He closed the last small distance between them, and when he looked down at her, she saw the whole of their lives in his eyes, everything that had been theirs—the things that had happened between them and the things that hadn’t—and in that single look, she saw that she wasn’t the only one who’d changed. “Do you believe in second chances?”
“Of course.”
He reached down and took her hand, as he’d done at so many of the critical moments in her life. “Would you like to meet my daughters? They’ve been hearing about you for years.”
“When can we go get them?”
Winona had anticipated the question from her nephew, knew in fact that it would be his first question this morning. She put an arm around him, still smiling from last night. “Soon.”
“My dad is cool, isn’t he?” Noah said. In the past twenty-four hours, Winona had seen this boy learn how to smile from the inside out. Gone completely was the sullen, hair-in-his-face troublemaker; in his place was a young man who’d been through bad times and come out on the other side. A young man who would always know that, while bad things happened, good could still triumph.
And Winona had given him that.
“Thanks, Aunt Win,” Noah said as if reading her mind. She supposed that didn’t surprise her, either. She knew what he was thinking these days, too.
“No. Thank you, Noah.” She turned to face him. “I made a mistake with your parents. The biggest of my life. Until you came around with your crumpled old dollar bill, I thought an apology was all I needed to offer. All I had. You gave me a chance to change what I’d done. So, thanks.”
At about nine o’clock, the first call came in from a reporter. Winona said, “No comment,” and hung up, but a few moments later when the phone rang again, she knew their private time had come to an end. She went to her guest bedroom and woke up Aurora, who’d been up late last night listening to Winona talk about Luke. “Come on, little sis. It’s time to go. The news is out.”
A few minutes later, when Noah came down the stairs in clean clothes, with his hair washed and dried and tucked behind his ears, she knew it was time. “Let’s go tell Dad.”
Aurora groaned. “I’d rather remarry Richard.”
Winona smiled, but herded them out and into her car. The drive to the ranch took almost no time, and as they’d feared, there were reporters at the closed gate.
“Private property,” Winona reminded them as she opened the gate, drove through, and closed it behind her.
“What will Grandpa say?” Noah asked a few minutes later when they got out of the car.
“He’ll be glad,” Winona said, wanting it to be true.
Aurora laughed.
They walked up the porch steps, knocked on the door, and went inside.
Dad was in the living room, sitting on the sofa. He looked up at them through narrowed, angry eyes. “Is it true?”
“Dallas was released yesterday. He’s up with Vivi right now,” Winona said.
Dad drew in a deep breath and let it out. “God. What will folks say?”
“They’ll say we made a mistake,” Winona said.
“And that Winona fixed it,” Aurora said, squeezing her hand.
“Fixed it? You think we’re better off now?”
Winona had expected this reaction. “I’ve done a good thing here, Dad. Whether you know it or not, I know it. And right now we’re going to go up to their cottage as a family and welcome Dallas home.”
Her father sat there saying nothing, just clenching and unclenching his crippled hands. She saw the way his mouth tightened in anger, but trembled, too, and how he couldn’t look his daughters in the eyes, and for the first time in her life she saw him as Vivi Ann saw him, a man unable to reveal the smallest emotion.
She went to him, knelt in front of him. All her life she had felt weak in his presence; now, though, she knew that she was the stronger of the two of them. Maybe she always had been. “Come with us, Dad. We’re the Greys. That matters. Show us your true colors, who you used to be.”
He didn’t look at her, maybe he couldn’t. He just got up, walked into his study, and slammed the door. She didn’t need to open it to know what he was doing: standing in his spot, staring out at his yard, his land, making a drink even though it was morning.
Was he crumbling inside or laughing? Did he care about these things he didn’t do, didn’t say, or was he empty inside? The tragedy was that she didn’t know, would probably never know. Whatever he felt or didn’t feel belonged to him alone. All she knew was that for once she hurt for him. His choice made him an island, separate and alone. “Let’s go,” she said, exchanging a meaningful look with Aurora. “He’s made up his mind.”
Vivi Ann and Dallas spent all night making love and getting to know each other again, talking about how Winona had saved them. Finally, when the sun had risen into a cornflower-blue sky, they sat up in bed, the covers puddled around their naked bodies, and talked about the things that mattered.