Tene ran in wearing white shorts and a black, fitted tank top. Her hair was pulled up in a high messy bun. Sheer black fear shown through her eyes.

My every nerve was on end, and the hairs on the nape of my neck were standing at attention. Something was wrong. We were hours away from Rosendell.

She rushed toward me and threw her arms around my shoulders. "Angie," she gushed out, "I tried calling you, but your phone kept going to voice mail."

She fell into me, forcing me to support most of her weight. "I left my phone in Rosendell. What's the matter?"

I pulled back and searched her face. The fact that Tene was showing weakness in front of people she didn't even know meant that this was bad, like third-degree-burns bad. "What’re you doing here, Tene?"

She shook her head and surveyed the room, her back straightening, her chin tipping upward as though she just noticed that we weren't alone. "I need to talk to you in private." Desperation, stark and vivid, filtered in her eyes.

"Well, before you talk to her in private, let me introduce you to the group." Jordan grabbed Tene's hand. You couldn't ignore the way Jordan’s eyes roamed my sister's beach-bomb body, or the way his stare traveled up the length of her legs, lingering on her chest, then stayed planted on her face.

Cade must’ve sensed it, too, because his eyes zoned in on their intertwined fingers.

"Mom, this is Christene, Angelica's sister. She doesn't watch television much or movies or award shows." He lifted both eyebrows and slowly nodded like he couldn't believe it himself. "Basically, she's not on the up-and-up with pop culture."

It took all my energy to compose myself. And was she serious? My sister was pretending she didn't know who Jordan Ryder was, as in the Jordan Ryder? She had his damn calendar on the back of her bathroom door.

Tene, with her sweet seductive smile, peered up at him. "Too busy leading our real estate company, I guess." She shrugged, and that earned a chuckle from Cade.

She eyed him in warning as if to say, “you better play my game or else I'll cut your balls and feed them to you.”

As I glanced around the room, I realized Jordan was the only one who was fooled.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Christene. Are you hungry? We have left over cake." Stacy motioned to the table of goodies at the far end of the room.

Tene gnawed on her lip and shook her head, her eyes darting at the slew of people around us. "No, thank you." Her eyes flickered over to me, as though she remembered why she’d driven hours to see me. "Angie, can we have a moment? We have to head home."

My stomach dropped, and I stepped toward her. "Is it Dad?"

Her eyes glazed over, and, in that instant, I knew that it was. That her trip here had everything to do with our father.

My voice reached a hysterical tone, fear choking me. "What is it? What happened? Is he okay?"

"Let's give them a few minutes," Stacy said, reading my thoughts.

It wasn't like they were going to clear the area, so I ignored their worried faces and gripped Tene's hand, dragging her to the bathroom on the side of the room and locked us both in.

As soon as I shut the door, she let the tears flow. "Dad … Dad …” she said it in a rushed, broken puff, on the verge of hysteria.

I grabbed her shoulders and shook her once. "Tene! What happened?"

She took a deep breath. "He wasn't feeling well and passed out, so he went into the hospital, and now he needs bypass surgery."

The air pushed out of my lungs like a wind tunnel, the gust strong enough that I had to grip the sink to keep me steady.

One hand cupped my mouth as tears filled my eyes. "Is he okay?"

"I think so. He's staying in the hospital until the surgery. But Angie ..." She sobbed. "All he asks is for you, and Mom said to bring you back. He just wants to see you and talk to you, and, when I couldn't reach you or Cade, I went to the bar, looking for him, and that bartender girl at Allswell told me where you went."

Both of my hands gripped the counter to keep me upright. Maybe I had caused this. Maybe he knew what was going on. He had sensed something was wrong at my birthday party.

"Does he know where I am? About Cade?"

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. It was one of the very few times I'd ever seen Tene so vulnerable, and it broke me.

"No, I don't think so," she answered, her cheeks stained with tears.

I extended my hand, palm up. "Give me your phone. I need to hear for myself that he's okay." She’d said he was okay, but I wanted to talk to my daddy.

She dug her phone from the bottom of her purse and handed it to me. Since he was in the hospital, there was no way he was answering his cell, so I called the hospital directly and asked to be connected to his room.

When the operator picked up, I asked for my father. "This is his daughter, Angelica Armstrong."

My mother picked up on the second ring, her voice soft and tired and defeated.

"Mom, it's me. Can I talk to Dad?"

"Where are you, honey?"

"I'm with Tene. Mom, can I just talk to him?" The need to talk to my father overtook everything else.

"Okay," she said softly. "I'll give the phone to him, but please, honey, just come straight here."

I slumped against the side of the sink, while Tene bit at her pinky nail, watching me through tear-filled eyes.

When I heard my father's voice, the tears started rolling down my face, like boulders down a mountain. "Daddy?" I choked out. "Are you okay?" God, it hurt; it hurt that he wasn't well. It hurt that I wasn't there to hug him. It hurt to think I had somehow contributed to his stress.

"Angie ..." His voice was gruff and tired and all-my-daddy. "Are you crying?"

"No," I said through all my sniffles, lying through my teeth.

"Don't cry, Angie. I swear I just like to keep things interesting for your mother." He was silent for a beat before he spoke again. "You were the only one not here when it happened."

"I'm so, so sorry, Daddy." More tears blinded my eyes and choked my voice. Tene fidgeted beside me, biting her lip to control her sobs. Her eyes were swollen and puffy and red. She most likely had cried all the way here.

"I ... I just had to tell the people that mean so much to me that I love them. How very proud I am of you, and ..."

"Dad, stop talking like you're going to die." My voice was whisper soft, choked with heavy emotion.

He let out a low laugh. "I'm not dying any time soon. Who will look after your mother? Tene?" His tone was amused, which I took as a good sign. At least his sense of humor hadn’t left him.

I shook my head through the blur of water in my eyes. My sister would be the first one to ship her to a nursing home.

"Dad, what did the doctor say?"

"I'm having surgery again tomorrow morning. Bypass surgery."

I swallowed hard. "I'll be there. I promise."

"Where are you, honey?"

"Somewhere close." I wasn’t specific because I should be the last of his worries. "Rest up tonight because tomorrow you have another big day."

"You know me.” I sensed the smile in his voice. “Go big or go home."

I could picture him rubbing his Santa Claus belly, which eased the pain in the middle of my chest.

"I love you, Daddy."

"Love you, too."

When I hung up, Tene, my sister who is usually void of any emotion, pulled me into a hug. Not her regular shoulder bump or fist pound, but a full-on hug that I felt everywhere.

I think she hugged me for her benefit, to be her anchor because I knew she was on the verge of losing it.

"You think he'll be okay?" she asked quietly.

Usually, it was she who comforted me, the older sister taking care of the little one, but today she leaned on me with most of her weight. And like she had always comforted me in the past and had been that rock, I knew I had to be hers right now. "When have you ever known Dad to lie down and not fight?"

She nodded against my shoulder, and we held each other in silence. When she finally pulled away, there was a glimmer of curiosity and something else in her eyes. "So ... um, Cade's brother is Jordan Ryder? And he's adopted. Jordan filled me in on the way here."

She swatted me playfully. "I mean, really? Ryder is a common last name, but what were the chances?"

"I so know," I said. "And you don't watch movies?" I quirked a dubious eyebrow.

She pulled back and popped out her hip in a signature Tene move. "Well, I can't be filling his ego up any bigger than it already is. I'm sure he has the whole world to do that."

We both smiled. It felt good to smile.

Tene sighed. "We better start going. I want to get home as soon as possible. If we leave now, we'll get home at around three or four."

I nodded. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting home to my father.