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She pulled to the curb, slung her bag over her shoulder, and got out. To demonstrate that she was busy—not to mention inconvenienced by the driveway being blocked—she grabbed as many stuffed grocery bags as she could manage. Also, the six-pack of glass-bottled Perrier water in one of these could double as a weapon if need be.

A familiar willowy figure in a white sweatshirt descended the porch steps.

“Sam? What’s going on?”

“You have a visitor,” she said under her breath.

Cassidy glanced at the invading vehicle. “I would have never guessed.”

“Please give him a chance. He’s trying. Here, let me help you with these.” She grabbed for the grocery bags.

“What? No. Who is it?”

In the shadowed recesses of the porch, one of the Adirondack chairs creaked as someone got up and stepped forward.

Cassidy clutched the bags as if the flimsy plastic could grant her strength. The air rushed out of her. “You.”

Tall and large-bellied, the man sported a head of dark hair, graying at the temples. A trace of apprehension flickered in his blue eyes, which were so much like her own.

“Hi, baby girl. How’ve you been?”

Cassidy’s jaw dropped. No, this couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not with everything else going on. No way, no how, not ever. Just no. “You need to leave.”

He lifted his hand in a gesture of inquiry. “Is this any way to greet your father?”

“It is when I really didn’t want you to find me. Ever.”

“Tell me about it.” He said with a chuckle. “I had to hire a PI to track you down here.” He waved at the neighborhood of overgrown yards with a pinched expression that betrayed the disgust she knew he felt. If it wasn’t a manicured golf course or a glittering downtown high-rise apartment, it was beneath his contempt. “Not what I expected.”

“Then do feel free to go,” she said and stomped up the three steps with her load. Shouldering past him, she caught a nose full of the cigarette smoke that forever permeated his clothes, and she struggled not to burst into furious tears. That stink would always be the poison with which he had killed her mother.

Samantha leapt ahead of her to open the door. Instead of locking it behind them, though, she let Cassidy’s father and his evil cloud in, too.

Cassidy dumped the bags on the kitchen counter and whirled around. “I did not invite you in.”

Samantha cringed, apologetic, and slipped back out the door. “I’ll get the rest of your bags.”

Cassidy’s father, Gil Chandler, cut-throat car dealer and calculating philanderer extraordinaire, strode into the living room, a Denver Broncos windbreaker rustling around him. “Really, Cassidy. Can’t you do better than this? What’s with this guy you’re marrying? This Jackson fellow? I mean, this place—” More dismissive gesturing at the faded rugs and comfortably worn furniture. “It’s—”

“My home.”

“Not permanently, I hope?”

Her nostrils flared, and her insides contracted into a hard core, preparing for battle. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

“I’m helping a friend. Or rather, the widow of a friend.”

“Consoling a grieving widow in her bed?”

“No. No, of course not. He dropped dead of a heart attack, and she needs someone to keep his dealerships running until she can offload them.”

“Oh, do tell. Was he found in a sleazy motel room, wearing nothing but cowboy boots?” she snapped, desperate to offend him into storming away. Instead, her father’s eyes widened in surprise.

“How did you—no, wait. What difference does that make?”

She put a hand to her forehead and turned away. So much for her father showing up here being a complete coincidence. The world felt smaller by the moment and was clearly determined to conspire against her. “Oh. My. God.”

“What?”