Tad frowned, looking skeptical. “You will?”
“Yeah. I may be a bitch, but I’m an honest one, and I take responsibility for my own choices. But what you did in there today? You’re on your own for that. I’ll be filing a grievance against you.” She turned on her heel, rounded a corner, intent on finding somewhere to chill and collect her thoughts before finding the station manager.
Instead she was abruptly stopped in her tracks. Actually, she was bounced backward when she collided into a hard chest. Strong hands reached out to steady her and angry green eyes glared down.
“Miss Dawson?”
Gideon Reynolds. She stared up for a moment, caught off guard and not prepared for his face. Or the rest of him. Very, very pretty, indeed. Her eyes narrowed as her brain caught up. “Why are you here? And why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not.” He looked over her shoulder pointedly. Tad had followed her, and the sight of him had Gideon jutting his chin out and breathing like a raging bull.
Daisy looked from Tad back to Gideon, then to Rafe and Arnie, the station manager, who were right behind him. Everyone looked furious. She was guessing that they’d heard Tad’s final on-air smears. Just like every listener in Sacramento had.
She pressed her palm to Gideon’s chest when he started to go around her toward Tad, who was slinking away, retreating to the studio. “Wait,” she murmured. “Please.” Because he looked like he wanted to break Tad into little pieces. While part of her found that hotter than hell, it was a very bad idea.
At her touch, Gideon sucked in a sudden breath and Daisy shivered. Later, she decided. She’d consider this later.
Pulling her hand away, she shifted her bag on her shoulder, shushing Brutus, who’d begun to whimper. “I’m filing a grievance, Arnie. I’m okay. Nobody needs to be this upset.”
“Did he touch you?” Gideon asked in a low growl that made Daisy want to whimper along with Brutus, but for very different reasons.
This caveman possessiveness of his shouldn’t be hot. But it is.
“No. He was just”—a dick—“unprofessional on air. How much did you hear?”
“That he wants to be a shock jock,” Rafe answered, one brow lifted. He was still angry, but handling it far better than Gideon, the reputed vault. “I, for one, am hoping that dream will come true. But Arnie, we’ll get out of your hair and let you handle things. It’s okay if we take Daisy home? She can file her grievance later, can’t she?”
Arnie nodded. “Not like we lack evidence. It’s all recorded. Was he like that for the whole program? I only caught the last few minutes, but I heard him guess your measurements and your . . .” He winced. “Preferences.”
He’d goaded her about whether she liked boys or girls and her preferred sexual positions. Right before he asked the listeners if they’d like her phone number. The switchboard had lit up.
“He wasn’t that bad the whole way through,” she assured him. “Just general”—dickishness—“um, unprofessionalism.”
Rafe snorted. “Look at who’s all diplomatic this morning.”
“And without sixty-two cups of coffee,” she replied tartly.
Arnie gave her shoulder a squeeze. “See you tomorrow at the pet adoption thing?” he asked her. Arnie Townsend was a nice guy. Somewhere close to sixty, he’d been the station manager at KZAU for at least a decade, maybe two.
“Absolutely.” She smiled at him. “You’ll be there, too?” He attended some of the station-sponsored events but had never come to the adoption center.
Arnie glanced at the two men standing like silent sentries. “I think so. Just in case. I’m so sorry about what happened last night, honey.”
“I’m okay.”
“If it was one of the listeners, I’ll do everything in my power to find him,” Arnie promised. “I’ve got our IT guy looking at all those threatening messages and we’ll trace them ourselves, because heaven knows when SacPD will get to it. No offense, Rafe.”
“None taken,” Rafe told him. “We’re backlogged everywhere.”
Arnie patted her shoulder. “Until then, we’re upping security in the parking lot.”
“I walk to work,” she reminded him. “But it’ll be good for everyone else to be covered.”
“You don’t walk to work anymore,” Gideon said behind her.
Oh, really? It made sense and Daisy would take the precautions they suggested, but she wasn’t going to let them tell her what she was and wasn’t going to do. Nipping this in the bud, right now. Eyes wide and deceptively innocent, she looked at him over her shoulder. “I don’t? Says who?”
Gideon’s grim mouth opened to reply, but Rafe cut in. “She’s baiting you, Gid.” Rafe put on his best puppy-dog expression. “For now, I’m ever-so-humbly asking you not to walk to work, DD. Please. For me and Dad and Mom and Sasha and—”
She laughed. “Okay, fine.” She shook her head. “We’d be here all day if you listed the whole family.” Fighting back a yawn, she pushed past all of them. “Actually, going home to take a nap sounds really good. Let me get a few things from my desk and shut my computer down. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” She paused at the door to the office cubicles, realizing Gideon hadn’t answered her original question. “And then Special Agent Reynolds can tell me why he’s here.”
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 10:10 A.M.
Gideon watched Daisy go, frowning. She was . . . “Different,” he muttered.
Rafe laughed. “She is. She always was, though. Even when she was a kid she marched to her own drummer.”
Gideon followed him to the lobby to wait. “You knew her as a kid?”
“Yeah. Our dads served in the army together and stayed fast friends, so we spent holidays together, celebrated birthdays, went on vacations, all that. Dad is DD’s godfather.”
Gideon lifted his brows. “So her coming to stay with you all makes sense.”
“Wouldn’t have made a difference if Dad was her godfather or not. The Dawson girls were like our cousins. Dad was devastated when they disappeared. Daisy was only eleven when her dad packed it all up and went north to that ranch.”
“Because of her stepsister?”
“Yes. Taylor. Mom never really liked Donna—Taylor’s mother—but she didn’t have anything more than intuition.”
“She said last night that her stepmother told her that Taylor’s biological father wanted to take her away.”
“It was worse than that. Donna claimed he was a homicidal lunatic who’d raped and beaten her and that she’d barely escaped with her life. Frederick believed her.”
“She must have been one hell of a convincing liar.”
“Must have been, but Frederick was always the protective type. Always knew where all the girls were at any given time.” Rafe chuckled ruefully. “My dad used to pity any man who tried to date one of Frederick’s daughters. Sasha was devastated when they moved away. She and Daisy had been close.”
“I don’t think I ever met them.”
Rafe absently scratched at the stubble covering his jaw. “I don’t think you did. You and I met when we were fourteen. That was about the same time that Frederick married Donna. His first wife had died in childbirth with Daisy’s baby sister, Julie. My mom jumped in to take care of the girls, but when Donna came on the scene, all that changed. Donna was territorial. Didn’t like my mother’s interference. We stopped seeing them as often. Frederick kept his kids in Oakland for holidays and the vacations stopped happening. Mostly because Donna and my mom couldn’t be in the same room together without the claws coming out. When they disappeared, my folks were out of their minds with worry.”
Gideon frowned. “He didn’t tell your father where they were going?”
“Nope. Made a clean cut. Didn’t hear from them again until about a year or so ago.”
“Because Frederick discovered Donna had been lying all along?”
“Not Frederick.” Rafe sighed. “It was Taylor. Donna did some deathbed confession and Taylor decided she needed to go to Maryland to meet her biological father, to see for herself if he was bad or good. Turns out he’s a great guy. Taylor moved out there to be near him, and Frederick moved to be near Taylor. Taylor and her father have so many years to catch up on. She was twenty-three when they finally met.”
“Poor guy,” Gideon murmured. “Taylor’s biological dad, I mean. And your father. Did Frederick just up and call one day?”
“Out of the blue,” Rafe said, shaking his head. “My father was so hurt. He won’t admit it, but he’s still hurt that Frederick didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth. Frederick still hasn’t visited in person. Just phone calls and e-mails.”
Gideon thought of the bighearted Karl. “But your dad forgave him?”
Rafe shrugged. “I guess so. Frederick still has some bridges to rebuild in my opinion, but my dad understands a father’s need to protect his kids.”
Gideon nodded at that, because he’d been lucky enough to experience Karl’s protection. And affection. Rafe was so damned lucky and fortunately he seemed to know it.