Beautiful Disaster /A Jordan Knight FanFic/ Book Two in the Beautiful series ✔️

25

Dallas

WOULD I HAVE BEEN ANY MORE shocked if Mama had walked through that door, hailed by wind chimes? Alive and well? No, I don't think so.

My father is just as I remembered, only older. That's a stupid observation. Obviously he's older. I haven't seen him since I was eight, but he's still handsome. I see traces of myself in his lips and eyes. He still looks at me like he loves me more than anything. It was a lie then, and surely it's a lie now.

His name was all I could manage, that first startled breath of a word, and then nothing. All rational thought flees when you see a ghost. My fingers go numb, and the jar of cinnamon I'd just located drops and shatters on the floor.

I glance down at the pile of fragrant glass broken at my feet. I can't move. I don't bend to pick it up, clean it up. I just look from the mess at my feet back to my father. Neither of us makes a move toward the other.

"There was no one at the diner . . . the house." He thumbs back in the direction of Glory Bee. "I just thought I'd check to see if there was someone out back."

"What . . ." I have to stop for a moment, damming every emotion that would flood this room and drown us both. "Why are you here?"

He takes a cautious step into the shed, eyes exploring the shelves packed tight with jars and spices and all the things Mama needed. He scratches his eyebrow, which used to be a sure sign of nerves. Sometimes he'd do it right before he got up to preach. I don't know what it's a sign of anymore. Maybe now he just itches.

"I heard on the news that you were in the hospital." He takes two more steps in my direction. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Fury elbows my shock aside. Outrage tightens my fingers into fists and boils hot water just below my skin until it overflows, hissing when it hits the surface.

"And what did you think you could do?" I snap. "You didn't make sure I was okay when you missed my recital. That hurt. Or when I sprained my ankle at cheerleading camp, or broke my wrist in gymnastics."

"Dallas, I—"

"Or how 'bout this one? You weren't here when my mama was sick." My lip betrays a tremor, but I pull it tight. "I could've really used your help all those times, but you weren't there for any of it. So why the hell would you think I need you now?"

"Baby girl, if—"

"Don't you dare call me that." Like a riled bull, I force air through my nostrils. "My father called me that, and you're a stranger. I have no idea who you are."

"I understand you're angry." He shakes his head, his expression helpless at how understated that must sound even to his own ears. "Anger probably doesn't begin to cover it, but I couldn't just sit back and do nothing knowing you were in the hospital."

"I think you're very good at sitting back and doing nothing. That's exactly what you've done for the last fifteen years. Nothing. And it's real convenient that you show up now that I'm on television and linked to a very wealthy man."

"You can't think . . ." He frowns. "I don't want your money, Dallas."

"Good, because I don't have much of my own yet, and if I had millions I certainly wouldn't give it to you."

"Maybe this was a mistake." He directs his words and his eyes to the shed floor. "Carla just thought that—"

"Your mistress?" I slice into whatever crap he almost spouted about that whore he left my mother for.

Anger flashes in the glance he raises to me, but he quells it.

I thought so.

"My wife," he says softly. "We got married."