Page 53 of Beware of Dog

“He’s just some guy from school. Why would you think he was into me?”

“He’s calling you first thing in the morning, isn’t he?” Shep said, testily. “Wants you to hold his fucking hand like a goddamn baby while he talks to the police, right?”

Cass blinked, startled by his vehemence. Her pulse quickened in an entirely different way than it had earlier, when she was on the phone. This was a more pleasurable sort of stress. “Why are you so angry about this?”

“I’m not angry,” he said,angrily.

“You sound like you are.”

“Well, I’m fucking not.” He shoved up from the chair, and stalked into the kitchen. Slammed the cabinet door when he got down a mug.

Cass thought a wise woman would have stayed seated, or retreated to the bedroom, and left him alone to stew. But she was her, and she didn’t know if she was stupid, or brave, or too damn curious for her own good. She got up and followed him. Leaned on the far side of the breakfast bar and said, “Shep.”

He poured his coffee, too careless given how hot it was, and shoved the pot back into the machine so hard the whole thing skidded across the counter.

“Oh my God, are you on your period?” she asked. “What’s your deal?”

The tension in his back was doing lovely, shifty things in the muscles beneath his shirt. His expression, when he turned, and thumped his mug down, was so forbidding her laugh died in her throat. She’d miscalculated: he wasn’t angry, he wasangry.

“Shit,” she murmured.

“Shitis what your memory is.” Shep braced one hand flat on the counter, and used the other to aim an accusatory finger at her face. “You called me high out of your goddamn mind, and I pulled up to find you five seconds away from getting laid out right there on the sidewalk—”

“Oh, please—”

“And Itold you,” he said, getting louder to talk over her, “to stay the fuck away from that little shitstain, and everyone like him. And here you are, at seven in the goddamn morning, on the goddamn phone with his goddamn little shitstain friend!”

He was shouting at the end. Cass was stunned. He wasfuriousabout this. There was a vein bulging in the side of his neck. His finger wobbled, his whole body vibrating with aggression, chest heaving with each breath. He was ready to fight someone.

But she wasn’t afraid. Not for herself. She was, in fact, more than a little hopeful that this disproportionate flare of temper wasn’t just about friendly, brotherly concern for her wellbeing. Maybe it made her a bad person, but she wanted to think he was jealous over the idea of her speaking with a boy. Giving her attention to a guy who wasn’t him.

And because she probablywasa bad person, she decided to push him a little, just to see what he’d do. (Sue her, but shekind of loved the idea of stumbling her way into a cliche bodice-ripper scenario.)

“You told me,” she said, slowly, tone careful. “To stay away from him, and his friends, yes. I have stayed away from Sig, because I don’t want to go near him. But this friend”—she lifted her phone—“is going to help put him away, and I need to make sure that happens. For Jamie. For future Jamies. For myself. And youtold me,” she repeated, “what I shouldn’t do, but you aren’t my father, and you’re not my old man. You…” She nearly swallowed the words, a single spike of fear rising in her belly, because if she said this, it might fracture their relationship in an irreparable way, and she’d never forgive her own cheek. But she said, “You don’t have any authority tomake medo what you want me to.”

She’d caught him unguarded. Had struck out on a hunch, and wound up delivering a killshot, straight to the chest. For one awful moment, she saw the flash of devastation in his eyes. He looked like someone he loved had died; like a man who’d just received terrible news. He looked helpless, and desperate, and terrified, and Cass hated herself for putting that expression on his face.

But then the fury returned tenfold, and his scowl served as a stark reminder that, medic or not, he’d killed people before, in the Army and out of it, too. His gaze melted away from hers, landing somewhere in the middle distance to the left of her face. He linked both hands together in his hair, and shook his head. “Fuck this.Fuckthis shit. Fuck—”

He stormed out of the kitchen, coffee abandoned. “Find your own ride,” he called over his shoulder. “If you wanna be an idiot, then go be one by your goddamn self.” He went down the hallway, and a bedroom door slammed.

“Well,” she said to herself. “That went well.”

She went back to the sofa, picked up her coffee, and took several much-needed sips. She felt terrible, and she was thrilled at the same time. Shep wassojealous. Shep looked like he mightcrywhen she said he had no right to her.

She’d blundered her way to an impasse that she had no idea how to get around. Felt impossibly young and stupid and without the words to get what she wanted…assuming it was the same thinghewanted, and she was more convinced than ever that it was.

She turned on the TV, found a mindless morning show to watch, and finished her coffee. She needed to shower and get dressed, but she had a little time. Thankfully, she had her clothes with her, and she—

Carpet-muffled footsteps stomped down the hall, and Shep stepped into view fully-dressed, hair wet and slicked-back. He was still shaking, a little, but his anger had been clamped down into something tight, guarded, and more manageable.

He pointed down the hallway. “Go get dressed.”

With an excited lurch, she noted his wallet chain, his warm hoodie. He meant to take her, despite what he’d said earlier. She schooled her features and said, “I thought you said ‘fuck this.’”

“I know what I said.NowI’m saying get your ass in gear, because if you’re stupid enough to go to that fucking station, I’m not letting you be so stupid that you go alone.”

She simply couldn’t hold back her smile.

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