Page 101 of Indigo Sky

"But you look like someone my daughter would like," he said dryly, his eyes narrowing a bit as if he just remembered he was judging me. "My Kate, she likes guys who look like you."

My gaze jumped to Kate, whose cheeks turned a brighter shade of pink.

"Your daughter's into disheveled-looking pirates?" I asked, lifting one side of my mouth in a half smile before bringing my gaze back to her father's. "Gonna be hard to leave here without getting her number, Howard."

Angela hummed a discreet chuckle as she glanced between Kate and me before opening the bottle of juice and putting a straw inside.

"Here you go," she said, and he took the bottle in a shaking hand.

A chuckle rumbled through him as he drank, and when he was finished, he looked back at me. "Well, before I can do that, I have to be sure you're not a villain. Like Captain Hook."

"But Captain Hook was just a Lost Boy who happened to grow up," I pointed out, clasping my hands in my lap.

Howard hummed a contemplative noise and stroked Sheba's striped head. "I don't think I've ever thought of it that way, but … is he any less of a villain though?"

"No," I conceded with a shrug, "I guess not."

"So, are you?"

I raised my good eyebrow and asked, "Am I a villain?"

His lack of response was response enough, and I replied, "For the right reasons, I think I could be. But in the case of your daughter …" I tilted my head, dropped my gaze to Kate's, and said, "I can't imagine being anything but a hero."

***

Howard, I realized, grew tired easily, and after about ten minutes of banter and friendly assessment, he was ready for a nap. Angela beckoned him to follow her to another part of the house, and he groaned with a roll of his eyes.

"That woman treats me like a child," he muttered to Kate, his hand squeezing hers. "Are you coming with me, Patty? I miss you."

I hadn't yet figured out who Patty was to Howard, but Kate seemed to take it in stride, even as her smile faltered at the insinuation that her father wanted to take her to bed. My heart was full with an unknown ache for her now that I’d seen the way her father was. Here, but not as the man she needed him to be.

She shook her head and squeezed his hand back. "I have some errands to run. But you get some sleep, okay? I'll be here when you wake up."

"Will he be here?" he asked, his eyes bouncing toward me.

"We'll see."

He grunted a sound I couldn't decipher. But then he said, "Give him Kate's number before he goes back to the Jolly Roger. I’ve decided I like him."

She swallowed once and sniffled before nodding. "Okay, I’ll do that," she croaked, her voice hoarse.

"Doesn't he have that look she'd like?" he asked as he stood on unsteady legs.

Sheba ran off ahead of him, as if she knew where she was needed next.

"Yeah, he does," Kate agreed as she led him toward the hallway.

But before she could disappear from view, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled. I was certain that the whole damn world lit up from that smile alone. Then, she entered the hall adjacent to the living room, and I sat down to wait for her return.

In her absence, without the distraction of her father’s company, the paranoia rushed back in. I could envision myself from years ago, edging up stairs that had looked just like those, but … no, it wasn’t those though, were they? Places like this, they were built to be carbon copies of each other, and it was fucking with my weary head.

“Hey.”

I turned from my view of the staircase to see Kate coming into the living room. She was wearing an uncertain smile, like she didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry or both.

“He falls asleep ridiculously fast,” she said, rubbing her hands over the sweatpants she’d worn last night. “It’s, um … all the medications he’s on, you know. I don’t know that they really do anything, but his doctor says they do, so …”

I stood up, took her shoulders in my hands, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She deflated a bit beneath my touch, unwinding.

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