Page 42 of The Sandbar saga

To go home.

To be with him.

Nodding at the nun holding the door, he stepped outside. The last time he'd been around a crowd that size, he'd received his doctorate degree.

He walked out to his car and leaned against the side, watching the door for Katie. At thirty-six years old, his days were spent seeing patients one on one. The cottage where he met with his patients only a hundred feet from his backdoor.

His off-hours spent doing mental checks at the hospital and going twice a week to Puget Sound to see Katie. His hour visits early on had quickly turned to two hours, three hours, four hours the older she became, and the more freedom she was rewarded at St. Mary's.

Now, she'd be coming home with him. Katie would live in a bedroom in his house. Their lives would combine.

Though the end result shouldn't surprise him. He'd seen what was happening years ago when she made him promise not to leave her.

Several classmates of Katie's rushed out of the front door. The excitement in their loud voices and the animation in their reddened faces still carried the high from graduating.

Family members waved and gathered on the brick walkway leading to the stairs. What the hell was he doing here?

These parents had raised their child for eighteen years, gone through the terrible two's, junior high with the backtalking, rebellious attitudes, and set a course for their kid that would please all of them.

All he'd done was support Katie financially and emotionally. He'd supplied her with enough necessities to make her comfortable, and been an ear when she wanted to talk. He'd failed professionally to get her to believe that she wasn't responsible for her father's death, her mother's failure to parent, and most of all, to see how she was worth loving.

She was the one case where he hadn't been pleased with her progress. At eighteen years old, she should be independent and ready to break away from therapy. She showed no signs of wanting to stop.

And, he was damned if her dependence on him hadn't fed some part of his soul.

Katie walked out of the building, looking for him. He held up his arm and felt the moment she spotted him in his gut.

He had to let her go.

She bounced with each step. Her thick hair waved down her back, and her step lightened. He hit the button on his keychain and stepped back, opening the passenger door for her.

She paused in front of him, giving him a bright, white smile, and shimmied, undulating her shoulders. "School's over. Uh. Huh. I'm done. Let's go."

He shook his head at her silliness. "Get in."

She slid into the car. He shut the door and walked around the front to get in the driver's seat. Thankful she was already buckled, he started the engine and entered traffic. He wouldn't miss traveling two and a half hours each way, twice a week.

"Remember, take I-5." She played with the stereo, finding a loud and fast song to fill the silence in the car.

Her fear of the Megler Bridge stemmed from her father dying on the sandbar with the woman he was having an affair with. A fact her mother hadn't kept to herself but thought her eight-year-old daughter needed to know. To make matters worse, the woman involved with her father was Katie's piano teacher. Another person close to her who had left her life dramatically.

As it often happened, he replayed all the progress Katie had made through the sessions with him, trying to figure out how he could remove the scars left behind. While he held no confidence in hypnosis, he needed to call Greg at the clinic and see what he thought of the odds of it working for Katie.

She yawned loudly, and her head rolled to the side, facing him. "I don't know how to drive."

"You just figured that out?" He chuckled.

"It's been on my mind lately."

"Do you want to learn?"

"I think so." She paused. "Yes, I do. I'll need to know how before I get a job."

"You should think about going to college. You could live on campus. There's no need for a car when you'll be studying in all your free time."

"I don't want to go."

"Then, go to a community college. There's a bus that can pick you up in Astoria."