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business if you did a little advertising.”
    “I don’t want to double my business. There are only so many pieces I can make by hand in a month, and they sell okay. What am I going to do with more customers than I can satisfy?”
    She blinked, looking at him. As far as she could tell, he was serious. “If you hired a few people to help you—”
    “Then it wouldn’t be my furniture people were buying.”
    “But you could make more money—”
    He shook his head with an impatient movement that made the hair flop in his eyes again. “I make enoughto get by, and I enjoy my work. Your corporate approach wouldn’t work for me.”
    She stiffened. “If you mean I’m practical, I don’t consider that an insult. Although I suspect you meant it that way.”
    “Just recognizing a difference in how we see things, that’s all.” His voice was mild, but his eyes had turned frosty. “If you came out here to tell me how to run my business, I thank you for your interest.”
    “No.” She bit off the word. The world needed practical people like her. They kept the dreamers afloat. But she didn’t suppose it would do any good to tell him so. “My grandmother wants you to know that we’ll be going to the hospital shortly. She asks if you’ll keep an eye out for the painters and let them in.” Somehow it seemed important that he know the favor was for Grams, not her.
    “I’d be glad to.”
    “I thought she could call you, but she said you never answer your phone.”
    “Really bugs you, doesn’t it?” His expression suggested internal laughter. “I don’t like to jump when the phone rings. If anybody wants me, they leave a message.”
    She bit back another comment about his business methods. Or lack of them. Why should she care if the man frittered away his prospects for want of a few sensible steps?
    “I see.” She kept her tone perfectly polite. “Thank you for taking care of the painters. My grandmother will appreciate it.”
    She turned and walked away quickly, suspecting that if she looked back, she’d find an amused smile on his face.
     
     
    “But I can’t. I really can’t.” Andrea looked from her grandmother to her sister. Both faces were turned toward hers, both expectant, waiting for an answer she couldn’t possibly give. “I’m extremely busy at work right now.”
    “Surely your employer will give you the time off.” Grams was serenely confident. “Your family needs you.”
    Rachel didn’t say anything. She just leaned back against the raised head of the hospital bed, her face almost as white as the pillow.
    She’d tell herself they were ganging up on her, but that wasn’t true. They were depending on her, just as Rachel and baby sister Caroline had depended on her during those years when Mom had relocated the family from place to place, nursing her grudge against Grams and Grandfather and depriving her children of the only stable home they’d ever known.
    Andrea was the oldest. She was the responsible one. She’d take care of it.
    The trouble was, she was responsible to her job, as well, and there couldn’t possibly be a worse time for her to take off. Gordon Walker would not understand his right-hand woman requesting a leave to help her family. He hadn’t even taken time away from work when his wife was in labor with their twins.
    Of course, he and his wife were now divorced, and he saw his daughters once a month if he was lucky.
    She tried again. “I’m in the middle of a very important project, and I’m on a deadline. I couldn’t take time off now. It wouldn’t be fair to the company.”
    It wasn’t fair to her, either. Maybe that thought was unworthy, but she couldn’t help it. The promotion her boss had been dangling in front of her for the past year would be hers when this project was completed. Her position with the company, her stable, secure life, would be assured.
    “Can’t someone else take over for you?” Grams’s brow furrowed. “We’ve already accepted