Page 53 of Dream Weaver
I tilted my head.
“Promise me you’ll banish any nicknames you might hear from your memory.”
I broke out laughing. I might even look forward to it.
“No promises.”
He grinned, and we went back to work.
So, when the bell over the shop door chimed about an hour later, I turned, expecting to see Cooper’s mother — a stout woman with warm brown eyes, no doubt, and an easy smile, just like her son.
Instead, I spotted a tall, wiry man with long silver hair pulled into a loose ponytail.
His eyes landed on me with a thump, and I wobbled backward. Then he strode over with that commanding presence of his. Matt, Pablo, and Bob all shrank back, staring. A good thing too — that kept them from noticing that little bits of metal in the shop slid forward to pay homage to their master.
Or, more accurately, my father.
If Ingo had been there, he might have whispered,Warlock. Hephaestid.
Walt opened his glass office door but didn’t venture out. Neither did Louie, for all he loved to growl and bark. The only two souls who didn’t instinctively cower were Cooper and me.
I kept my hammer clutched at my side. Cooper bristled, and a wave of moss-scented air wafted through the shop. He was that close to shifting.
“Abby.” My father grinned, stepping toward me.
The grin wasn’t for me, but my name — the only part of me my father took pride in. Abby, as in Edward Abbey, one of the few humans my father admired. He also loved that our last name happened to be the same as Rachel Carson’s, the pioneering environmentalist.
Yeah, my father was a real hoot that way.
He powered up to me —rightup to me. He would have crowded me the way he always did if Cooper hadn’t stepped in the way. Towering at about the same height, they glared at each other like a couple of Rottweilers in the split second before all hell broke loose.
The air grew thick with magic, and the hair on the back of Cooper’s neck thickened.
I reached out to touch Cooper’s back, whispering, “All good.”
A lie, because my father was never good news. I even peeked behind him in case the law was hot on his heels.
But, no. Not this time, at least.
Thanks to Cooper, my heart rate didn’t skyrocket, but it did thump hard enough to rattle every corner of my body. All the more so when I noticed the quiver in Cooper’s arm.
He’d rested his sledgehammer on his shoulder when my father approached. Now, an electric crackle filled the air, and Cooper’s muscles bulged.
Dammit. My father was wielding magic, trying to force Cooper to put down the weapon — er, tool.
My father’s eyes blazed into Cooper’s, demanding submission. But the stubborn bear wouldn’t budge. That sledgehammer sure wanted to, though. I could feel it heat under the force of my father’s magic.
Bits of steel started sliding across the floor, and screws started rattling in drawers against the wall. Tools hanging against the wall leaned toward him at a gravity-defying angle.
“Cut it out, Ed,” I ordered in a low, even voice.
The man had always insisted I call him by his first name. So, no, we didn’t exactly share a warm father-daughter relationship.
The air grew heavy with magic. My father’s nostrils flared. Sweat broke out on Cooper’s brow. Their eyes glowed and lasered into each other’s.
“Stop that right now, Dad,” I growled before this turned into a full-fledged standoff.
My father’s eyes flicked to me, and I socked him with my hardest look.
