I looked at Daniel and then back at Carol, choosing my words with care, which made me speak slowly and probably sound a little odd. “Every once in a while, Henry would ask me for a large sum of money. Well, large in my eyes. Several hundred, usually. Sometimes close to a thousand. I figured he was just managing his money poorly.”
Carol shook her head. “No, it wasn’t that.”
Clearly. Because clearly, I couldn’t do a proper job taking care of my brother when I wasn’t even around him. Apparently, I wasn’t good at being a wife or a sister, and now my brother might be in trouble because of it.
Deva set a tray down on the table, startling me. I hadn’t even noticed she was making tea. And where had the cookies come from? She poured the tea as she talked, the amber liquid rushing into the cream-colored china cups, which had apparently been boring enough for the attackers to leave them alone. “Rumor has it that Henry has been gambling with the vampires and sometimes he loses pretty big.”
Vampires. Okay. Cool. She said it. Totally fine.
I wasn’t going to freak out.
Nope.
I inhaled slowly through my nose and held my breath, releasing it between my slightly parted lips, and hoped that no one noticed that I was on the edge of losing my shit. Again.
Now what?
Carol nodded, then when I still didn’t jump in, she added, “And when he loses, supposedly it’s usually against the shifters.”
Shifters. Okay. We were doing that now. Sparkly vampires and growly, exploding clothes shifters. None of this was weird. Not at all. And it wasn’t weird we were telling a human all of this, and that he wasn’t looking at us like we were nuts. I’d seen movies about shit like this. Someone seeing something that no one else could. Everyone thinking they were crazy. At least I had Deva and Carol to back me up.
“Is that about it?” he asked, his expression unexpectedly frustrated.
Seriously?
Was that it?
I don’t know. Did we want to add mermaids or witches to the story? Everything seemed so comical in that moment that I almost started giggling. It was the kind of laughter that only happened when things were too serious, or too awkward, or too ridiculous. I had to swallow a few times to prevent the giggle that was lodged in my chest from spilling out.
Deva grabbed her cup. “Yeah, that’s about all we know. Sorry we can’t be more helpful.”
Daniel sighed. “I’ll take care of it.” He got up and started walking away, his cup of tea untouched.
“Wait.” I jumped up, and he froze and looked back at me. “What are you going to do? Can I help?”
“Just stay here and be safe.” He gave me a small smile.
“No. He’s my brother.” My hands curled into fists again, and that giggle that had been lodged in my chest morphed into a tempest of anger and hurt. I wasn’t sure if I was going to start screaming or crying.
He moved closer to me and ducked his head a little, so we were eye-to-eye. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure your brother is okay. Alright? I promise.”
For some reason, I believed him. “Well, I’m not going to just sit here and do nothing.”
His mouth curled into another small smile. “No, of course you aren’t. You’re Emma, the girl who can sing loud enough to shake the entire gymnasium.”
I stared at him in surprise, not knowing what to say.
He bobbed his head, almost like he was giving me a little bow. “I’ll let you know anything I find out.”
As he turned to go, my gaze was locked on him. It was strange to me that in my forty-something years, I’d never met a man like him before. It didn’t matter that I’d known him in high school. Well, known might be too strong a word. I’d crushed on him, hard. If he was anything like me, then he was vastly different than his high school self. Sure, the core was still the same, but experiences change you. I could only imagine how losing his wife had changed him.
His height and his strength should make him intimidating to me. But instead, he was so damn reassuring that I both wanted him to stay and wanted to push him on his way to find out anything he could about Henry.
Most of the time I was sure that a man would say one thing and do another. With Daniel, I believed him. Which probably made me an idiot.
At the door, he looked back at me one last time, wearing the same look he had in the grocery store, and those green eyes of his felt like they were trying to tell me something, but I didn’t understand, and then he was gone. I rubbed my face, finding more tears on my cheeks, and turned back and headed for the dining room.
I returned to the table where Deva was putting a cup of tea in front of my seat. “Drink,” she said. “It’ll calm your nerves.”
