Prom photo of Harry and some tall bombshell whose pinkie-and svelte figure-he’d been wrapped around until graduation last June. Then, oh…

Prom photo of Bailey and Finn. She tried forcing her gaze away-God, what had she been thinking when she bought that silver dress?-but then it snagged on Finn. Finn, two years older, eons more fascinating than any boy she’d ever known.

She’d chosen silver to match the thick steel hoops he wore in his ears. Of course the color washed out her blond looks, but who wouldn’t look washed out compared to Finn, with his bad-boy bleached-on-black hair and his brooding brown eyes? He’d worn motorcycle boots with his dark-as-night tuxedo, and by the time they’d arrived at the dance, he’d already yanked free from his neck the bow tie his grandmother had been so careful to tie for him.

He’d never been careful with anything but Bailey.

It had only made him more dangerous, more imperative to run away from. She’d done it ten years ago.

Move feet, move. She could do it again now.

Forcing him out of her mind, she climbed the last of the steps. “Mom?”

A scuffle down the hall sent her toward Harry’s room. In the doorway, she halted, relieved to finally find her quarry sitting on Harry’s bed, her back half turned. Surely with a little forthright conversation she could convince her mother to swallow her pride or her heartbreak or whatever was keeping her out of the store. Bailey could jump back in her car and drive away from Christmas and from Coronado. Maybe tonight!

“Mom, I’ve been calling you.”

Tracy Willis swiveled to face her. “Oh, I didn’t hear you, honey.”

Bailey swallowed. The last time she’d seen her mother had been at Harry’s high school graduation. But the older woman looked as if years had passed instead of months. Her face and neck were thin, her blunt-cut hair straggled toward her shoulders. It looked gray instead of its usual blond. She wore a pair of muddy green sweat pants and shearling slippers. A football jersey.