Becca’s expression didn’t lighten, though. “I love you, but I can’t go to Alaska with you. I can’t leave behind everything that I am for a life I’m not sure I even want.” She shook her head slowly. “I love you, but just because it’s what you want doesn’t mean that it’s what I want.”

He stiffened. His joy was quickly replaced with irritation. “You make it sound like it’s the end of the world—”

“Maybe it isn’t for you, but it is for me. I’d go from being my own person to someone wholly dependent on you. I’d need you for everything, and I wouldn’t have an income—”

“That doesn’t matter—”

“To you it doesn’t matter,” Becca interjected, cutting him off. “But to me, it does. I know to you I’m just cutting people’s hair and painting nails all day long, but I have an identity here. I’m part of a community. I run a successful business. I bought my own home. I’m happy.” She gave him a sweet, melancholy smile. “And I’d be none of those things if I went to Alaska with you and sat around the house.”

He wanted to point out that it wasn’t a house, it was a cabin, but it seemed like the wrong time. “So what are you telling me?” he asked defensively, hugging his daughter close to his chest like she was a shield, like she could protect him from Becca’s words, which cut deeper than any knife.

Becca just shook her head. “I’m just telling you where I stand. I love you. I love Libby. I love both of you. But Alaska isn’t in my future, and I guess . . . neither are you.” Her eyes sparkled with tears and she swiped at her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

So this was it, then. She was breaking up with him, all because she wanted to stay and play with people’s hair instead of go to Alaska with him. Be at his side through everything. “Don’t be,” he told her harshly, and he walked away, back toward the school, back toward the truck he’d abandoned there.

He was angry. Not hurt, he decided, but pissed.

Becca was breaking up with him? Over a stupid cabin in Alaska? Didn’t she understand that Libby came first? That he’d never do something that made his daughter miserable? She loved him, but he guessed those were just words, easy to say when they’d end up meaning nothing.

Words were cheap. Incredibly cheap.

Maybe she was doing him a favor, turning her back on him when he needed her most. He was seeing who she truly was.

Even though he told himself that, part of him ached with regret and despair.

Actually, not just part of him. All of him. His entire soul felt like ice.

*   *   *