“I didn’t,” I answered, thankful for the change of subject.

He nodded back toward the bar, so I leaned to the left and saw a pretty brunette talking to our waitress.

“Never thought I’d see the day that Judge Noah Bradley’s daughter owned this place. Did he have a heart attack?”

“Nah,” Xander replied. “Doesn’t talk to her much, though. Not since Rose was born, I guess. That all happened while I was gone. You know how he gets when he feels like he holds the moral high ground.”

“His daughters—and granddaughter—be damned, I guess,” I muttered. The news of Charity’s pregnancy hit right before I left for basic, ripping through the town like a machete, dividing the population into Team Charity and Team Noah. No one sided with Gabe, who’d abandoned both his high school sweetheart and his unborn kid for a few years.

My fingers rubbed together, as if they still rolled that little onyx rook I’d left on Willow’s windowsill that night so she wouldn’t miss it. Not that she’d needed me when she had Sullivan. She’d been far better off.

“Fathers.” Xander sighed, tipping back his beer.

“Speaking of fathers,” I jumped in, only to pause when our waitress brought two orders of eggs and bacon.

“Thanks, Jenny,” Xander told the young woman, who looked to be about five years younger than I was.

She tossed me a skittish glance, and I thanked her, which earned me a shy smile.

“You in a relationship?” Xander asked as she walked away, definitely swinging her hips.

“Nope,” I said, salting my eggs. Damn, I loved breakfast for dinner. “Not looking to be, either. You?”

He smiled at his eggs. “Kind of. She lives down by the resort. Nothing serious yet, though. So, you were saying about fathers?” He shoveled a bite into his mouth.

Subject changer extraordinaire.

“Yeah, so this is going to sound like it’s out of left field, but I was wondering how much Dad has talked to you about his advanced directive.”

Xander paused mid-chew and then swallowed, looking at me oddly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he asked me about a DNR.” There it was, spewed on the shiny surface of the wooden table, where it sat between us as heavy as an elephant.

“A Do Not Resuscitate order?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you said he didn’t know who you were when you dropped by.” His brows furrowed.

“He actually left me a voicemail about a month ago.”

Xander sat up straight, abandoning his food. “He left you a voicemail.”

“He did. Honestly, it’s what brought me here. Not that I wasn’t long overdue to come home and help you, but it was the first time he’d called in six years.”

His expression didn’t change. Not even a muscle twitched. “And he asked you for a DNR. In a voicemail.”