Page 116 of Mensa's Match

His eyes closed as if he were saying a prayer, then he dropped his forehead to mine. “I love you, Whitney.”

“Love you too, genius.”

He pulled his head back, a mischievous grin on his face. “Thank fuck you’re all right.”

“You must be Whitney’s new man. I’m Margo,” Mom said, reaching a hand across to him.

Mensa stood and went through introductions with my parents. To my relief, Dad didn’t seem to give him a hard time, though I noticed a muscle in his jaw ticked.

An awkward silence sat heavy in the room.

Dad’s blue eyes were cold as they slid between me and Mensa. “How can you love someone you had every intention ofarresting?” He tipped his head toward Mensa. “And you – if you wanted her gone every time you saw her, which is what I heard from her brother about your interactions – what changed? How are you two suddenly so serious?”

I’d never been so tired before, which had to be why I didn’t know I could be this angry and tired at the same time.

Using my legs, I gingerly pushed myself higher up on the bed. “Dad! What kind of question is that? Can’t you start with what he does for a living? How he got into motorcycles? Something like that?”

Dad shook his head. “Why go through small talk when what I care about is you? If he loves you and this lasts, I’ll have plenty of time to find out what he does.”

I sighed.

Mensa twisted his hands up. “What changed was tackling her to the ground and getting her away from danger when Rod started shooting at a mutual friend of ours. Then he shot at us, which forced us to leave.”

Dad scratched his upper lip. “It took someone shooting at my girl for you to realize you were interested in her?”

I caught myself before I rolled my eyes. “There’s a little more to it, Dad.”

Mensa shrugged a shoulder. “Your son chasing us away from the scene to another town over, making us think there was a heightened threat, didn’t help. Or really, it forced us together.”

Dad shifted his gaze from Mensa to me, and I wanted to shrink under the scrutiny, but it hit me that Dad had part of our story wrong. “I never really hated him, Dad, and once I got to know him, things—”

Aunt Nadia lurked near the doorway. “For heaven’s sake, Bill, for some of us when it happens it happens.”

Dad shot Aunt Nadia a dry look, then focused on Mensa again. “If you’re so protective of her, how’d she get shot yesterday?”

I grabbed Mensa’s hand. “Don’t answer that. This isn’t the time, and I meant what I said, Dad, if you can’t have an open mind, go back to Wyatt’s.”

Mensa stared at me and I couldn’t figure out what was working in his eyes. He looked like he was trying not to smile, but the way things were going for me, maybe he was trying not to patronize me. After a beat, he dipped his chin. “Woman, I’m going to answer him because if we have a daughter, one day I’ll be asking questions like that.”

“You’re pregnant?” Mom asked.

Mensa and I looked at her and said, “No.”

“That’s good to know,” Mom muttered.

Mensa turned to Dad. “She got shot because I didn’t know she’d have to leave Hard Pressed before noon. The earliest we could have someone watching her was twelve o’clock, and on top of that, she’d gone to the UPS Store the day before. It seemed highly unlikely Rod would find her, shipping packages.”

“Then why did he?” Dad asked.

A memory hit me, and I recalled the words of the biker who jabbed me with the needle.Never thought your tracking device would pay off, Rod.

I caught Dad's gaze. “Nobody knew there was a tracking device in my purse, Dad. Mensa especially wouldn’t have known that, Dad.”

Mensa pulled my hand on to his lap and gave it a squeeze. “It’s okay, Blume,” he whispered.

“It isn’t, Mensa. None of this is your fault or the prospect’s or anyone else’s, but Rod’s.”

Mensa widened his eyes at me. “The prospect didn’t do much right by you, Whitney.”

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