An Accidental Hero by Loree Lough Page B

speak for what seemed to Cammi like an hour. Then he got to his feet and sat beside her on the couch.
    “C’mere,” Lamont said, drawing her into a hug.
    The floodgates opened, releasing all the misery and sadness, all the regret and recrimination she’d been bottling up since that horrible day. It surprised her, when she’d cried it all out, to see tears in her father’s eyes, too.
    “I’m so sorry, Dad. I hate being such a disappointment to—”
    He laid a finger over her lips to silence her. “Shh,” he said. “Don’t talk that way. You’ve never been anything but a joy.” Holding her at arm’s length, he gave her a gentle shake. “You’re the spittin’ image of your mama, and I’d love you for that alone. God forgive me for saying it, but you’re twice the woman she was, twice as smart, twice as thoughtful.”
    Using the pads of his thumbs, he dried her tears.“Do you know what she was doing the night she died?”
    Cammi nodded. “Shopping for a new dress for me.”
    “She forgot your dress, darlin’. That was her excuse when she left here that night, but it wasn’t in the car after—” He took a deep breath. “I told her not to go out in that weather, but would she listen? No-o-o. ‘There’s a sale at Gizmo’s,’ she said. ‘If I wait till tomorrow, I’ll miss all the latest styles!’ she said.”
    He sat back, pulled Cammi with him. “The cops gave me everything they found in her car—cassette tapes, keys, her purse…and four dress boxes from Gizmo’s.” He held her at arm’s length to add, “Did Gizmo’s ever sell girls’ clothes?”
    Cammi shook her head.
    “I’ve been telling you for years the accident wasn’t your fault. If I’d known why you blamed yourself…” Lamont ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe if I’d been a better father, I would have asked.”
    “Dad, you—”
    “You didn’t hold it against me, did you?”
    “Hold what against you? You’ve been the best father a girl could ask for!”
    “Y’know,” he said, kissing her temple, “I believe you mean that. Which is just one of a thousand reasons I love you like I do. You never gave it a thought, did you, that if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my own self-pity, I might have asked—”
    “Dad, really. Stop saying things like—”
    “And look at you now, not an hour out of the hospital and trying to excuse my bad behavior. You’resomething else, you know that? You’d never put your life at risk for something so trivial as a sale on dresses, and the proof is the way you handled things after your mama’s funeral.”
    She remembered only too well that at first, he’d held it together. It was later, after the friends stopped dropping by and the in-laws stopped calling, when the casserole dishes had been reclaimed and the flowers had all dried up, that he’d let grief and despair claim him….
    “If she’d died for any other reason, I could have handled it. It would’ve hurt like mad, but… dresses? Pretty clothes were more important to her than staying safe for her family?” He gave Cammi another gentle shake. “Don’t you see, sweetie? I’ll love her till the day I die, but I can’t forgive her for making you girls motherless, for making me a widower. I’ve never been disappointed in you—it’s her I’m disappointed in!” One last shake before he let her go. “And let’s not forget that if you hadn’t stepped in, run things while I was havin’ myself a pity party, we might’ve lost everything. You saved our bacon, Camelia.”
    Cammi tried to take it all in.
    “Well,” Lamont said on a heavy sigh, “at least it’s all out in the open now.”
    “No, not all of it, Dad. There’s one more thing….”
    “I know. You lost the baby.”
    His voice was flat, unemotional, when he said it, as if he couldn’t bear to say it any other way.
    She felt the tears begin to well up again. Unable to trust herself to speak, Cammi nodded. When she found her voice, she said, “I