“Hey, Thunder,” Rosemary said tiredly, crouching down to catch him before he ran into her legs.
“Where the hell have you been?” a voice barked as an older man in a wheelchair appeared in the doorway.
“Hey, Pop,” Rosemary said, rising back up with a groan.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked me.
“Pop, this is my mate, Daniel Boucher. Daniel, this is my father, Gary Whitlock.”
“Well… shit,” the man said, his shoulders dropping.
“Yeah,” Rosemary said, lifting her arms and then letting them fall. “Surprise.”
“Good to meet you,” I said, stepping around my mate to shake her father’s hand.
“Your mate is aBoucher?” Gary said, looking over at his daughter, his eyebrows raised.
She gave a short nod, and her father scoffed.
“What am I missing?” I asked, looking between them. It seemed as if they were having a full conversation without saying a word.
“I need a shower,” Rosemary announced. “Pop, you’ll entertain Daniel, right?”
“Rosemary—” I couldn’t stand the idea of her out of my sight.
“Go on, Flower,” her dad ordered with a jerk of his head. “You stink.”
“Well aware,” she mumbled as she walked toward him and kissed the top of his head as she passed. “And I’m starving.”
My heart raced as she disappeared from view, and I barely kept myself from following her. If her father hadn’t been blocking most of the hallway, I probably would’ve. I stared in the direction she’d gone, my mind racing.
What the hell had I walked into?
“Sure you got questions,” Gary said, turning his wheelchair around. “Come on. We can talk while I make her somethin’ to eat.”
I followed him into the kitchen. The house was clean but clearly lived in. The floors were scratched from years of use, the door jams were gouged at the height of Gary’s wheelchair footrests, and there were random knick-knacks and framed photos everywhere. Inside the kitchen was an entire row of well-worn cookbooks. Almost every one of them had little notes peeking out of the top.
“Can I get you somethin’ to drink?” Gary asked as he moved toward the fridge. “We’ve got beer, milk, and water.” He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Don’t keep hard stuff in the house.”
“No thanks,” I replied cautiously. I couldn’t figure him out. The man was as calm as if I’d just brought his daughter home from a date, but from everything Rosemary had said—she’d been missing for a week. What kind of father didn’t care that his daughter had disappeared?
And why the hell hadn’t he reacted when she’d told him we were mates?
“I can hear your mind spinnin’ from here,” he said in amusement as he pulled various items from the fridge. “Sit down. She’ll be a while.”
I walked further into the kitchen and sat down while he gathered things for what looked like a sandwich. When he’d piled everything he needed onto his lap, he brought it all over and set it out on the table.
“First things first, I’ve heard of you,” he said conversationally.
“You have?” I asked flatly.
Gary nodded and pulled out a pair of reading glasses. He put them on the end of his nose and got to work on the sandwich.
“I wasn’t aware that humans talked about us,” I countered.
He let out a rough chuckle. “Well, you’ve got me there.” He pushed up the sleeve of his flannel and flexed his wiry forearm. “You know what that is?”
In the center of his arm was a faded tattoo. Even with the lines blurred by age, it was instantly recognizable. The outline of the United States was innocuous unless you looked closer and realized that Florida was too pointed at the bottom, and there was a mirror image on the opposite side. As if the United States had fangs.
