“Should we try parrying again?” Teresa asked. “I promise I won’t play dirty this time, if you promise not to go easy on me.”
“For god sakes, Teresa, let the poor man catch his breath!” Louisa called from the backdoor as she carried out a tray laden with food and cutlery. She let Oliver take it from her and set it on the garden table as she shook her head at Felipe and Teresa. “I leave for an hour, and you two turn the yard into a paste.”
“Piste,” the other Galvans answered in unison.
“Whatever. The dogs need to go out, so there will be no fighting until they’re done. Come and sit. Agatha made lemonade and bienenstich.” Turning back to Oliver, she said, “Do you see how he’s turned our daughter into a common street brawler?”
“Mama, I might be a street brawler, but I am anything but common.”
Felipe bit back a laugh at the long-suffering look that crossed Louisa’s features. As she opened her mouth to speak, Agatha swept into the yard with Kuchen and Pastel in tow. Pastel darted off to yap at a squirrel while Kuchen sidled over to Oliver and eyed the cake. Planting a kiss on Teresa’s temple, Agatha pulled her close even as their daughter wrinkled her nose but leaned into her Ma Ma’s affection.
“Did my little Liebling tell you about how she nearly got kicked out of grammar school for teaching the other girls to fistfight?”
Teresa rolled her eyes. “No, Ma Ma, we’ve been too busy trying to teach Dr. Barlow the basics of sparring.”
“I would love to hear about it later,” Oliver replied as he cut each of them a piece of the creamy layer cake. “You and your papa have been very patient teachers. I didn’t realize I wasn’t your first pupil.”
“Oh, yes, she helped pay her exhibition fees by teaching the younger girls at her fencing club. We’re quite proud of how far she’s come, but Felipe can’t claim all the credit for her talent. Two of my brothers were quite accomplished fencers in their younger days. I never took to it, so it must have skipped a generation.”
Taking his plate, Felipe settled beside Oliver on the hip-high wall surrounding the patio while the ladies took the chairs at the ironwork table. A bee that had been idling around the pots of unopened blooms bumped against his hand as if drawn to the honeyed almonds on the cake. Between refreshing bites of cream, Felipe watched the three women. Sitting between her mothers, the resemblance was obvious. Teresa had Agatha’s hazel eyes, though hers were more to the brown, and Louisa’s wide mouth and dark hair, but the rest of her ended up somewhere in between. Her skin was slightly browner than Felipe’s, and the combination of Louisa’s compact muscle and Agatha’s added height gave her long, strong limbs and a hearty disposition. Even if they shared no blood, her coloring and personality ended up close enough to Felipe’s that no one noticed she looked nothing like him. As Agatha said, people saw what they wanted to see.
Felipe released a contented sigh. How had nineteen years gone so quickly? He could still remember carrying Teresa on his shoulders during parades and trips to the shore. The squeal of her voice when she won her first fencing competition. How close yet far away those days seemed. At the gentle pressure of Oliver’s hand on his arm, Felipe gave him a tight smile and tried not to think of the hundreds of little regrets he had in regards to his daughter. The sheer volume of things he had missed due to work was shameful, but no more. He had a second chance to do things right, and he would be there for her while she was home no matter what.
“So, Oliver, how are you settling back in at work?” Louisa asked, topping off their drinks.
“Well, actually.” Moving his plate to let Kuchen hop in his lap, Oliver held the dog close. “It’s like I never left, and now that I’m off light duty, things finally feel back to normal.”
“And you, Felipe? How is partial retirement going?”
Flashing him a knowing smile over the back of her chair, Teresa added, “Yes, Papa, do tell. How does it feel to finally stay put?”
“It’s been an adjustment but a good one. As I’ve said, I’m hoping we can spend lots of time together while you’re home. It should be easier now.”
Neither Felipe nor Oliver brought up theadjustmentsthey had dealt with in the lab, though Felipe felt Oliver’s eyes on him. That month of light duty where they were stuck in the lab together all day had been rough. While Felipe was accustomed to handing off corpses to Oliver for a closer examination or stumbling upon them in the heat of an investigation, he was not accustomed to how they looked or smelled up close. Or how long that smell lingered on everything in warmer weather. He had vomited during a particularly messy case while Oliver bit back a barely suppressed withering look. For a man who could smell traces of magic like a bloodhound, he certainly didn’t seem fazed by decomposition. He made more of a fuss about the chemicals he used to clean the lab than anything else as they gave him a headache. The past few weeks where Oliver had free reign in the lab and Felipe could go to the archives to focus on the cold cases he was slowly picking apart had been nice, but he was itching to go out on an investigation.
“Well, I, for one, am very glad you’re done galivanting all over the country. I was half-convinced that the moment Oliver fully recovered, you would be on the first train out of the city,” Louisa said pointedly between bites of cake.
Felipe stared into his drink, the words hovering on his tongue. He wasn’t dying to leave New York because he had died. And he still hadn’t told his family about what happened that January night or how he was now tethered to Oliver, so there was no way for him to leave the Paranormal Society, let alone the city, unless he took Oliver with him. Felipe swallowed against the knot in his throat. They were all together; now would be the perfect time to tell them everything. With four pairs of expectant eyes upon him, his resolve faltered.
“What can I say, Oliver has been a good influence,” Felipe replied blithely with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Teresa’s gaze shifted to Oliver, her brows furrowing and a hurt look passing across her features so fast that Felipe wasn’t sure if he had imagined it as she turned back to the table.
“What do you all think of going to seeThe Circus Girl? I know it’s not the kind of thing we would usually go to, but it sounds like good fun and the staging is supposed to be superb.”
“Sure,” Felipe replied without thinking.
Oliver’s grey eyes bored into him as he hissed, “But what if we have a case come up?”
At Oliver’s pointed, wide-eyed look, Felipe silently deflated and nodded. “Yes, that could be a problem. Let me know when the performances are, Agatha. I’m sure we can figure out a time that works.”
“And if you do, can we go to Siegel-Cooper and pick out new outfits?” Teresa added brightly. “I have so missed our shopping trips, Papa.”
Felipe smiled and tried to ignore the look of horror on Oliver’s face warring with the happiness of his daughter. They would discuss it later. Poking at what remained of his cake, Felipe found he no longer had an appetite.
***
ONCE THE CONVERSATIONmoved on to Agatha and Louisa’s latest gallery finds, the knot in Felipe’s chest loosened. Before long, the dessert, drinks, and dogs had been brought into the house, and Felipe turned his attention back to Oliver. He was tempted to have him work on defensive moves with Teresa again, but Colonel Monstery had always suggested short practice sessions to avoid diminishing returns. On a stomach full of sweets, those returns would probably be even worse. Letting his focus fall to the tether lodged around his heart, he felt for Oliver at the other end. His heart pumped as steadily as his own, but he could feel the undercurrent of fatigue and anxiety beneath it. The length of the visit was probably wearing on him along with the potential for more outings, but Felipe didn’t want to leave yet. There was still so much time to make up for. As Teresa pulled her hair back, she shot Felipe a questioning look that bordered on mischievous. One last match, then.
