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She turned back. “Nothing. He was a real piece of work, that one. Right up to your standards. But that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here, standing in my home.”

Gil’s brow folded thoughtfully as he held his daughter’s challenging look. “When I found out that you were just up the highway, I thought—”

“You thought wrong.”

“Will you give a guy a chance to explain?”

“There’s nothing to explain. Really. There’s the door. Use it.”

“Baby girl, I screwed up.”

Her turn to be confounded. She had never heard those words come out of this man’s mouth before. Ever. “What?”

Samantha eased back through the door with more bags. “He screwed up, Cass. He admits it.”

Cassidy gaped at her friend. “My mother was being eaten alive by cancer thanks to him”—she stabbed a furious finger in his direction—“and his answer was to pack his bags and move in with the woman he was fucking. That’s way past ‘screwing up,’”

“I’m not asking you to forgive and forget,” Gil said.

She whirled around to face him. “Good for you. Because hell will freeze over before either happens.”

“I’m just hoping for a chance to make it up to you somehow. In person.”

“There is nothing of yours I want.”

He held up both hands. “Look, I get that you’re angry, baby girl. I’m not proud of myself, believe me, but what’s done is done. We can only go forward, and I would like us to go forward together. Or at least driving in the same general direction. What do’ya say?”

“Never.” She all but snarled.

He opened his mouth to reply, but then smiled and shook his head. “All fire and vinegar. Just like your mother. Yeah, I deserve that.”

Cassidy ignored Samantha’s imploring look. The peacemaker would find no satisfaction here tonight. “You need to leave. Go console the widow, or, better yet, call your wife and your two bratty new kids.”

“Yeah. Them.” He grimaced and sucked at his lips, hands on hips. “Right. Well. You’ll love this, but Kelly filed for divorce and full custody two months ago.”

Cassidy didn’t bother to suppress a vindictive smirk. She loved it all right, in a dark, twisted way she found impossible to feel guilty about. “Did you cheat on this one, too?”

His shoulders dropped a little, as did his gaze. “I was a fool. A weak, stupid fool.” When he looked up, his eyes glistened in a way that made her want to turn away. “Your mother was the best thing that ever happened to me. I see that now. And you’re the best thing I ever did. You’re all I have left. You don’t have to forgive me, or even like me. Just let me be near you. Let me at least get to know the beautiful, brave young woman you’ve become. That’s all I’m asking.”

She hated herself for the prickle in her eyes, for the sorrow rocking her, and told herself the emotion couldn’t be hers. Somewhere in the newborn night, Dominique had awakened. His presence rippled in her awareness, absorbed her grief and rage, and reflected them back, colored by his own grief. And his regrets.

Regrets she didn’t want.

“It’s too late,” she said. “Once she was dead, it was too late.” She flicked a tear out of her eye. “Go. Please go. Leave me alone.”

The door slammed open without warning. Everyone jumped, startled.

Samantha, apparently used to such entrances, recovered first. “Serge? What happened?”

The pirate vampire stood in the doorway and eyed the new arrival from hairline to trouser hem.

Gill regarded the barefoot, powder pale little man drizzling sand out of his hair with slack-jawed astonishment. “Friend of yours, baby girl?”

“My roommate,” Samantha said, adding, “Serge, this is Cassidy’s father.”

Serge flashed a brief, gap-toothed grin. “What excellent timing,” he announced and then bee-lined over to Cassidy. “Where is it?”

More sand dusted his wake, making her twitch with a need to get the broom and sweep it out together with her father. “Showers can’t kill you, you know. And no. Not excellent timing. At all.”