“But not you! Thirty years, and you look the same! Oh, I remember. Bet you thought I didn’t, but I do! So start talking, or stay the hell away from me and my daughter!”
His mouth opened and shut twice and I was about to slam the door in his face when a bedraggled shape leapt into his arms.
“Pebbles!” I grabbed at her and she hissed.
“Lila, please.” Sal held my cat against his chest and reached his free hand out to me. “I promise I will explain, but we need to leave. Now.”
“Mom?” I whirled around to order Eileen back to her room, but she mimicked Sal and extended a placating hand. “Whatever it is, he’s trying to help.”
Outnumbered! Even my cat trusted him!
“Fine.” Chin high, I waved him in like a queen forced to parley.
“Here, Sal. I’m Eileen.” She handed him my towel from the couch and took Pebbles, bundling the sopping furball in the bottom of her shirt.
Sal seemed unsure of what to do with her gift and draped it around his neck. He was more interested in Eileen, herself, openly staring until I cleared my throat.
“You’re puddling on the floor.”
He had the good grace to flush and rubbed his head with the towel before swiping it down his arms and across his bare chest. I cleared my throat again and looked away. I wasn’t normally a petty person, but goddamn-it-all. He scared the daylights out of me with a warning to stay away . . . and then just showed up? At my house? The night of a hurricane? Puh-lease.
Truth be told, I was mostly aggravated because, thanks to him, I couldn’t keep this craziness away from Eileen. She was only a kid! Bad enough that her mother was a freak . . .
“Lila?”
I sighed and met his eyes. Reluctantly. They were the same smoky quartz as when he’d said he would keep us safe. Keep her safe.
“Look. I don’t know how in the world you ran here. I don’t even know if you realize what an absolute lunatic that makes you. But we can’t just leave. The storm—”
“You will both be safe with me.” He looked at Eileen again and blinked. Her open expression was gone. She was scowling at him now, her pretty features mottled and fretful like a child ordered to play with a bratty cousin. He frowned back as if weighing the force of her will.
Ha. Good luck with that.
As usual, he seemed to sense my thoughts and his lips lifted in a wry smile. “We need to leave now. I will drive your veh . . . car? Truck?”
“Truck works.” Pebbles was blinking sleepily in Eileen’s arms. “For how long?”
“I do not know. For tonight, at least. I am sorry.” And he seemed it. There was a lot of guilt in those last three words.
Then the rest sank in. For tonight at least? Shit.
“Leeni, grab the bags and put Pebbles in her carrying case.”
She pouted at me, but left the room nuzzling our cat, whose purr was starting to sound as loud as the Bronco. But now wasn’t the time to wonder about their mood swings.
I retrieved my cell from the mat and dialed Adam. If we had to leave, he and Cara should, too. Sal was watching me closely, and although I kept the screen angled away from him, he protested as soon as Adam answered.
“You cannot!” He reached for the phone, but I twisted away.
“Lila?” Adam’s voice immediately triggered the awful ache in my chest, but I ignored it to dance out of Sal’s reach again.
“Listen! We’re being told to leave, and you need—” Sal’s face slackened with horror, and my phone was in his hand and turned off before I even felt air against my palm. Almost immediately the landline started ringing.
“Why’d you do that?” Eileen stomped into the room and dropped the bags.
“The Servants are monitoring you. We are leaving now.”
She stalked towards him. “What about Adam?!”
“Leeni, honey, calm down . . . ” My reflexive attempt to soothe her was absurd, since my eyes were locked onto Sal’s, desperate for reassurance.
“The adam will be fine.”
Relief flooded my body. “And Cara and her baby?”
“The Servants will take care of them.”
Take care of them? “What are they going to do?” Sal’s mouth was a thin line as he shook his head, and I threw my hands up. “Who are these servants of yours? What the hell is going on?!”
“That is enough!” His voice reverberated around the room and through my body like a glorious shockwave. “I promised to explain and I will, but you are wasting time that you do not have! I am trying to save you—can you not see that?!” His skin was red again, flushed with the mysterious heat that seemed to overtake him whenever—
“Fine!” Eileen yelled back, “But she’ll never love you if you let anything happen to him! Can you see that?”
To my complete and utter shock, Sal’s beautiful, angry face fell into sadness and he nodded.
“Ah . . . okay, then . . . ” I shunted my thoughts away from that particularly uncomfortable sidebar and pivoted toward my bedroom. “We’re not going anywhere until I find you a shirt.”
Within minutes, we were trundled into the Bronco and racing our way through the storm—with Pebbles curled in Sal’s lap. At least the cat hairs would blend into the black t-shirt. Except where they clung to the white rabbit popping out of a magic hat. Reminded me of the coffee stain I’d splashed onto his button-down. Two weeks ago. ‘Rush’ indeed. I rested my head against the rain-streaked window and closed my eyes.
The winds were broadsiding us, bellowing in from the east as the storm approached, but he kept the Bronco on a straight path, seemingly able to compensate just before each gust so that all I felt was a gentle rocking motion. At least, it felt like we were on a straight course. I opened my eyes, but couldn’t be
