“Haven’t seen my granddaughter in a while.” Karl set his hat on the adjacent chair.
“Kaylie? School started. Since it’s her senior year, she’s working less at the coffee shop.” Truman drummed his desktop with his fingers.
“She figured out what she’ll do after she graduates?” Karl asked.
Clearly the man was struggling to voice the real reason he had come. Truman would have to help him out.
“Last I heard, she was considering the state schools over in the valley. Mercy insists she get a degree before attending culinary school.” Truman took a breath and narrowed his eyes at the man on the other side of his desk. “Karl, you’ve asked me about everyone but your daughter. What are you really here for?”
Mercy’s father looked away, shifting for a more comfortable spot in his chair. “Deborah tried to call her cell phone the other day. Got transferred to her office and was told she’s out of town, but they wouldn’t say when she’d be back.”
“That’s correct. She might be gone for two weeks.”
Karl focused on Truman. “They wouldn’t give her mother a number to reach her. Deborah emailed her, but no response.”
Truman was surprised by the concern in Karl’s eyes.
“She can’t be contacted on this assignment.”
He frowned. “That include talking to you too?”
“It does.” He wasn’t about to share with Mercy’s father how out of whack his routine had been since she’d left.
The lines on Karl’s forehead deepened, and he cracked two knuckles, gazing out the window.
“I take it you—or Deborah—needs to contact her?”
“It’s nothing.”
Truman leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Karl, in the entire time I’ve been chief here, you have never come to my office and made small talk. It’s plain as day that something is bugging you, so you might as well tell me.”
Karl moved to the edge of his seat, his body forward, his hands clenched in his lap. “Doc’s diagnosed me with Parkinson’s disease.” He held up a hand as Truman started to speak. “Let me finish.”
Mercy should be hearing this.
“It’s early and things are under control. It’s not curable—and we can’t predict how it will proceed—but it’s manageable.” Karl took a deep breath. “I’ve known about it for a while, and it’s made me evaluate a few things.” He paused and looked hard at Truman. “Things I might not have handled the right way during my life. I did what I thought was correct at the time, but this illness has changed a few of my views.” He raised both eyebrows. “Would you believe I even voted for a few Democrats?” He shook his head, disbelief in his eyes.
“I didn’t think you voted.” Truman had assumed Karl would have nothing to do with any aspect of the government. He studied Mercy’s father. Karl had been a strong, independent man all his life. No doubt the diagnosis had rocked him to his core.
“I pay my taxes too. I’m not stupid enough to get flagged in their system. Sometimes the best way to be left alone is to not rock the boat. I’ve always voted. It’s American. But that’s not my point.” He looked down at his clasped hands and cracked more knuckles. “I mighta done wrong by Mercy.”
“Mighta?” Truman was outwardly calm as he raged inside. Karl had essentially banished Mercy from the family when she was eighteen over her refusal to obey his authoritarian ways. Fifteen years had gone by before Mercy spoke with any of her relatives. She still wouldn’t be speaking with them if she hadn’t been assigned an investigation in Eagle’s Nest that involved her brother Levi, Kaylie’s father. Levi had been murdered during the assignment.
“I did.” Karl raised his chin and met Truman’s gaze.
“It’s taken you fucking long enough to admit.” The words spilled off Truman’s tongue as heat radiated through him. “You have no idea the amount of guilt she carries over her relationship with you. And she’s tried to mend the fences; you’ve shut her down every time.”
Karl looked away. He was a proud man. Truman knew he should respect the amount of effort it had taken for Mercy’s father to say what he had, but right now Truman felt his anger pulsate, furious with Karl. Parkinson’s or no Parkinson’s.
Karl should be talking to Mercy, not him.
“It took a life-threatening disease to make you reevaluate your past decisions,” Truman said bitterly. His earlier sympathy for Karl’s health had greatly diminished. “I don’t know what that says about you.”
“I need to talk to her,” Karl said quietly, accepting Truman’s anger.
“Yeah, you do. But you’ll have to wait. I’m sure you can handle two weeks if she lived through fifteen years of silence from you.” Truman exhaled, wanting to punch something. Anything. Mercy had been waiting and wishing for this moment since Truman had met her, and now she wasn’t here.
“Do you think she’ll let me give her away?” Karl asked in a low tone.
Shock and surprise made Truman’s jaw drop. He couldn’t speak.
“How much does she hate me?” he continued.
“She doesn’t hate you,” Truman managed to say. “She hates what you did. She hates your pride that kept you from accepting who she is. And she made something amazing out of herself. You show me another eighteen-year-old girl who knew nothing of the real world and became a top-notch FBI agent under her own power, all alone—with the support of no one.”
“I’m proud of her,” he admitted. “I don’t like that she works for—”
“Stop right there, Karl. You’re about to negate all the progress you’ve made while sitting in that chair.” Truman ran a hand through his hair, praying he wasn’t ruining Karl’s sudden urge to do the right thing. It wouldn’t surprise him one bit if Karl went back to his old ways before Mercy returned.
“She wants a relationship with you,” Truman began. “She wants her father back in her life. We’ve had several discussions of whether or not she should ask you to walk her down the aisle.”
Karl looked up, hope in his eyes.
“But you know why she hasn’t? She’s terrified you’ll reject her again. Don’t talk,” he ordered as Karl opened his mouth. “It tears her apart. Your relationship is the one thing in her life that she hasn’t been able to repair. And she’s tried. I’m sorry I’m pissed right now, but why the hell didn’t you do this a year ago when she came back to town?”
He didn’t answer.
“I won’t let Mercy ask you to give her away,” Truman stated. “You have to come to her. And you will do it the day she gets back from this assignment.”
“Understood. And I will,” he promised.
To his surprise, Truman believed him.
“You’ll be a good husband for her,” Karl continued. “I admire you and respect how you support her.”
Is the world about to end?
Karl wasn’t done. “I couldn’t have chosen a better hus—”
“I recommend not mentioning you choosing a husband in front of Mercy,” Truman said dryly. Karl’s clumsy attempts to marry off Rose had lit both sisters on fire.
He closed his mouth and nodded. “Noted.”
Karl stood and solemnly held out his hand. Truman rose and shook it firmly, holding Karl’s gaze. “Take care of yourself, Karl.”
“Let me know the minute she’s back.”
“I will.”
Mercy’s father left. Truman dropped into his chair and tipped it back as far as it could go, rubbing his face with both his hands.
What other miracles will happen today?
That evening Truman stopped by Mercy’s apartment to check on Kaylie. He’d told her he needed to grab a jacket that he’d left behind, but his real goal was to make certain the teenager wasn’t lonely. He’d asked her if she wanted to stay at his house with him and Ollie, but she’d declined, claiming her cat kept her company.
He knocked on the door, wondering if Mercy’s boss had heard anything from her on assignment. Time was crawling, and he didn’t know how he�
��d last for twelve more days. Or even longer. At the station this morning, both Lucas and Samuel had given him hard stares after Truman snapped at Royce. The young officer had returned a patrol vehicle with another dent in the front fender. The third in four months.
Truman didn’t think the hard words had been unwarranted.
But his world felt knocked several degrees off its axis.
Had his life changed that much in one year?
It had.
At some point Mercy had become essential to him. To his happiness and peace of mind.
Kaylie opened the door and grinned, her hair in a messy ponytail on top of her head and Dulce in one arm. “You must be really lonely if you’re checking up on me,” she said with a wink.
“I told you I need a jacket I left here.”
“Uh-huh.” She stepped back to let him in, and an amazing odor made every one of his receptor cells turn toward the kitchen. “I made stew,” she said. “Hungry?”
“Always.”
“Good.” She set the cat on a chair, picked up a large spoon, and stirred the pot of thick, meaty goodness on the stove, making Truman’s mouth water. “Hear anything from Mercy?”
“No. And I don’t expect to until she’s finished,” he told her.
“I know. Just thought I’d check.”
“You’d be the first to know.”
She gave him a smile that was a mirror image of Mercy’s, and his chest tightened. “I’ll get that coat.” He strode down the hall to the bedroom, hoping he had a jacket in Mercy’s closet that he could take.
He found two and grabbed the heaviest off a hanger. Mercy’s scent drifted from her clothing, teasing him. A faint smell of lemon and shortbread and vanilla. His stomach tied itself in a knot, and he stood still, staring blankly at her clothing.
“Is it dangerous?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It could be. No more than usual.”
Dammit. He hated being in the dark. He closed the closet and stepped in her bathroom to wash his hands before he ate with Kaylie. As he dried them, his gaze fell on a small tray of cosmetics Mercy kept on her counter, and he caught his breath.
Her engagement ring sat with her makeup.
His fingers shook as he picked up the band of diamonds. She’d complained about having to leave behind all her skin-care products and her expensive conditioner for the assignment. But she hadn’t mentioned her ring.
She had worn it the night before she left. He’d felt it as his hand had tightly gripped hers. She’d been astride him, her back arched, light from the moon illuminating her skin as she’d moved with him. His fingertips had explored the metal around her finger, a symbol of the link between them, as they both sought their release.
Then she left it behind.
He exhaled and set the ring back on the tray.
If she couldn’t take expensive conditioner, it made sense she couldn’t take diamonds. She could have been ordered not to wear jewelry. There were a million rational reasons she would not wear it during an assignment.
The sight of the lonely ring made him feel empty. Abandoned.
Get over yourself.
He picked up the ring again and put it in his pocket. There was no reason he couldn’t carry around a piece of her. It was romantic, right?
He put on an upbeat face for Kaylie and went to enjoy her stew.
FOURTEEN
The lieutenant directed Mercy toward an area of the camp she hadn’t explored yet, following yet another dry path. She heard the sound of a river up ahead, and the air took on a different scent. No longer dry and dusty, it teased with a hint of fresh water.
“Thought we were going to the command center,” she said over her shoulder to the grim man behind her. He’d insisted she walk ahead. Having him out of her sight made her uncomfortable.
“Pete is over here this afternoon.”
“What’s your name?”
The lieutenant was silent for a long moment. “Sean.”
She looked back at him. “You had to decide whether or not to tell me your name? Is it a secret?”
“No more questions.”
“Where are you from originally?”
“You don’t take orders well, do you?”
“Usually I do, but besides the gun over your shoulder, I haven’t been given reason to take orders from you.”
“I speak for Pete.”
“Then you must have worked for him for a long time. Did you know him before coming here?”
Sean made an exasperated noise and didn’t answer.
Mercy mentally shook herself. I will not make waves.
After a few minutes, they entered a clearing full of activity. Hammers pounded, and male workers swarmed around a large new building next to a sagging carport that protected several large trucks. A few women worked on the outskirts of the clearing, using shovels and big knives to clear brush back to the tall rocky ridge that loomed behind the buildings. A gravel road led from the line of parked vehicles in the direction of the central part of the camp.
New boards gleamed on the structure, which had been erected on a fresh slab of concrete. Four huge roll-up doors for vehicles filled the front of the building. Clearly it was new, and it was the nicest complex she’d seen in the compound.
Pete stood about ten yards from the new garage, his arms crossed on his chest as he watched her approach. Jason, Noah’s dad; Beckett, the quartermaster; and Chad were with him. Mercy’s steps slowed at the anger in Jason’s eyes. Beckett looked smug, and Pete’s expression was stone.
Uh-oh.
She finally looked to Chad, whose gaze pleaded with her to cooperate.
Fuck.
This had to be about Noah.
Mercy stopped a few feet from the line of men and looked each one in the eye, keeping her gaze soft. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes, something is the fuck wrong,” started Beckett. His shaggy beard quivered with his words. “You told me you had approval to medicate a child. You didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.” She looked at Jason. “You told me to do what I could for Noah.”
“I thought you meant through natural means—”
“You didn’t specify that,” Mercy pointed out. “Your son is sick. I’m not going to brew him a tea of pine needles. God wouldn’t have given us Tylenol if he didn’t want us to use it.”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” muttered Beckett.
The construction workers slowed, watching the small group, but they were too far away to hear the words. Curiosity and apprehension lined their faces. A few men stopped completely and stared.
“Jason says he met you on the way to the children’s cabin,” Pete said quietly, ignoring Beckett.
Mercy said nothing but gave Pete her attention.
“That would have been after you left the supply depot,” Beckett snapped. “After you told me you already had permission. She got real mouthy with me too.” His demeanor grew sulky.
To Beckett, her biggest sin had been her assertiveness at the supply depot.
She kept her gaze on Pete. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted Chad constantly rubbing the back of his neck, his gaze darting from her to Sean, who stood behind her.
“I don’t tolerate liars.” Pete’s voice was calm. “There’s no room for that here.”
“Pete—” said Chad.
Pete held up a hand to stop Chad’s words. “Jessica can speak for herself.”
“Do you have kids?” Mercy asked Pete.
An odd expression flickered across his face and vanished. “No.”
She took in a deep breath. “Neither do I, but I want to one day.” She glanced at Chad. “Chad knows how I am about kids. Sick kids push my buttons. Noah is an exhausted shell of a little boy.” She lifted a brow at Jason. “He’s not usually like that, is he?”
He gave a short shake of his head.
“Simple medication like acetaminophen can make a world of difference. Why would I watch him suffer? We should have Tylenol drops o
n hand for the babies too. They can go downhill at the speed of light when they’re ill. I’ve seen it.” She looked back at Pete and softened her tone. “I’m sorry for crossing your line, but I’m not sorry for helping a five-year-old.” She lowered her gaze after spotting a hint of appreciation in Jason’s eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with helping a child be comfortable.”
I’d do the same again.
“The problem is your methods. This is your second day, and you’re already pushing the boundaries,” Pete stated. “You need to reevaluate if you want to be here. You are this close to going home.” He held up his thumb and finger an inch apart.
“Give her a break, Pete.” Chad turned to him. “She comes from a job where she told people what to do all day long. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t believe as we do.”
Judging by Pete’s face, Mercy didn’t think Chad was helping her case.
“Forty-eight hours,” announced Pete.
Beckett’s icy-blue eyes narrowed on Mercy as he grinned. Did that mean she had forty-eight hours to decide to stay? Confused, Mercy glanced at Chad. He looked stunned.
“Pete.” Chad took a few steps to place himself in front of Mercy. “I’ll take the punishment for her.”
Punishment? Mercy’s heart contracted. Swift and severe. Chad’s words from yesterday rang in her head, and she grew more conscious of Sean and his rifle behind her.
“You can’t do that,” Beckett burst out as he lumbered forward.
“I can,” Chad told him. “Right, Pete?”
What is going on?
Pete was silent, his gaze moving between Chad and Mercy. “He can.” Pete rubbed his chin. “But I’ll only let you take a quarter. Thirty-six hours for her. Twelve for you.”
“Thirty-six hours of what?” Her words were steady, but her heartbeat thundered in her chest.
“No rations. It’s level one.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t go to level two.”
“Thank you, Pete,” answered Chad, ducking his head.
He’s thanking him for denying us food? She could handle a day and a half of no food. That was no big deal. Forty-eight hours without food would have sucked, but it wasn’t impossible. Annoyance shot through her. Pete doled out punishment like a dictator.
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