The following day, Dane James shows up like a wraith, born of the fog and shadows. Sexy and mysterious and tempting. He walks toward me in that loose-hipped way he has and I can’t help staring. By the time he reaches me, he’s grinning like he knows exactly what’s going through my mind.

“You coming?”

“Yep.” I hop up from my chair where I’d been doing some work on my laptop again. I hadn’t chosen that spot specifically so that I’d be able to see Dane, but…

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course, I did.

His voice stops me before I make it through the door. “Does your daughter like animals?”

I think of how much Celina loves animals, and how I’ve always told her she gets it from her father. My smile reaches all the way to my soul when I answer. “She loves them.”

“She can come, too. If you want.”

My lungs swell as I drag a slow breath into them. He’s nervous. I see it now, in the hesitant way he asked, in the way he stuffed his hands into his pockets, in the way he’s trying to sound so casual. Dane James wants to meet my daughter, like really meet her, and he’s trying not to show it.

The backs of my eyes sting, so I just nod enthusiastically and walk away before I make a complete and utter fool of myself in front of him.

I run up the stairs in search of Celina, who should be in her room doing her chemistry work. Her door is cracked and I can see her inside, sitting cross-legged on her bed, chin to chest, earbuds in her ears, looking so glum it stops my heart for a second.

She must be thinking about her life, her future. Her choice.

We still haven’t talked about it. I was giving her time and space, as well as giving myself a chance to educate up, before I broached it again.

I know even having the discussion will add weight to her thin shoulders and I hate seeing them sag with it. No teenager should have to consider consequences like the ones she’s facing. No teenager should have to choose between therapies that will make them miserable and sicker and possibly steal their progeny from them.

And yet, she does.

Mine does.

When she first got sick nearly a year ago, we decided that we’d handle her health care together. I promised I wouldn’t make any unilateral decisions with regard to her treatment. I promised I would only pull the mother card and overrule her if she were choosing something that was utterly senseless or detrimental to her health in a way that was avoidable. I’ve kept my word.

I’m glad we’re making the decision together. The options in this case are both brutal and detrimental to her health, but less so than the anemia. That’s the worst part of all. She’ll basically have to be poisoned and depleted to be cured.

If she can be cured, which they’re very optimistic that she can.

But I want her to look at each path and think about how she wants to go forward. I have my feelings on the matter, but I won’t tell her until after she comes to her own conclusion.

I knock lightly so I don’t scare her. “You learned the whole book in a couple of hours? Wow, that’s fast,” I say, nodding to the closed book in front of her.

I sit on the bed and pull one knee up.

She gives me a look that says she knows why I’m here. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Bet you don’t.” This has been looming, hanging over our heads for days. I’m very glad at this moment that, even if we touch on the subject now, I have Dane waiting downstairs to take her mind off it.

“I do. It’s time to make a decision.” She sighs, a sound that’s so heavy I feel like it might choke me.

“We don’t have to decide right this minute. You can still take some time to be sure. This isn’t something to rush into, but we do need to talk about it eventually.”

“I know. I just…” Her chin begins to tremble. “I just don’t want to do either one. It’s gonna be awful, Momma.”

She leans forward and puts her cheek on my shoulder, and I cup the side of her head. God in heaven, I’d do anything, anything in the world, to take this from her. If I could suck all the sickness from her body and put it into mine, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d rather be on death’s doorstep than to watch my child suffer. There is nothing worse. Nothing in all of creation.

I don’t say anything for the longest time. I’m not sure I can push words past the enormous lump in my throat. I gulp and gulp until it eases. “Did I ever tell you about what your kindergarten teacher said about you?”

“No.” Her voice is miserable.

“It was at the beginning of the second half of the school year. Your teacher—Mrs. Hammond was her name—had made a note on your report card that she’d like for me to come in and talk with her some time, so I did. She told me that she’d noticed you struggling with running in gym class since the start of school. My heart stopped, I tell ya. I thought she was going to tell me that you had some sort of physical problem, like with your feet or your back or something. She went on to tell me how she’d thought the same thing, and how she’d pulled you aside one day and asked if you were hurting. You said no. She asked you a few other questions, I don’t remember now what they were, but in the end, she said she figured maybe you just weren’t capable of doing what the other kids could do, which I guess was to run a certain distance within a certain amount of time. Anyway, she told you to do the best you could and she’d talk to me about getting a doctor’s excuse to have you put into a different gym class. She said the very next day, you started running during recess. You ran that day, and the day after that, and the day after that. She said you ran around the little track every time you went outside. She said you did that for two weeks straight, and she started to see an improvement in gym class. You started doing better and better, and by the end of the first half of the year, you were one of the fastest in her class.” Celina raises her head to look at me when I pause. “Do you know why she wanted to meet with me, babe?”

Her eyes on mine, she shakes her head.

“She just wanted to tell me what a fighter you were.” I turn and take Celina’s hands in mine. “I know you’re scared, Celina, but I also know this. She was right. You are a fighter. You’re stronger than you know. There are so many days when I wish I was as strong as you.” I tuck one long strand of honey hair behind her ear, blinking back tears. “You inspire me every day. Did you know that?”

“What if I disappoint you, Momma? What if I can’t be as strong as you think I am?”

“Honey, you could never, ever disappoint me. Strong is who you are. It’s as much a part of you as your green eyes and your long legs. And dammit, how I wish I had legs like that.” I add the last with a smile. Her lips wobble with her attempt to respond. “Baby girl, you just be yourself. That will always be enough. You will always be enough.”

She leans against me again, and I scoot around so I can hold her. We sit in the quiet for a couple of minutes until she speaks again. “I love you, Momma.”

“Not half as much as I love you.” I kiss her sweetly scented hair and then jostle my shoulder. “Guess who’s downstairs waiting to take us to the river to show us…I don’t know what he’s going to show us, actually.” I laugh when Celina’s head pops up and her eyes widen with excitement.

“My father?”

“The one and only.”

“Can we go?”

“Ummmm, yeah. He’s waiting on us.”

She leaps off the bed and grabs her shoes, sparing a look in the mirror before turning to me and asking, “Do I look okay?”

“You look beautiful. As always.”

She smiles and takes off out the door. I hear the thump of her feet as she flies down the stairs. I take a moment before I follow her. I say a silent prayer that God will pave the way for this to all work out perfectly between them, and I try my best to quell the urge to cry. This feels too huge not to cry, but I can’t let them see it, so I have to suck it up for a while, just until we can get back to the house. Then I’ll excuse myself to the bathroom and sob into a towel for a week.

But not until we get back.

For now, I’ll be strong.

Strong like my daughter.

* * *

When we walk out onto the front porch, Dane is lounging in the rocking chair I usually sit in, legs outstretched, head tipped back, eyes closed. He doesn’t move when Celina and I step out. She looks back and forth between Dane and me a few times, landing on me with a look that asks, What do we do? Naturally, my first thought is to scare him.

I mime my plan to scare him by walking my two fingers across my palm and then making a claws-and-teeth face. Celina grins and nods. She’s always up for a good prank.

I turn and tiptoe across the porch, my stealth surprising even me. When I get to within a few inches of Dane, I prepare to reach for his arm and make a loud growling noise, but before I can, he sits up abruptly and shouts. Unsuspecting as I am, I jump and squeal in alarm. I even hear my daughter give a little squeak of shock from behind me.

Dane bursts into laughter.

“You’re the devil,” I tell him, trying not to laugh myself.

“He totally got you, Mom.” I glance back at Celina who is practically glowing as she claps her hands in glee.

Dane stands, looking all cocky and proud of himself. “Did you seriously think you could scare me? I heard you coming down the steps all the way out here. It sounded like a herd of buffalo.”

I gasp in mock horror. “Did you…did you just call me a buffalo?”

“No, I said you sounded like a herd of buffalo. There’s a difference.”

“Is this about my butt? Because a woman can’t help where her weight settles. A lot of men like a big butt. You know junk in the trunk and all that.” I increase the speed of my chatter, doing my best to assume a distressed look on my face. “And no amount of walking can get rid of it. I’ve tried. I’ve walked miles and miles, and it never gets any smaller and I don’t know what else I can do and I’m so self-conscious, and I hate the way I look in jeans, and nothing fits me right, and I…I…”

I pause, breathing as though I’m becoming overwhelmed. Celina and I used to do this all the time—practice our “Daytime Emmy” skills. We’ve both gotten quite good, if I do say so myself.

Dane’s face has slowly fallen into one of discomfort and disbelief. I can almost see him wondering how this has gone so wrong, so quickly. “Brinkley, I didn’t mean that. I—”

“Men are just… You’re so impossible to please. And I…I…I’ve done everything I can and do I need surgery? Should I consider liposuction? Everyone’s doing it. They say it’s safe, and chances of infection are pretty slim, and those are the only things I can think of that might help. Unless I starve myself. Is that what it will take to make you happy?”

I’m doing everything but crying until I hear Celina snort. Then I collapse into a fit of giggles. Dane’s face is a bulldozed blank.

We both say simultaneously, “Gotcha!”

Dane’s shoulders sag in relief just before he looks at me and says very, very softly, “All I’m gonna say is you two’d better run.”

It takes a second for his meaning to register, and the moment it does, I turn, grab Celina, and we take off down the porch steps, zooming across the driveway with Dane hot on our heels. In boots, no less.

We stop at the edge of the field. Celina and I are out of breath. Dane is right behind us and not even panting. All three of us are smiling.

He puts his hands on his slender hips and informs us warningly, “All I’m gonna say is you girls better watch your back.” He holds up two fingers and points them at his eyes and then at ours, like he’ll be watching us. I shake my head and glance at Celina. Her smile is the brightest I’ve seen it in months. Maybe a year, since she first got sick. I don’t think anything could make my heart happier, lighter.

“So why are you dragging us out here?” I’m still in a teasing mood.

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

Dane starts off through the field, and we walk slightly behind him until we get to the old path that goes down to the river, then he drops back so we can walk side by side. Celina is between us, and he entertains her with outlandish stories about how, when he was a kid, he cut trees as big around as cars from this path, felled them like a real lumberjack. He said he had muscles bigger than all the men and he could pick up horses without breaking a sweat.

Celina laughed almost constantly, and ate it all up.

And I ate up the two of them together.

Dane took a detour before we reached the river. He stepped off the path and walked a ways into the woods. He scanned the ground as he went. I had no idea what he was looking for until he reaches down and picks up a pretty little painted turtle.

He straightens, smiling from ear to ear, and holds the turtle so Celina can see it.

She’s wide-eyed and thrilled. “Can I hold it?”

“Sure. Just grab it like this.” He shows her how to hold it by its shell. She looks into its face and grins when it jerks its head back into the safety of its mobile home.

“Is it yours?”

“Kinda. I raised this one’s father.” His eyes shift to mine.

Then it clicks.

“Stanley!”

Dane grins a half-grin and nods. “Yep. He met him a gorgeous girl and they had babies about a year ago. Two of them stayed around here. This is one of them.”

“Who’s Stanley?”

“He was kind of like my pet when I was growing up. My dad wouldn’t let me have a dog, which is what I wanted, so I found Stanley the turtle living down here by the river and I brought him mushrooms every day.”

Images as vivid as lightning in the sky flash through my mind, images of Dane and me walking this very path one summer day so many years ago. I can picture his eyes and his shaggy hair, the way his face looked when he talked about that turtle, the sadness that overtook it when he talked about a day when Stanley might leave. Sunshine and green trees and a happiness I didn’t think I’d find in Shepherd’s Mill. All because of a boy.

This boy.

This man.

“What’s this one’s name?” Celina is still trying to coax it to come back out of its shell, much like her father is trying to coax her out of hers.

“Nothing yet. What would be a good name for her?”

“Sarabella.” Her reply is instant, and I have no idea where it came from.

Dane smiles. “Pretty name for a pretty turtle. Sarabella it is.” He pauses and I wonder what he’s waiting for. Then I realize it’s assurance. Or maybe courage. “You wanna help me keep ’em fed?”

Celina jumps on the chance. “Sure!”

They chat about how best to achieve this as I listen and watch. Until Celina, Dane was the love of my life. When my child was born, I knew I’d never love anything more. And having the two of them together? It’s like heart overload. I can’t ever remember feeling so full. So complete.

And like such a liar.

When we get back to the house, some two hours later, I see Momma standing on the porch. When she spots us, I see her shoulders sag like she might be relieved, but that only lasts for a second. I watch her gaze flicker from me to Celina to Dane and back to me again. Then I watch her eyes narrow, her mouth pucker slightly, and her posture stiffen. She glares at me for a few seconds then turns on her heel and marches right back into the house.

I do my best to ignore her and enjoy these last minutes with Dane and Celina, but her disapproval is there niggling at the back of my mind like a burr caught under my saddle.