Rocky Mountain Reunion. Tina Radcliffe

a child he had looked out windows at the very same view. Always asking the same questions he was asking now. Where are you in all this, Lord? He silently prayed. Are you listening?

      How had he come full circle back to the one place on the planet where he felt so vulnerable? Paradise Valley.

      He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. Seemed everything had gone from good to messed up; his business, his friend Manny and even Claire. Now he was about to be challenged further. He was about to welcome the woman who’d once destroyed him back into his life. The woman was virtually a stranger to his daughter, yet Claire had chosen Anne over him to support her during this crisis. How was that for irony?

       Chapter Three

      Anne pulled into her driveway and sat in her pickup, staring at the house and mustering the energy to climb the steps while desperately grasping for a peace she didn’t feel.

      Normally she could count on separating her two worlds by the time she had driven home. The sight of the two-story Victorian home signaled the boundary line as she put the day job behind her. The house calmed her, no matter the crisis in the Paradise ER.

      But for the first time in her life calm was out of the question. Seeing Matt Clark and meeting his daughter had knocked her world into chaos and she didn’t like it one bit. Her life had an orderly precision and she blamed the past intruding on her present for today being completely out of control.

      She began to pray under her breath while staring at the lovely building in front of her. It had wide steps that led to a cherry-red door topped with a stained-glass transom. The siding was painted dark cream with sea-foam-green accents. Scalloped cedar trimmed the second story, always reminding Anne of a gingerbread house. On the left was a small turret room that rose above the second floor.

      This year she’d had the entire house repainted. Next summer’s goal was refurbishing the back deck. With a house that was over one hundred years old, there was always something that needed repair.

      This particular home was the only connection she had left to family. And that family was only her great-aunt Lily.

      Lately Anne never knew what to expect when she arrived home. Sometimes it was the dynamic and formidable Aunt Lily of Anne’s childhood, other days her aging great-aunt was disoriented, showing more and more indications of the insidious Alzheimer’s disease. Their roles had somehow become reversed. Now Anne found herself the caregiver for the woman who’d taken her in as an orphan some twenty years ago.

      She gripped the steering wheel tightly, fighting back the questioning resentment that simmered just below the surface as her mind continued to race with thoughts and mental images of Matt and Claire.

      For the first time since all those years ago she began to question the choices that were made for her when she was eighteen.

      Ten years ago Lily had told her that education, a career and the independence to make her own choices was the important thing. Deep down inside she feared her aunt had been wrong. Those may have been the right choices for Lily Gray, but had they been the right choices for Anne Matson?

      And if not, wasn’t it too late to do anything about it anyhow?

      When the front door swung open and her aunt stepped outside and waved, urging her out of the truck, Anne did a double-take. She quickly reached for her leather tote and climbed out of the vehicle.

      “Aunt Lily, is everything okay? Where’s your walker?”

      “Oh, I don’t need that thing.” Petite and trim, her aunt gripped the rail tightly and held herself up with dignity. She always wore a dress, no matter the day or hour, looking for all the world like the queen of the manor.

      “Okay,” Anne answered slowly. She glanced past her aunt to the open doorway. “And you aren’t wearing your alert necklace.”

      “That’s for people who might fall. I’m fine.”

      “And your aide?”

      Lily shared a satisfied grin and ran a hand through her silver curls. “I sent her home. For good.”

      There was a challenge in her aunt’s words and Anne wasn’t going to feed into it.

      Yet, despite herself, a groan of frustration slipped from her lips. Sometimes her aunt Lily bamboozled her caregivers into thinking she didn’t need help and sent them home. Other times she simply fired them on the spot. Once again Anne would need to call the staffing agency.

      She walked up the drive to the porch, her steps weary. “Why did you fire your aide?”

      “That woman makes me have uncharitable thoughts. I can tell you that the good Lord would not be happy with that.”

      “Aunt Lily. You know her replacement will be here tomorrow.” She moved up the cement steps and placed a kiss on her aunt’s forehead.

      Lily offered a satisfied smile. “Oh no, dear. Not tomorrow. They can’t get another one until Monday at the earliest. I already called for you.”

      “You called?”

      Lily nodded.

      “Tomorrow is Friday. I have to work. I can’t stay home.”

      “You work too much. You and I could play hooky tomorrow.” Lily wiggled her brows suggestively.

      Anne ushered her aunt into the house ahead of her. “I can’t do that.”

      “Of course you can. You never call in sick. You never take a day off. Why, I imagine you have enough vacation time accumulated to take a trip around the world.”

      Lily suddenly swayed and Anne reached out to grab her arm. “Where’s your walker?”

      “Oh, phooey.”

      “Aunt Lily?”

      “It’s in the hall closet.”

      Anne pulled open the closet door and slid out the walker, placing it squarely in front of her aunt.

      “You know I’m still your elder,” Lily stated.

      “I know that, Aunt Lily. I also know that I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt. Please use your walker.”

      Lily released a huff of disgust.

      When the house phone rang, Anne reached around her aunt to grab the receiver, grateful for the reprieve.

      “Anne. Oh, good. I tried your cell and you didn’t answer.”

      “Marta. Sorry. When I get outside Paradise town limits there are pockets where I get absolutely no signal. What’s up?”

      “Megan called me.”

      “Your daughter? Is everything okay?”

      “Yes. She was assigned as diabetic nurse instructor for your patient.”

      “What patient?”

      “That little girl. Claire.”

      “Oh?” Anne moved to the dining room and dropped her bag on the floor. “Is she okay? Is her father still there?

      “Oh, yes, Mr. Hunky has been at her bedside since you left. She’s stable but she refuses to learn how to use the monitor or anything. Megan asked me to call you.”

      “I don’t understand. Why would Claire ask for me?”

      “You made some kind of impression on the kid. Frankly, Meg is a little concerned about the home environment. Apparently the girl lost her mother and really doesn’t know her father. Social Services is asking us to assist on this one. After all, she was found on a park bench. Maybe you could check things out.”

      “I’m confused. How does Meg expect me to evaluate the situation?”

      “Diabetic instruction.