“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.