Rock Bottom (The Gifted Realm #4)

by Jillian Neal

  “Hey, at some point, maybe you could invite Em to come over and hang out with her. Emily is one of her favorite people in the entire world,” Logan tried to think of ways to get Adeline to open up for her father.

  “Any of Adeline’s friends are welcome anytime,” Lucas assured. “I was hoping to join you and your friends today, get to know all of you better. I think Lachlan would like to come along as well.”

  “Ok, that would probably be good, but let me go get her up. We’ll be back down here in a little while. Just give her some time.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” Lucas vowed, though, true to his word, patience didn’t seem to be his forte. He sighed, “How does she like her coffee? You could take some to her. I got the impression, when you were stalking around my kitchen, that she must like it when she first wakes up. I’ll have Marta make it before you awaken tomorrow.”

  “Sorry about that. Taking care of her is kind of my job, and I love doing it. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “You didn’t,” Lucas immediately assured. “I didn’t sleep very well.”

  Logan nodded his understanding.

  “She likes her coffee with lots of cream and no sugar. She’s sweet enough.” The end of the statement fell involuntarily from Logan’s lips. He always said it to her whenever he fixed her a mug.

  Lucas gave him a genuine smile. “You must say that to her.”

  Logan nodded and chuckled.

  “I’ll do this right, Logan,” Lucas promised as Logan poured Adeline’s coffee. “I’ll play by your rules. You just set the bounds. I’ll do anything you say, but I want a relationship with my daughter.” Lucas’s vow came with more than a note of a command. He didn’t look particularly happy about Logan’s instructions on Adeline’s behalf, but seemed to realize that he didn’t have much choice.

  “I’ll tell her that,” Logan offered.

  Lucas gestured back toward the house. “I’ll wait here for both of you.”

  67

  Her Father’s Daughter

  Adeline was pacing when Logan opened the bedroom door.

  “Sorry, baby. I was talking to Lucas.” He set the cup and saucer on the nearest piece of furniture and wrapped her up in his arms. She clung to him.

  “About me,” she sighed.

  Logan kissed the top of her head.

  “He really does want to get to know you, Ad. He really wants to be a part of your life, and I think he got the impression last night that he’s going to have to go through me to do that.”

  Adeline nodded against Logan’s chest.

  “He does,” she whispered.

  Logan squeezed her tighter. “I know, baby, and I won’t let you down.”

  Adeline pulled away from him slightly. “I know, Logan. You never have.” Her beautiful smile returned.

  “Lucas was hoping you’d come downstairs and have coffee with him,” Logan concentrated and slipped his hands up the t-shirt she was wearing. He caressed her backside and then laid his hands on her skin. He wanted to read her.

  “You’re coming too, right?” her energy was terror-filled.

  “Of course.”

  “Ok,” Adeline drew an audible breath. “What am I supposed to wear for coffee here?”

  “Well, I had coffee with him in this, so why don’t you just put on some jeans, or sweats, or something?”

  If she agreed, then they were off to a good start. If she put on a dress or skirt and did the full-blown make-up routine, then it was going to be a long, drawn-out process of getting her to let her father get to know her.

  “He’s wearing pajamas.” Logan added hopefully.

  “Are you sure?”

  “He’s your father, Adeline. You’re beautiful no matter what you’re wearing.”

  “Only to you.”

  “No, not only to me; I’m pretty certain that he, being your father, thinks you’re almost as beautiful as I do.”

  After drawing on deep resolve, Adeline nodded hesitantly.

  “Ok, I guess.” She moved to their suitcases and located a pair of jeans. She did pull her brush through her hair, and put on a matching set of bra and panties then she grimaced as she took in her face in the mirror. Logan bit back his irritation as she did this but, a few minutes later, she picked up the coffee cup and waited on him to lead her down the stairs.

  Lucas looked delighted when Logan pulled Adeline’s chair out for her and seated himself beside her. He held her left hand so she could drink her coffee, but made certain that she could draw from him.

  Lucas noted Adeline’s tight grasp on Logan as he took in the Ioses t-shirt that was much too big for her, but he didn’t comment.

  “So, is there anything in particular you’d like to do today? I’d love to show you some of Sydney’s highlights,” Lucas urged as he offered Adeline the trays of pastries.

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter to me.”

  Logan squeezed her hand and winked at her as she glanced at him.

  “Whatever you want to do is fine.”

  Lucas smiled and nodded.

  “Well, tell me what you like to do at home for fun, and I’ll see what we can find here.”

  Logan gave him a slight nod. It was a good approach.

  “Well, I work as much as I can, and there’s a lot of studying, because I want to be really good at what I do. When I’m not doing that, I just like hanging out with Logan or Rainer and Emily.”

  She pulled a tiny bite of a strawberry muffin off and ate it quickly. Logan and Lucas were both aware that she hadn’t really given much away, but Lucas wasn’t giving up.

  “Ok,” he replied. “What do you do when you’re alone?”

  Logan felt genuinely sorry for Lucas. He had a great deal to learn.

  “Read, but I don’t like to be all alone. It kind of scares me,” her face colored rapidly, but she forced herself to go on. “If Logan has to work late, I usually go up to the farmhouse and play with the twins, or help Mrs. Haydenshire. She’s teaching me to cook, so that’s been fun.” Adeline’s expression said she hoped that she’d given the correct answer.

  Her response visibly disturbed Lucas, but he didn’t probe further into why Adeline was afraid to be alone. He clenched his jaw. Logan smiled as he watched Lucas begin to put together the intricate pieces of Adeline.

  “Did you have a maid of honor in your wedding, dear?”

  “Emily,” Adeline announced with a grin and more volume than she’d answered with thus far. Her smile brought a duplicate reaction from her father.

  “Ok, and what do you and Emily do when Rainer and Logan are working or being irritating blokes?”

  Adeline’s sweet giggle melted both of the men seated at the table with her. Lucas beamed at her, and Logan gave him an impressed smile.

  “Emily loves to shop,” Adeline stated with another smile, “and, since I have a job now, it is a lot of fun. I didn’t really do that much growing up.”

  Lucas covered his pain well, but Adeline saw it in his eyes. Logan felt her regret. She didn’t want to make him feel badly about her childhood.

  “I would really like it if you’d let me make up for that just a little,” Lucas pled fervently. Logan tensed. He wasn’t certain how she would react to the request.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she pulled back. Logan offered Lucas a sorrowful glance, but Lucas advanced.

  “I know, love.”

  Logan braced as Adeline’s eyes goggled. She recoiled visibly.

  “You don’t have to call me things like that. Only Logan does that, and sometimes Governor Haydenshire.”

  Lucas nodded as he accepted the answer to his test.

  “You’ll find, Adeline, as we get to know each other, that I do very few things simply because I think that I should. So, unless you or Logan don’t want me to use terms of endearment for my own daughter, then I’m going to continue to call you things like that, all right?”

  “I noticed last night that Logan called you ‘baby’ a few times. It seemed to make you
quite happy, so I also assume that it must be a special name he has for you. I certainly won’t call you that.”

  Adeline blushed violently, and Logan was visibly impressed.

  “Ok. If you want to, it’s fine.”

  “I want to, and I would love nothing more than to take you and your friends shopping to your heart’s content. I understand that you don’t feel that I have twenty-one years to make up for, but I do.

  Perhaps we could take in a show at the Opera House this evening and enjoy all that it has to offer. It is quite impressive.”

  Adeline drew from Logan’s hand.

  “I’ve never seen an opera,” Adeline admitted as Logan supplied her with soothing strength.

  Lucas smiled and nodded. He ignored Adeline’s momentary tremble as Logan forced too much energy in at once.

  “Well, actually, there are numerous kinds of shows at the Opera House. I’m not really certain what’s playing tonight, but we have passes for everything. If it’s not something that would make you smile, then we can have dinner there and then take in the views.”

  “That sounds very nice,” Adeline managed. “Thank you.”

  “Certainly, dear. If there’s anything else that you’d like to do, I trust you’ll let Logan know and that he’ll let me know.” Lucas stated wryly.

  Adeline blushed again.

  “Probably,” she admitted as Logan chuckled and kissed her cheek.

  “My entire family will join us tonight at the Opera House for dinner. You’ll get to meet Liam, my oldest brother, and his family. He has children a little younger than you, so you can meet your cousins.”

  Adeline nodded, though her rhythms tensed again. Logan understood that the plans had been made before Adeline had even agreed.

  He took over as Adeline finished the pastry she’d started and swallowed down the last of her coffee.

  “Wanna get ready and go see what Em and Rainer are up to?”

  “Yes.” Relief and exuberance fought for dominance in her rhythm strains.

  She turned back to Lucas with a slight grimace. “If it’s all right with you; I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  Pain etched Lucas’s face once again.

  “I’m not holding you prisoner here, love. How could my daughter, going to see her best friend, be any trouble at all? You’re welcome to invite Rainer and Emily back with you, along with Officer Vindico and Ms. Styler. Just tell me when you’re ready to begin our day, and I’ll phone the drivers.”

  Adeline nodded, though Logan noted that she was uncomfortable with there being drivers.

  “Why don’t you go get ready, baby? I’ll text Rainer and tell him we’re coming out,” Logan eased. There were a few things he needed to tell Lucas.

  Adeline gave Lucas a genuine smile.

  “Thank you for breakfast. It was very good.”

  With an adoring grin, Lucas nodded.

  “If you’ll tell me what you like to eat, I’ll make arrangements for lunch, and I can have Marta fix whatever you might like for breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Oh, anything’s fine,” Adeline immediately gave her customary response, but Logan squeezed her hand, and tried to encourage her to let her guard down just a little. “Maybe not sushi, if it’s ok.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Lucas seemed pleased. After giving her a wry grin, Logan stepped in.

  “Her favorite foods are probably my mom’s pot roast and potatoes, and she loves her chicken and dumplings. Ad makes amazing nachos, and these chicken tacos that are to die for. Her favorite thing to drink is Dr. Pepper, but you don’t have it here.”

  “Well, most of Australia doesn’t have Dr. Pepper from the States, but I do happen to have it here,” Lucas corrected with a grin.

  “You do?” Adeline marveled. She and Logan had discussed how much they missed Dr. Pepper a few times since they’d arrived.

  “It seems we have more in common than our eyes and our rhythms, my love. It’s my favorite as well. I ship it in by the case.”

  The grin on Adeline’s face delighted both of the men gazing at her.

  “Can I make you some?”

  “She likes it chilled in the can,” Logan supplied.

  “Easy enough,” Lucas gestured back inside the apartment. He followed Logan and Adeline inside and moved to the kitchen. He pulled two Dr. Pepper cans from the cabinet and chilled them with his hand.

  “Thank you,” Adeline reacted to the soft drink like her father had just handed her gold bricks.

  “You’re very welcome,” Lucas seemed taken aback.

  “Is it all right if I take it upstairs?”

  Lucas scoffed, “Of course.”

  “You go on up. I’ll be right there, baby.” Logan kissed her cheek and willed her to go without him. She nodded, though disappointment cast her features as she moved back towards the stairs.

  “Ok, you said you wanted my help,” was Logan’s probing line as he heard the door close to the room he and Adeline were sharing. Lucas listened intently.

  “Don’t call her honey, or any form of the word, and sure as hell don’t call her sugar,” Logan instructed. “I think it’s good that you’re calling her dear, or love, or whatever, but I’d been telling her for two years that I loved her before she was capable of saying it back to me.”

  Lucas shook his head with a sigh. “You’re a very patient man, Logan.”

  “I didn’t want her to say it until she was ready, but I wanted her to know how I felt.”

  “Well, certainly you must have felt that when you,” Lucas choked as he considered the implications of his argument, “were with her,” he finally managed through his tightly-clenched jaw.

  With a concerted effort not to glare at Lucas, Logan hemmed. He and Adeline’s physical relationship wasn’t anyone else’s business; not even her father’s.

  “That isn’t something we did for quite some time,” Logan refused to say more on the topic. Lucas was visibly impressed.

  “Ok, I won’t call her ‘hon’, or ‘honey’, and I can’t fathom calling anyone, much less my daughter, ‘sugar’, so any other advice?” he wanted a subject change as well.

  “No, I thought that went really well,” he gestured back toward the deck. Lucas seemed pleased with the assessment.

  “May I ask you a few more questions before you go up and join my daughter in the shower?” he requested wryly.

  Logan chuckled, but refused to agree.

  “She said she’s afraid to be alone,” Lucas immediately moved on from his quip. Logan awaited the question. “You told me yesterday that you share a house with Rainer and Emily on your family’s property. Will she stay alone with your friend Rainer?”

  Logan’s brow furrowed.

  “Of course, she and Rainer are friends. She knows he’d keep her safe no matter what. They get along great.” Logan wondered where that particular question had come from.

  “And all of your brothers, what about them?”

  Logan shrugged, “Well, most of my brothers are grown and have their own places, so it doesn’t happen often, but yeah, same deal. She knows any of my brothers would keep her safe. She knows they love her. She’s worked on half of them when they got hurt.”

  “And your father?”

  “My dad absolutely adores Adeline, and she, him. My parents even hung her report cards up on the fridge when we were in school and she got good grades. He used to help her with all of the Adminis classes she had to take to graduate,” Logan tried to explain the depth of his parents’ love for Adeline.

  Lucas sighed, “So, it’s not all men she’s afraid of it’s just me.”

  Understanding lit Logan’s features.

  “I don’t think she’s afraid of you, Lucas. She’s afraid you’re going to hurt her, like I said. This all makes her nervous,” he gestured around the apartment.

  “She’s worried she’s going to somehow upset you, like taking the Dr. Pepper upstairs. She’s afraid she’s going to offend you inadvertently. She’ll loose
n up the more time she spends with you. Being with Rainer and Em will help; you’ll see.”

  “Do you think they might be willing to come here, instead of you and Adeline holing up with them in the guesthouse?”

  “I’ll ask, but you need to give her a little space. Let her relax a little with Emily. Then I’ll see if I can get them back over here.”

  “I really do appreciate your help, Logan.”

  “No problem,” Logan smiled as he turned to follow Adeline’s path up the stairs and into the shower.

  68

  Good Mornings

  ~Dan Vindico~

  A loud banging awoke Dan from his deep slumber.

  “Damn it,” he husked furiously. He’d been thoroughly enjoying having Fionna’s naked body curled up beside his as he kept her back tucked to his chest and his arm wrapped over her protectively.

  The noise blared again, and Fionna whimpered. He moved away from her and threw back the covers.

  “Come back,” she fussed. Her voice was rough from sleep.

  Dan leaned and kissed her cheek as he pulled on a pair of basketball shorts.

  “I’ll be right back, honey. Clearly, someone wants our attention,” he gestured to the door as he heard the next round of knocking.

  “Make Rainer get it. I want you to stay with me.”

  Dan considered that for a moment.

  “Since I don’t know what Ms. Haydenshire might be wearing, let me get it, and then I’ll harass Lawson for not waking up.”

  Fionna giggled as he opened the door just enough for him to squeeze out, without revealing her luscious body in the bed.

  Rainer met him on the stairs in a pair of boxers as he rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  “It’s probably Logan and Adeline.”

  They both stalked to the door. Dan threw it open with a hateful glare for the butler, who was carrying a large platter of breakfast foods.

  “The Lady sent breakfast and coffee for you. You’ll let us know if you need anything else?”

  “Uh, thank you,” Rainer managed. The butler nodded once as he stepped inside.

  “And I’ll just be tidying up for you, changing your sheets, and cleaning up your dishes when you’ve finished your meal. May I set the table for you?”