“Go ahead,” Willow urged. “I’ll meet you up there as soon as I can.” She leaned up, and I bent to kiss her out of habit. “Be good,” she whispered against my lips.
“I’m not the one with self-control issues,” I teased.
She scoffed but was smiling when she walked into the building.
“Mrs. Bradley.” I nodded to her mom.
“She’s happy.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Keep her that way.” Her gaze hardened for a second in motherly warning, and a pang of longing for my mother hit me.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Satisfied, she told Rose to be good, then joined her daughter.
“You survived,” Charity noted, lightly punching my shoulder.
“The battle. The war remains to be seen.” I scooped Rose up in my arms and sat her on my shoulders. “Now, the crowd can’t swallow you.”
Rose’s nose scrunched as she grinned. “See, Mom?”
“I see. You take care of my girl, Cam.” She pointed a finger at me.
“You take care of mine, Charity,” I countered as I turned…and barely swallowed a swear word.
Judge Bradley glared up at me from the bottom step. “Put my granddaughter down.”
Chapter Nineteen
Camden
“Hi, Grandpa!” Rose waved, swaying on my shoulders.
“Rosie,” he replied with a softer smile toward her. “Put her—”
Charity stepped to my side, earning an icy glower from her father. She didn’t speak, simply tilted her head.
“I’m going to Cam’s building!” Rose informed him.
“The assayer’s office,” I added, in case he thought she meant the yet-to-be-repaired mining building.
His attention went to Rose, skipping right over me. “Have fun, sweetheart.” Then he sidestepped and walked up the stairs, passing Charity without a word.
Charity gave my arm a reassuring pat in farewell, and I carried Rose out into the crowd.
“What’s wrong?” Rose asked as she leaned over.
“You Bradley girls are trouble,” I complained with an exaggerated shake of my head, adjusting my grip on her legs.
“Technically, I’m a Maylard.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I crossed Main Street, taking deep breaths when the crowd pushed in.
“I can see everything from up here! You okay?” Rose asked.
“Yep. I just don’t like crowds.” Especially ones I couldn’t control or observe.
“I don’t like snakes.”
“Oh yeah?” I held her tighter to keep people from bumping into her.
“They move without legs. It’s weird.”
“Good point.”
The crowd eased at the boardwalk, and I quickly climbed the steps into the assayer’s office. About a dozen tourists filled the space, some sorting through the raised wooden bins of ore and others waiting their turn to have their finds assessed.
“When we open the mine, they can get ore up there, too,” I told Rose as we passed through two of the lines, heading for the wooden rail that separated public from preserved space.
“Really? That will be so cool!”
“Hey, Reece.” I waved to the Acosta kid I’d hired to hold down one of the tables.
“Hey, Mr. Daniels.” The kid nodded and turned his attention back to the tourist he was helping.
Xander didn’t bother looking up from the table he was helping at.
I put Rose down when I saw Dad pacing the length of the glass wall that kept the final fifteen feet of the office perfectly preserved. He tugged at the costume he’d worn to every opening day since I could remember and muttered something about ore, and I looked to his nurse. “May, how is he today?”
“He’s a little confused,” she admitted from behind the table in the corner.
“Hey, is this the mine?” Rose asked, pointing to the glass on the table that covered a copy of the Rose Rowan’s layout.
“That’s the Rose Rowan,” Dad told her. “You should know that. Everyone knows that. Everyone wants her.”
My gaze shot to Xander, who had turned to look at Dad. Our eyes met, and the worry I saw there overpowered my anger at our current legal situation. “I’ve got him,” I promised.
He nodded, then turned back to helping tourists. Good thing I’d hired summer help, because there was no chance Xander and I were manning this thing all summer, and Dad was in no shape to do it.
“I know it’s the Rose Rowan,” Rose countered. “That’s what I said. I’m named after the mine.”
“Are you?” he asked, running his thumbs down the inside of his suspenders. The motion was so familiar that it was hard to believe he wasn’t fully lucid. Even on his worst days, he still found small ways to shine through the Alzheimer’s.
“I am,” Rose told him. “This is the oldest tunnel.” She pointed to the layout.
Dad leaned over the table. “Sure is.”
“My aunt got lost down here.” She pointed again.
He looked at her with obvious strain. “Your aunt?”
“Yep. Aunt Willow. She said Cam brought her out.” She pointed at me.
Dad turned his head and gave me a once-over. “You broke her nose.”
“I did not break her nose,” I argued. “She fell before I could find her.” For fuck’s sake, was I condemned to having the same twenty-year-old argument with my father for the rest of his life?
His eyes narrowed. “You were covered in her blood.”
“Well, yeah. I carried her.” She’d kept her forehead tucked against my neck the whole way out.
“She let you.” He said it slowly, like he was piecing the memory together.
“She did.” In fact, it had taken a very angry Judge Bradley to pry her loose.
“Then, you didn’t break her nose,” he decided and turned back to the map.
I blinked, speechless.
“They kiss a lot,” Rose said with a shrug, like that explained it.
Dad shifted so he could sit at the table and glare at me simultaneously. “She’s Sullivan’s girl.”
I ignored the ugliness that curdled in my stomach and forced a soft smile to my mouth. “Not anymore, Dad.”