’m the on-call cardiologist at St. Mary’s. I have some news about Floyd Jolly.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m afraid Mr. Jolly has developed sepsis.”

“That’s an infection, right?”

“Yes, a systemic infection. It’s uncommon after heart surgery, as we administer antibiotics, but it does happen.”

I inhale. “All right. What does this mean for his prognosis?”

“He’s running a high fever and his kidneys are failing. We’re administering more antibiotics as well as continuing his pain meds. He’s on oxygen. But I have to be honest with you. It doesn’t look good.”

I drop my mouth open.

What am I supposed to feel?

I’ve felt more in the past three days with Ashley than I’ve ever allowed myself to feel, and right now, I feel…

Not sad, exactly. Not angry. Not happy, of course. But it’s definitely something that I can’t pinpoint.

Regret? Perhaps a touch. But why? Floyd is the one who should be having regrets.

Resignation? Yeah, that’s definitely there, kind of mixed with the tiny smidge of regret.

“What is it?” Ashley asks softly.

I don’t answer her.

“Mr. Steel?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“We’ve called in the infectious disease specialist, and we have the internist on call looking at him now. If his kidneys continue to fail, we may have to administer dialysis.”

“Okay. I see.”

“And there’s one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“He wants to see you.”

I’m not sure why her words surprise me, but they do. “Why?”

“He knows his situation, Mr. Steel. We’ve been honest with him. His body is weak from his withdrawal and from the open-heart surgery. It’s not likely that he’ll live.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Ashley

In a robotic tone—only a tiny sliver of his dark red shines through—Dale explains to me what the doctor on the phone said about his birth father.

“You should go,” I say.

“Not tonight.”

“What if he doesn’t make it through the night? He wants to see you.”

“Ashley, I’m exhausted. I can’t do it tonight. I’m sorry if that disappoints you, but I just can’t.”

Don’t push.

Those words have become my mantra with Dale. But a man is dying here. The man who fathered him.

Then again, if my father had lived longer and then asked for me on his deathbed, would I have gone?

Yes, I would have. Out of curiosity if nothing else. Part of me wants to know if the birthmark on my shoulder came from him. Or my full lips. My mother’s are thin.