He straightened at that. “Do you know how insulting that is?”
“I don’t care,” she said. “Look, you want to find some magic potion to keep you human? Well, this is the age of the Internet.” She cracked her knuckles. “We’re going to find it.”
He sighed. “Julie, we’ve been looking?—”
“Don’t care, Mark. I haven’t been looking. You need someone with experience in anthropology and folktales and I don’t know what. That’s my father.”
“We can’t bring him in.”
“Without him, you’ll just have to settle for me. I’m his daughter, can read his nutso shorthand, and I’m motivated.” She stepped forward, getting right up into his face. Close enough to touch him. Close enough to grip his hard dick, if she wanted to. And she really wanted to. But she held her hands firmly on her hips. This wasn’t about sex, this was about fighting for his life. And once he had a life—and a future—then they could see about the hot sex part. And the-happily-ever-after part. But that couldn’t even be on the table until they solved this.
“Are you with me, Mark? Are you willing to keep searching?”
He took a deep breath, his expression haunted. And for the first time, she saw the depths to which he’d sunk in despair. What would it be like to search since you were sixteen for the miracle solution to your life? To fight for answers, to hold on to hope, only to be disappointed time and time again? And here she was, at the eleventh hour, asking him to believe again. Asking him to give up the peace that came with acceptance and try again.
“Please, Mark. Can you please hold on to hope one last time?”
“There’s no reason to think you can succeed where everyone else has failed,” he said softly. “And lots of reasons to say you haven’t a prayer.”
She swallowed. That was true. After all, according to him, shifters had been searching for the solution to the feral problem for centuries. What could she add that no one else could?
“I—” she began, trying to find a reason he could believe in. Something other than, Because I want to believe I can.
“Okay,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
He drew her hands up to his mouth, pressing kisses into her knuckles. “Julie, this morning was a miracle. I wanted to see you again to explain. And to have you not only listen but to…” His cheeks tinged red.
“To hump like bunnies?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Miracle.”
She felt her cheeks heat. “It was pretty awesome for me, too.”
“So you already came loaded with one miracle. What’s to say you can’t pull off another?”
Logic? Reason? But they were talking about magic, so she decided to toss those two scientific strategies out the window. “Exactly,” she said, pretending to a confidence she really didn’t feel. “We can figure this out. I’m sure of it.”
He took a deep breath. “Where do we start?”
Good question. It was too late to call her father and ask about whatever research he’d had on his tablet. That meant going back over what ground her father already had established before they started looking deeper. “Fire up that dinosaur of a desktop. I still have that creepy thumb drive of his notes.” She froze a moment, only now understanding the significance of a bear with a little bullet hole in its chest. “Oh my God?—”
He held up his hand, stopping her explosion. “Graveyard humor. I thought it was funny.”
Well, she didn’t. But rather than argue, she pulled out her phone. “Actually, Dad often stays up late reading. Maybe he’s awake.”
She texted him, not wanting to disturb his sleep. But if he was awake, then maybe she could get a jump on things now. “U up, Dad? I’m with Mark. Got questions.”
Five seconds her phone rang.
“Dad?”
“What’s up, honey? I’m so bored I’m willing to eat hospital food. What do you want to know?”
With a grin, she gave Mark a thumbs-up. “Hold on while I grab something to write on. Mark has been talking to me about your research, and I’ve got some questions…”
CHAPTER 13
