Dare to Take (Dare to Love 6)

Come morning, she dressed in a subdued outfit to match her mood. Tan pants and a white collared shirt, buttoned up, little makeup, no jewelry, so she felt comfortable no matter who she ran into at the prison. She pulled her hair into a low ponytail and secured it with a hair tie.

She hadn’t seen her father since she was a teenager, and she wasn’t sure what to expect today, especially since he’d said he had cancer and she’d been encouraged to rush her visit.

How progressed was his illness? How frail and sick did he look? Her stomach flipped with nerves, and she couldn’t manage to eat breakfast. Not even a cup of coffee for courage. Instead, she tossed a protein bar in her purse for later, grabbed her keys, and headed out.

She approached the prison. The barbed wire made her stomach cramp, and she gripped the steering wheel harder. A guard verified her at the gate, and she went through the process, numb as she was scanned and patted down, her small purse emptied out and thoroughly checked.

A little while later, she was escorted down bare, gray cinderblock halls, toward what she was told was an infirmary.

The guard paused outside a locked door with a small window. She glanced inside, catching sight of an inmate lying in a hospital bed. He was bald, his coloring gray, and he was so frail. He turned his head. She knew he couldn’t see her—yet—but she was taken aback. Because although she recognized the man in the bed as her father, after the split second of identification, she realized she didn’t know him at all.

“Ready?” the guard asked.

As she’d ever be, she thought, and nodded. He unlocked the door, the sound of the deadbolt reverberating around an

d inside her. He opened the door and gestured for her to walk inside.

He accompanied her, standing by the wall, his gaze never wavering.

Her father’s gaze, watery and sad, locked with hers, and she walked slowly over to the bed. “Hi,” she said, having a hard time finding her voice. A harder time calling him Dad.

“Hi, princess.”

She flinched at the childhood name she hadn’t heard in … what felt like forever. Not since before he’d remarried.

“Thank you for coming.”

She managed a nod. “I’m sorry you’re sick.”

His lips thinned into a line. “It’s nothing more or less than what I deserve. For what I did, not just for driving drunk and killing that poor man, but for what I did to you.”

Her throat was too full to speak, so she merely shook her head, gathering her composure and ability to talk. She cleared her throat. “You don’t…” She swallowed hard. “I forgive you,” she said, knowing it was true.

And the reason was, this man wasn’t her father. The man who’d married a cold, unlovable woman wasn’t her daddy. Nor was the man who’d begged his ten-year-old to give bone marrow to his wife. And what had come after? That broken shell of a man wasn’t the man who’d loved her so hard or so well.

He’d died the day he’d married Janice in order to forget the pain of losing his wife.

“Ella, I—”

“No. Don’t say anything. Please.” She didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to relive anything or remember the past. “Let forgiveness be enough.”

She reached out for his worn, leathery hand. Sadness filled her, but oddly she didn’t feel the loss the way she’d thought she would. She’d already grieved, mourned, lived with the emptiness her entire life.

“Thank you,” he said.

She nodded, not letting go. She sat with him until he fell asleep, then watched him for a while more.

Finally she rose to her feet. And with one last glance, she nodded to the guard and headed home.

* * *

It wasn’t easy for Tyler to sit back and wait for Ella to return from her visit to her father. Everything in him wanted to head to the prison and be there when she faced him in person. Unfortunately, he knew better than to make the trip. He didn’t know where she was staying, and he couldn’t get into the penitentiary, but he had the resources to take care of all those things. But the more rational side of his brain prevailed, reminding him that Ella wouldn’t appreciate his interference.

From the minute he’d stormed back into her life, the one thing she’d made clear was that she was used to handling things on her own. If he wanted a future with her—and he damned well did—then he had to prove he respected her independence. Once he managed that, he had plans to teach her a lesson for shutting him out. From now on, they’d be a team, and he knew just how to make that point.

But first, he needed her to return from her trip.

After the arrest outside her apartment building, he figured her neighbors would freak if they saw a strange guy sleeping in his SUV while he was waiting for her to show up. Instead, he planned. He checked prison visiting hours and assumed she’d be there for a nine a.m. visit. An hour inside, a five-hour drive home, give or take. So he planted himself in a visitor’s spot at two thirty p.m. to be safe. He didn’t want to miss her and delay what he planned on being a reunion.