Infinite Harmony (4 page)

So, instead of sticking around and demanding to know what potential threats remained, she said her goodnights and went up to bed.

“No, it’s okay, Mom. We’ll handle this by ourselves just like we have everything else over the past five years. No big. We’re fine, but thanks for your concern.” Jase’s sarcastic words hinted at an old hurt, one Joshua knew wouldn’t be easily healed. Still, he had to give it a try.

“She found out Shifters existed the night your father was shot in his coyote form,” Joshua reminded his friend. “And then, seventeen years later, her adopted daughter Changed and everyone and their brother tried to kill her because of it. You can’t really blame the woman for not running toward Shifter culture with open arms.”

Jase grabbed Joshua’s bloodied shirt from the table and tossed it into the unlit fireplace. “She’s my mother. I can blame her for whatever emotional damage I choose. It’s the American way.”

Joshua wanted to push the subject, but didn’t. They had more urgent matters to deal with at the moment. He would say something to Jase’s mate and let her talk to him. Talley was better at that sort of thing anyway.

“I can’t guard Angel,” he said instead. “I heal faster than a human, but it will still be a few days before this arm is fully functional. We can’t risk it.”

“What we can’t do is let out the word she’s a target,” Liam said, cutting his apple into strips with the fancy ceremonial knife a Pack Leader from Africa had gifted him with the day before. “If the letter is legit, then our good friends at the SHP have a mole, and I don’t want to run the risk of letting them know by obviously beefing up Angel’s security.”

Scout’s jaw clenched. “And I don’t want my little sister to die.”

Just two days ago another letter arrived at the Den. It didn’t look like any of the other SHP letters, which is what made them think it was an SHP letter. So far, none of them had arrived in the same kind of envelope, had the same style of handwriting, or had even been mailed from the same country. This one was printed in tiny, neat letters on a letter sent from Scotland.

They will kill me if they know I’m telling you this, but I cannot let them take another young girl. I do not know who she is, only that she is yours and they will stop at nothing to have her. They say she is special to you. If she is truly special, then you will guard her and keep her safe. Don’t let them take her. There are fates worse than death.

It hadn’t been signed. Scout had put it in the hands of several trusted Seers. Their best bet had been Heather, a Seer from the Chicago area who could See the past of any object she held in her hand. They’d given her every other correspondence they’d received from SHP, but she was never able to get anything useful from them. Each of the letters had traveled too far and passed through too many hands and machines for her to get a clear read on who wrote it. With the newest one she could only See a woman’s hand quickly writing the words and then sliding it across a worn wooden counter.

Angel Donovan was the very definition of “innocent bystander” in all of this. Sure, her half-sister was the Alpha Female and one of the first surviving female Shifters in centuries, and her half-brother was one of the most dominant coyote Shifters in recent history, but Angel was as human as they came. She barely knew about the secret world her siblings inhabited, and unlike Ada, she was literally twelve years old. The entire Alpha Pack was ready to claw out the throat of anyone who thought of harming her, which Scout knew.

Instead of snapping back, Liam turned and grazed his thumb down Scout’s jawline.

“We will keep her safe. I promise.”

“I know. It’s just…” Scout took a deep breath. “She’s my little sister.” The words sounded as if they’d been wrung out of her, and Joshua knew exactly what she meant. He couldn’t even think about something happening to the little monster without an acute sense of panic setting in.

“Which is why we need someone at their full strength on her,” Joshua said. “How about Charlie? He and Maggie can tag team. She likes them.”

Liam shook his head. “No, they’re running the Den and won’t be in Lake County until next Friday.”

“Robby?”

Jase snorted. “She hates Robby.”

“Then how about you?” Joshua asked. “You’re her brother. It would make sense for you to be seen with her constantly.” But Joshua could tell that suggestion was going to get shot down before he even finished saying it.

“One, Angel would much rather harass you than me. And two, I’m on Talley detail.”

“Funny. I thought Talley was on Talley detail.” Jase’s mate was like Dirty Harry with a gun and one of the most talented Seers alive. Even the people who were just sitting around waiting for the day Scout and Liam fell flat on their faces and quit being Alphas treated Talley with respect and reverence. There was nowhere safer for her than in the middle of a huge gathering of Shifters and Seers, even if she couldn’t shoot the smirk off a Jack of Clubs. “You just don’t want to be stuck painting fingernails and listening to Radio Disney.”

“We need Jase to play diplomat with the other packs,” Liam said, shooting Joshua down yet again. Normally Joshua liked the Alpha Male, but Liam was becoming more of a pain than the bullet wound in his shoulder.

Bracing both hands on the table, Joshua pushed himself up. The pain was white hot, and it radiated into his brain and stomach. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he balanced himself on his knees and then carefully moved himself around until he was sitting on the edge of the table. The edges of his vision started closing in on him, but he fought it off.

“It’s my right shoulder,” he said more to the floor than his friends. He didn’t like admitting weakness, not even to those he knew would never judge him for it. Warriors weren’t supposed to be weak. He was a protector, and admitting he couldn’t keep someone he loved safe hurt him more than any bullet ever could. “I’m not Inigo Montoya or the Dread Pirate Roberts. It’s right-handed or nothing, and I won’t be swinging a sword with this shoulder for at least three or four days. I won’t leave Angel at risk like that. I can’t.” He met Scout’s eyes. “We might not share blood, but she’s still my family.”

The corner of Scout’s mouth tilted up. “Which is why I trust you, and only you, to protect her.”

“My shoulder—”

Scout slid off the counter and walked over until she stood in front of Joshua’s knees. Her eyes, which were a piercing blue so light they almost appeared as colorless as her skin and hair, met his with a challenge.

“Hit me,” she said.

“What?”

“Take your left hand, squeeze it into a fist, and then punch me as hard as you can in the face.”

Joshua thought Liam would step in, but the Alpha Male seemed unfazed by his bride-to-be’s request.

“I’m not going to hit you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m an Immortal.”

“So?”

“So I don’t care if you can Change and fix the damage, I’m not going to break half the bones in your face.”

The same corner of Scout’s mouth jerked upwards again. “Are you saying you’re so freakishly strong you could shatter my face with one punch? With one punch from your
left
hand?”

“Scout—”

“And tell me, old man, how long before you can aim and fire a gun?”

Joshua could feel the muscle near his left eye twitching. “You know I don’t like guns any more than you do.”

“More or less than you like the idea of someone hurting Angel?”

Joshua glared at her for a full two minutes, but Scout just stood there with that stupid smirk on her face. “Fine,” he finally said, “but you will all keep your phones on you always.” He turned to Jase. “And you will keep the volume turned on. If I get so much as a gas pain that doesn’t feel quite right, I’m calling in backup.”

“And we’ll be there before you can get your Tums chewed up and swallowed,” Scout said.

“Where are you going?”

Ada jumped a good three inches in the air and let out a very unbecoming squeak.

“What are you doing here?” she gasped out over the pounding of her heart. “Were you just waiting outside my door to try to scare me to death?”

Hanging out on front porches in hopes of giving someone a heart attack wasn’t normally Marsden’s idea of a good time, but he’d been acting weird since she’d left him in the hotel room one of her friends at Lake’s Edge had snuck them into the day before. Like the dutiful boyfriend he was, he’d shown up at the hospital last night and said all the comforting and concerned words her parents expected him to say, but Ada couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t really speaking to her, but instead reciting words from a script. Instead of sitting next to her bed and holding her hand while she endured an extra treatment for the day, he’d stood against the wall, paying more attention to the
Big Bang Theory
rerun silently playing on the television.

“I was coming to see you,” he said as though she was one of the little old ladies from church they went to visit every Sunday afternoon at the nursing home. “I thought we could… you know…” His gaze dropped to her very modest breasts, which were successfully hidden by a burgundy Serenity Shores polo. “Talk.”

Talk? Talking wasn’t really what she and Marsden did. They went out with friends or hung out and watched TV together. They made out. Sometimes, they texted each other, but that was about it. The thought of spending hours struggling to come up with conversation topics was completely unappealing.

“My parents are in Nashville for the rest of the day,” he said. “They won’t be back until midnight or so. You can come over. It’ll be nice and quiet. Private.”

Oh.

Wait.

That kind of talking. The kind where you didn’t wear clothes.

In her head, Ada was back in the motel room. The mauve and teal bedspread. The Monet prints hanging on the wall.

The disappointment.

“I’m on my way to work,” Ada said, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. “Maybe tomorrow we could… I don’t know… find a place…” Although the absolute last thing she wanted to do was find a place. She didn’t realize how much she didn’t want to until she said it. Surely this wasn’t the normal reaction to losing your virginity.

Ada tried to step around him, but he caught her arm. “Your dad said you weren’t working today. And we need to talk. I’ve been thinking about yesterday, and—”

“Sorry, but I’m on the schedule,” Ada cut in, stopping the conversation before it had a chance to happen.

“Ada, babe, they can’t expect you to work after what happened last night.” His hand slid down her arm until he could twine his fingers with hers. “You need to rest. You don’t want to end up back in the hospital. Come on.” He tugged her back toward the door, but she wouldn’t budge.

“I’m fine,” she said for perhaps the hundredth time since getting into the ambulance last night. “Really. Couldn’t feel better.” She tried again to slip out of his grasp, but he held on tight. She wanted to snap at him, but he had that look on his face, the one that made her feel like she was the most important thing in his world. Interestingly, it was also the one that made her feel like a worm. A worm made entirely out of guilt. A guilt worm. “Marsden—”

“I almost lost you last year,” he said, tracing her bottom lip with his thumb. “And last night, when your dad called to tell me you’d been in the middle of a shootout—”

“It was hardly a shootout. One jacked up crackhead fired one bullet.”

“It was like I was back in that hospital room watching you fight for every breath. I can’t go through that again, Ada.”

“And I can’t sit in a glass bubble watching life happen around me.”

This argument was one she’d had so many times, she could switch over to autopilot. She would argue a life wasn’t really a life unless you were living it, and whoever she was arguing with - her mother, her father, or Marsden - would argue she wasn’t like other people. They would tell her how much they loved her and how much it would hurt when she was gone. Sometimes she let the guilt win and relented.

But not today. Today she was going to work.

Or I will be,
she thought as she watched a Lincoln pull into the driveway.
As soon as I have this same stupid conversation for the third time in fifteen minutes.

“Your dad is home,” Marsden said triumphantly. His confidence made her even more determined.

“Hey, Daddy,” she called, a big smile plastered across her face. “Did you have a nice visit with Brother Phelps and his family?”

Despite the hot and humid weather, Reverend Jessup was wearing a suit and tie. He never left the house in anything else. Even when he went to the gym, he dressed in a suit and changed into his shorts when he got there. Today his tie was blue with little red crosses printed all over it. Like at least half the ties he owned, Ada had bought it for him for one holiday or another. She always bought her dad a tie, and he always acted like it was the greatest gift he’d ever received.

There was a time when she couldn’t understand why he didn’t wear old university shirts and jeans like other dads, but that was when she was younger and thought everyone’s dad was a preacher who had become a bestselling author and world-renowned speaker through his teachings on the healing power of prayer. Once she was old enough to start understanding things like
public image,
she no longer questioned it. Reverend Jessup was a Well-Respected Man of God, capital letters and all. Well-Respected Men of God wore suits. End of discussion.

“Very nice,” Reverend Jessup said, answering her question with the same pleasant optimism he did everything. He always sounded like a call-in radio therapist. His voice was just deep enough to sound authoritative, even when he spoke softly, which he normally did. “Brother Phelps is feeling much better. Well enough to tell me how I planted my watermelons all wrong this year and will be lucky to get one or two big enough to eat.”

He stopped at the bottom step, one hand on the railing he coated with fresh white paint every spring. “What are you kids doing out here in this humidity? You should be inside, enjoying the air conditioner and some lemonade. I know Mandy made some up fresh this morning.”

Ada squared her shoulders. “I’m actually on my way to work, Daddy. I’ve got the earlier shift tonight, so I’ve got to be there by four.”

“Work?” Reverend Jessup’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but it was enough to make Ada squirm. “I thought we talked about that when we left the hospital.” He emphasized the latter part of the sentence, as though Ada could possibly forget where she’d spent the early hours of the morning.

“You said I shouldn’t go in if I was having issues, but I’m not.” She took a deep breath, the fake smile still on her face. “One hundred percent issue free.”

“Ada Pearl Jessup, you were released from the hospital less than nine hours ago. I believe that qualifies as an issue.”

“I’ve been trying to talk some sense into her, sir,” Marsden said to her father as if she wasn’t even standing there. “She’s in one of her stubborn moods today.”

“All of Ada’s moods are stubborn.” Her father climbed the three steps up to stand in front of her, effectively blocking her in since her back was to the door and Marsden was on the side where the porch swing wasn’t. At that moment, she did feel a little short of breath, but it had nothing to do with her disease. Claustrophobia was the more immediate issue. “Sweetheart,” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder, which didn’t help with the closed-in feeling at all. “You need to call Mr. Rudolph and tell him you won’t be coming in today.”

“I can’t. He already sent me a text to let me know he would be out of touch today. He’s taking Dorian to some treatment facility down in Nashville.”

“Then you will call whoever your supervisor is for today—”

“It’s Misty, but she can’t cover my shift because she’s been there since I left last night.”

“One of the other—”

“Martin and Sandy are still out with the stomach flu, Jo has the late shift tonight, and Donna is in Indiana meeting her new grandbaby. There isn’t anyone else to work.”

Her father’s other hand came up to rest on her other shoulder. He wasn’t much taller than her, but when he bent forward to meet her eyes, she felt completely enclosed. She had to remind herself she couldn’t just push him away and get some air.

“That’s not your problem, Ada. You don’t own that resort. You’re not even a supervisor. You let one of them worry about who is going to work.”

It would be so easy to say “Yes, Daddy,” and let it go. It would make her dad, Marsden, and her mother, who was the first person to tell Ada she should stay home, happy. They would spend the evening eating pizza and popcorn while watching movies together in the family room. It would be nice. Her parents loved Marsden, possibly more than they loved her. Her dad was training him to be a preacher, and her mom thought he was the “the nicest thing” and mentioned on an uncomfortable number of occasions how he reminded her of a young Denzel Washington. The only person in the family who wasn’t a member of the Marsden fan club was her little sister, Kinsey, who thought he was boring and stupid. But even Kinsey would put up with Marsden for the evening if it meant renting on-demand movies.

“Dad, I made a commitment to these people. They shouldn’t have to worry about covering my shift, because I’ve agreed to do it.” She bit her lip, knowing this next part was a gamble, but one she was willing to take. “You raised me better than to turn my back on my responsibilities just because I had one difficult night. That isn’t what a Christian does. A Christian picks themselves up and keeps going, their head held high and love in their heart.”

She didn’t dare breathe as her father worked over what she just said. She wondered if knowing he had an audience would affect his decision. Finally, when she thought she couldn’t wait another moment, he said, “You’re right. If a Christian can’t set the example of duty and perseverance, then who can?” He squeezed her shoulders. “I’m proud of you, sweetie. You’re growing up to be a fine Christian woman.”

Ada smiled, hoping he didn’t feel her muscles clench at his words. “I learned it from the best,” she said, before escaping to her car.