“No.” She tipped the half-filled bottle of beer back and forth between her fingers. Nerves tightened in her as she gathered her courage. “I wanted to ask two things. One, if it would be okay to call you Dad, and the second if you would maybe want to walk me down the aisle.”
She couldn’t look up worried about what she would see. Would he reject her? Or ask her to call him Joseph? After everything that had happened through the past few years, she realized she wanted a relationship with this man. Not friends. Not acquaintances, but as a father and daughter.
“Look at me, Josephine.”
She shook off her doubts and met his gaze. It was so eerie to see the icy depths reflected back at her.
“You can call me Dad as long as Carl and Maddy are okay with that.” He cleared his throat his eyes overly bright. “As for walking you down the aisle? It’d be my absolute pleasure.”
Not wanting him to misunderstand, she shook her head. “I’ve asked Pop to walk me too.”
“Oh. Well, I can sit with—”
“No, I want you both to walk me. I talked to Mom, and she said it’d be fine. To be safe, I talked to Carl about it too over the holidays. I wanted to talk to both of you together, but you didn’t come—”
“Too many people.”
She smiled. “Yeah, Carl has a lot of family.”
“He was okay with me joining you two?”
“Yes.”
Carl had been happy to see her attempting to build a relationship with Joseph. He was big on family, and the more, the merrier was his adage. Jo still had a lot to learn from all of her parents.
Joseph’s smile was blinding.
“Oh Jesus, Dad. No smiling. It’s creepy since you don’t do it often. Go back to the blank mask or the scowl,” Jenna stated as she set a platter of cheese cubes and a mixture of vegetables on the table.
Joseph frowned at the platter. “Where’s the meat cubes?”
“You don’t need those, Dad. Your cholesterol was elevated—”
He raised his voice to Jenna’s disappearing back. “That’s elevated which doesn’t mean it’s dangerous.”
“No meat.”
Jo’s eyes widened. “We’re not having meat for dinner?”
“Welcome to the hell that has become my world. I’ve not had meat in a week.” Joseph grumbled as he stabbed a toothpick into a cherry tomato and shoved it in his mouth.
“What’re we gonna have to eat?” she asked in a whisper. Thank God she wasn’t put on a diet.
“Vegetable lasagna,” Jenna called from the kitchen.
“She heard that?”
“I did. I have a hidden mic in there as well as a camera just to keep an eye on things,” Jenna said.
Joseph winked, and Jo smiled as she stuffed a cube of cheese into her mouth. No way was she getting on her scary cyber sister’s side.
“Now tell me about this woman who killed Rian’s friend and stabbed Evan and somehow disappeared off the face of the earth.”
Jo choked on her beer. “I can’t do that, Dad.”
Jesus, how did he know about Lucy? Rian and Evan probably spilled everything they knew to the man since they had a lot of hero worship going on where Joseph was concerned.
“No worries, I’ll get Jenna to give me the details.”
“What?”
“Oh, did I forget to mention she was hired by the FBI and Interpol to track the psycho down?” Joseph pointed at Jo. “If you’ll start me out, I’m sure I can find her with my contacts.”
“But,” she tried to figure out where she’d lost control of the conversation, and it dawned her. She had never had it to begin with. “You’re retired. You work with Juliette in bail bonds.”
He shrugged. “With our skill set we’re never fully retired, and I’ve already put in to help since this one is personal.”
“You can’t kill her, Dad.” Jo tried to keep the tremble of fear from her voice. Joseph could be vicious when crossed. She had found that out after her kidnapping at five.
“Oh, I won’t. Just going to find her and hope she’s in a country with crappy jails. Like China. Did she kill a Chinese national?” A fire lit the icy depths of his eyes.
“No, why?” Jo rubbed her temple scrambling for how to divert the train that was Joseph when he was on a mission. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
“Dinner’s ready,” Jenna called.
“Thank God.”
“Now I can quiz you and Jenna together,” Joseph stated, standing and striding toward the kitchen.
It wasn’t what she meant at all, but she couldn’t share that as it’d blare over Jenna’s hidden mic. Jo stood and put on her professional mask and prepared to be interrogated. Just like eating dinner with Carl’s family whenever she was involved in an exciting case, they had grilled her like a steak quite a few times fishing for tidbits.
~ ~ ~
The Hole was the same as ever. Two televisions set on sports channels, Charlie behind the bar prepping orders, as Marcie and another waitress wove between booths and tables taking orders. Blue-collar workers mixed with a few white-collar workers laughing, drinking, and eating whatever pub food they’d ordered. The smell of alcohol and fried food combined with day-old cologne from the button-down men near the far television and motor oil from the group of men near the bar dressed in the uniforms of the car repair shop down the street. Jo liked it when some things stayed the same.
“Are you sure this is where you want to be for your Bachelorette party?” Terry asked, doubt in her denim colored eyes.
“Yep. This is where I met Rhys, and it’s where he asked me out for our first date.” Memories of their first conversation near the pool tables made her smile. It had been awkward and surprising when he had pointed out that her sister, Karma, had let her win in their sparring match.
They had returned as a couple several times both to watch their friends play tournaments and just to hang out with their group before heading to dinner somewhere.
“Good
