After fumbling with the buttons on his shirt on the way back to the living room, he stopped to pick up the couch cushions he’d knocked onto the floor in his haste to take Safara up on her invitation to share the shower. When he finally opened the door, Chief Dennell was already sporting a pretty unhappy expression. That was nothing compared to the one when he got a good look at Eli. His hand held a rolled-up newspaper, which he patted against the side of his leg. Eli suspected he’d rather be pounding him with it.
“I need to talk to my daughter.” He gave Eli’s chest a pointed look. “That is, if she’s not too busy right now.”
Confused, Eli glanced down at his shirt only to realize he’d buttoned the damn thing crooked. Well, shit, now what should he do? Her father hadn’t been all that fond of Eli to begin with, and being confronted with some pretty damning evidence about how he and Safara had spent the morning clearly wasn’t helping.
“Would you like to come in to wait? She should be along any second.” If there was a God in heaven, anyway.
Jakes sighed, looking much older than he had the last time Eli had seen him. That prompted him to ask, “Is your father doing all right?”
“Yeah, other than he’s getting more cantankerous by the minute. By the way, he’d like to thank you personally for helping him when you can spare a minute from...” He stopped midthought, probably realizing there was no good way to end that sentence. “Anyway, when you get a chance to stop by to see him, he’d appreciate it. Meanwhile, I could use a cup of coffee if you have one.”
“Sure thing. Come on in.”
Jakes headed straight for the kitchen. He tossed the newspaper onto the table and sat down.
Meanwhile, Eli plated up Safara’s cookies and poured them each a cup of coffee. He was painfully aware of the muffled noises Safara made moving around in the next room. What the hell was taking her so long? Suddenly he was flashing back to the previous morning and their mad dash to hide any evidence they were more than just friends from Mike and Doc. When it came to Safara’s father, that boat had sailed.
At this point, the silence between them had grown awkward. He reached for another cookie only to bump hands with Jakes, who was doing the same thing. It was hard not to laugh. They were both trying to avoid conversation by keeping their mouths full of cookie crumbs. Obviously the man wasn’t happy to learn his Kalith daughter had spent the past two days holed up in a remote cabin with a human male.
Eli considered telling him that wasn’t exactly the case. Well, the spending time with Eli was true enough, but he wasn’t completely human. The trouble was that in Jakes’s estimation, he might be exactly the worst possible kind of almost human he could be—a Paladin. He suspected pointing out that he and Safara knew they had no future together wouldn’t make her father any happier. Fine. It didn’t make Eli happy, either.
The extended silence had become unbearable. “More coffee?”
“I’m good.”
Wow, they’d managed a whole four-word conversation without ripping into each other. Under the circumstances, that was a victory. To celebrate, he reached for another cookie.
The sound of the bedroom door opening had both men sitting up and staring toward the living room. By that point, Eli didn’t know which of them was more anxious for Safara to put in an appearance. He got up to pour her a cup of coffee, more to give himself something to do than looking as if he was about to pounce the second she came into sight.
At first glance, she appeared poised and not at all rattled by her father’s unexpected appearance on Eli’s doorstep. It was nice one of them could put up a good front.
She kissed Jakes on the cheek. “Hi, Dad. What brings you up here this morning?”
“You hadn’t checked in recently. I’m your father and entitled to worry.” He glanced in Eli’s direction before adding, “We both know this mountain is a dangerous place right now.”
Eli bit back the urge to laugh. They all knew the danger Jakes referred to had nothing to do with Safara’s cousin and the other rogues who might be prowling the area. In fact, it was standing right there in the kitchen holding out a cup of coffee to his daughter.
Safara smiled her thanks and then sat down at the table. “So why didn’t you just call? It would’ve saved you the long drive up here.”
“I planned to take your place standing watch.” After another one of his narrow-eyed glances at Eli, he added, “You’ve got better, more important things to do with your time.”
Okay, he might’ve been talking about her job or spending time with her grandfather at the hospital, but that’s not how Safara took it.
“If you’re speaking as my boss, you have every right to reassign me to other duties. Say the word, and I’ll head back home and go on patrol.” Then she leaned in over the table, her pale eyes shooting sparks at Jakes. “But if as I suspect you’re up here to play the overprotective father card, you can just drive back down the mountain and mind your own damn business.”
That she spoke with a deadly calm didn’t do anything to lessen the anger that hovered between the two Dennells. Eli didn’t know whether to applaud her determination or slap his hand over her mouth before she said something that couldn’t be erased. He had no intention of being the pry bar that tore apart the close relationship she had with her father.
It didn’t help that Jakes wouldn’t back down. “We’ve had this discussion, Safara. He’s not our kind. He has no past that I can find. And it’s pretty damn convenient that the only two people who could confirm his right to move into this cabin are both dead—Martin and his grandson. I even contacted Martin’s attorney to find out what the hell is going on with this guy. He claimed attorney-client privilege and refused to answer any of my questions. The bottom line is that no one knows a damn thing about this guy or, if they do, they’re afraid to talk.”
She gasped in outrage, but she clamped her mouth shut, her lips edged in white at the effort it took to keep it that way. Safara knew the truth about Eli. But even at great cost to herself, she was clearly determined to protect his secrets.
He settled for putting his hand on her shoulder. “Safara, he’s right. We talked about all the reasons why you can’t get tangled up in my life.”
“But—” She started to protest, but then stopped. “You’re right. We did talk about it. We also talked about why you shouldn’t get tangled up in mine. That doesn’t seem to have stopped it from happening anyway.”
Yeah, the entire situation sucked big-time, but it was what it was. The pain in her voice echoed his own feelings, but they both knew this fantasy world they’d been living in couldn’t last forever. He wanted to punch someone, and the only handy target was off-limits. He might hate Jakes for dragging them both back into reality, but the man was only looking out for his own.
Jakes might be happy or at least relieved he’d gotten his way, but he had the good sense not to show it. If he’d acted even slightly smug, Eli might well have taken a swing at him and damn the consequences. He flexed his hand on Safara’s shoulder, needing that small connection to maintain control.
