“Plenty of time for that later!” William called, his figure backlit by a passing car, features impossible to make out. “Family meeting. Now!”
The garage door closed, and Luke and Dani stared at each other. Luke found a whole slew of words she hadn’t heard since basic training. Her hand shook as she reached for him. Not fright, not even anger so much as pent-up frustration. Dani hurriedly yanked up her shorts, glad that she’d been at least wearing her underwear when she’d given an impromptu peepshow for the entire neighborhood. She was thinking a few choice words of her own as she refastened them. Luke tried to fit himself back into his pants, and straightened his shirt as she refastened her bra and pulled her shirt over her head.
“Luke...”
She couldn’t find the words to say. Apology felt wrong. Inwardly, she was seething. This was about more than aborted sex. Just one look told her that the gulf between them was back. She might as well have been standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. He wouldn’t even look at her.
He’s not mad at me.
It didn’t help, knowing that. She sighed, and pulled a little harder than was needed on the edge of her shirt, hearing stitches give way somewhere; one more thing that had gone wrong with this whole terrible, awful day.
Besides, the primal scream that Dani bit back would have alerted the entire populace of Florida.
Luke made a noise in the back of his throat and clenched a fist, made as if to swing it, stopping short of the driver’s side window. It wasn’t his mother he was mad at currently, though. He pulled back and let the momentum swing him around, turning it into a violent gesture of frustration, ending in a foot-stomping expression of pique that would have made an Irish step dancer proud. He stomped his foot three times and exhaled, moving his hips to settle himself back in his pants.
Then he did something so utterly romantic that he broke her heart, when he reached out and wiped a tear from Dani’s cheek she didn’t know was there.
On the other side of the door, William waited. Dani stalked past him, rage and annoyance in every step. It rolled off her; by rights the very ground under her feet should have smoked and burned.
William hung back to talk to Luke, but Dani could hear him quite clearly, which she was sure was his intention.
“You two ever do anything else? There’s a time and place for that.”
Dani turned, ready to punch William, father-in-law or no. He held up both hands in a gesture meant to be placating. “I understand. When Luke’s mother and I first were engaged, there wasn’t a flat surface we didn’t...”
“I don’t need to hear this!” Luke shouted over his father’s story.
Marcus sidled up to Luke, catching him on the front porch where he clandestinely passed Luke something. It was a five-dollar bill.
Luke gave him a pained look and followed the others into the house.
“There are no cheap, ugly statues at the church,” William announced as he shoved his way into the house, the front door banging hard into the wall with the violence of his passing.
“You broke into the church?” Elaina gasped, one hand going to her throat, her face growing pale. Angry.
“No.” William threw up his hands in disgust. “What the hell do you think I am? I had a man wake the reverend and had him open the church.” He smiled at his ex-wife. It was a nasty sort of smile. Dani found herself edging closer to Luke. “He was told that there were drugs hidden in the donated items.”
“Wait, what do you mean it wasn’t there?” Edwin demanded, jumping to his feet to face William as he realized exactly what they were talking about. That was Dad for you, always right on top of the conversation.
“It wasn’t ugly,” Luke protested, more to himself than anyone. Dani patted his arm.
“No, dear, it was only cheap,” Elaina confirmed, sinking back down into her chair and picking up the needlepoint she’d been working on.
“It was a... bird...” Luke tried to remember.
“No bird statues, no department store seconds, no birds with USB sticks shoved up their asses.” William spoke, his whole body quivering with rage. “It’s gone.”
“It is now,” Marcus said quietly, coming in last and closing the door gently. Dani gave him a hard look. He’d been outside an awfully long time.
“Meaning?” William stared at the man.
“Meaning that it’s out of our hands now. Meaning that you could have and would have taken it, and lied to us so we all go home like good little children while you continue to be ‘the authorities’. Either way, we no longer have a say in this. It’s your problem now.”
Dani bit her lip, moving back away from Luke to come alongside Marcus. To touch his arm, wishing she could ask, knowing it would have to wait. He glanced at her, his eyes sharp, giving her the tightest of head shakes, signaling her to hold her peace.
“You’re free to go, of course,” William said, without the customary smile, “but I’m not lying. It’s gone, and I don’t know where.”
In the ensuing silence Elaina set down her needlework again, knocking a small skein of blue wool across the table. It rolled halfway and stopped. “Well, there’s little enough we can do about it now. It’s late, and even if the pastor doesn’t need to sleep we do.”
“And let him run off?” Edwin glowered at William.
“Or any of you?” William replied, all smiles again.
“We’ll all stay here,” Dani said suddenly, glancing again at Marcus uneasily. “And no one leaves anyone else’s sight.”
They looked at each other, eye to eye. Assessing. Marking.
“Won’t that be fun,” Elaina said, but her heart wasn’t in it and it came off rather flat and even... nasty?
Dani blinked as she thought that over.
Yay. A sleepover.
LUKE WOKE DANI IN THE middle of the night. Well, not quite the middle of the night, more like almost morning.