“Oh, Dad—”

His lips compressed thoughtfully for a second. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Bliss. Something I should’ve told you about a long time ago.”

For the first time since entering the gleaming room, Bliss felt a premonition of despair. An unidentifiable urgency etched the contours of her father’s face and his gaze was steady and hard as it held hers. “Oh, God,” she whispered, suddenly weak in the knees. Tears, unbidden, formed in her eyes. “The doctor found something else—”

“No, no,” he was quick to assure her. “I’m gonna be all right, just gotta take care of myself.”

“Then what?” Her shoulders sagged in relief.

He hesitated, muttered an oath under his breath, then said, “I’m gonna get married again.”

“What?” She stiffened. Surely she hadn’t heard correctly. “Married? You’re joking.” He had to be.

“Never been more serious in my life.” His expression told her that he wasn’t pulling her leg.

She steadied herself on the rail of his bed, clutching hard enough that her knuckles showed white.

“Now, wait a minute—”

“I’ve waited too long as it is.”

She was missing something here. Something important. “But Mom—”

“Is gone.”

“Oh, Lord.” She swallowed back the urge to argue with him and told herself she’d better hear him out. Maybe he was hallucinating from the drugs, maybe he’d grown attached to one of the nurses attending him and had developed a silly, dependent crush on her, or maybe—could it be?—he had a lover. No way.

“Sit down.” He waved her into a chair.

Gratefully, she sank into a chair wedged between the bed and the window. “I think you’d better start at the beginning,” she suggested, though she knew she wasn’t going to like what she was about to hear. “Who—who is this . . . this woman?”

“Someone I love very much.” His smile was weak, but the set of his jaw was as hard as granite, and while the sportscaster on the television spoke in hushed tones as a golfer approached his tee shot, Bliss felt a welling desperation.

“I—I don’t understand.”

“I know. Trouble is, neither do I, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.” His lips, dry and chapped, curled in over his teeth in a second’s indecision, and with his free hand he tugged on the crisp white sheet covering his body.

“Is she someone you just met?”

“No.” The words seemed to ricochet off the stark hospital walls and echo dully in Bliss’s heart. “I’ve known Brynnie for years.”

“Brynnie?” The name was familiar, but Bliss couldn’t place it. “But Mom just passed away—”

“That’s the hard part.” His gaze found hers and she saw the secret lingering in the blue depths—the truth that he’d been in love with another woman for years.

Bliss’s heart twisted painfully. “No.” Though she had known her parents’ marriage had been far from perfect, Bliss had told herself they had loved each other in their own special—if unconventional—way. After all, they had celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary just this past year. There hadn’t been tension or arguments in the house; just a general sense of apathy and drifting apart as they’d aged. “Who is she?” Bliss asked, cringing inside and feeling suddenly cold as death. “Who is this Brynnie?”