“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “God, yes. I can’t concentrate, I’m exhausted…”
“If I’d explained all this better, you might have called in sick.”
Eden eased back and gave him an amused look. “How long have you known me?”
Long enough to know she took about as many days off work as he did. “Fair enough.”
“I’m stubborn to a fault, I know that.” She turned, slipped on her jacket and dumped her cracked cell phone into her purse. “But I try to learn from my mistakes.”
“Still, maybe you and Zack should talk to your father tomorrow instead of this afternoon.”
“Maybe.” She eyed the office door, then him. “Are you spiriting me out the window?”
Her barely concealed glee drew his first real smile since finding out what had happened in Memphis. “What, you want to sneak down the fire escape like a teenager?”
She actually blushed as she swung her purse over her shoulder. “It would be the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done in my life. And probably the most romantic too.”
“Then come on.” He grasped her hand. “We can head to the farm, or even go hide somewhere. Lady’s choice.”
The sparkle in her eyes faded a little. “Going to the farm would be the right thing. They need help more than I do.”
That dimming light made his chest ache. “That’s crap, Eden. What do you need?”
“I need to help them.” She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed one hand against her chest. “Yesterday, when I was in the attic with Lorelei… God, the shit that’s happened to them. I could feel her pain like it was my own—worse, even. I don’t want to feel it again, but…” She opened her eyes and gave him a helpless look. “I need to fix it for her.”
“It’s what being alpha is about,” he whispered. “But you can’t fix things for her any more than I can. Any more than we can fix Zack.”
“Alpha?” She rubbed at her breastbone with her fingertips, as if the ache lingered. “Is that what I am? Like you and Zack and Kaley?”
There were a hundred shades of it, a thousand ways to feel the power and responsibility of the relative position. “You need to take care of your pack.”
“I do.” She took his hand again and rested her knee on the windowsill. “I can’t hide. I have to meet Zack and my dad. Zack needs it.”
And the longer they waited to tell Austin the news, the worse he was bound to take it. “Your dad does too.”
“Yeah.” She slipped out the window to stand next to him on the narrow fire escape, so close she only had to sway forward to lean against his chest. “Will you stay close by, in case this happens again?”
It felt selfish, even if it was practical. “We should plan on staying together for the next few weeks—if you’re okay with that.”
Her fingers tightened in his shirt. “I should have gone home with you last night when you asked me. I don’t think I slept at all.”
“So now we know. Your place or mine? Or the farm?”
“Not the farm,” she said quickly. “I don’t know if I’d sleep much better out there, even with you around.”
“My house?”
“Sure.” She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder once and sighed as she pulled away. “Want to go over to the diner now? It’s a little early, but I’m hungry.” She made a face. “Again.”
Jay swung down onto the ladder. “May as well eat before Austin hands the grill over to Gary for the afternoon. Damn kid can’t cook.”
“He’s getting better,” Eden chided. “Papaw always said Dad was a disaster in the kitchen when he started out too. Gary will learn.”
“Uh-huh.” Jay covered the last bit of distance with a jump and reached up to steady Eden. “All the same, an early lunch sounds good to me. Then I can make myself scarce while you take care of business.”
When she had both feet on the ground, she stared back up at her window, her expression caught between amusement and awe. “Does being a werewolf make you less clumsy? I think I would have broken a leg trying to climb down that thing in my heeled boots last week.”
“It’s not all bad, especially once you get used to it.” He looped an arm around her shoulders and felt a little of his own stress melt away at her proximity. “Come on, let’s go eat.”
The diner had mostly cleared out by one-thirty. At a quarter to two, Eden slipped into the kitchen and smiled at her father. “Can Gary spare you for an hour so we can go upstairs and talk?”
Austin Green wrapped his gnarled fingers around his favorite coffee mug and leveled a stare at her. “Probably. What’s all this about?”
Gary was pretending not to listen as he scraped a spatula over the griddle, so Eden tilted her head toward the back stairs. “Family stuff.”
“You gonna tell me you and the chief are courting? Because I have eyes.”
Her cheeks flamed. Gary smirked, but wiped the expression off his face when he glanced up and caught her furious glare.
Her dad stood there watching her over his coffee mug like she was still fifteen and owed him an answer. “It’s not about that,” she ground out. “It’s about Zack.”
Austin straightened and nodded toward the back staircase. “Have you heard from him?”
“Yes. But it’s complicated.” She climbed the narrow stairs behind him, skipping the creaky fifth step out of habit. Everything was familiar and new at the same time, the memories of her childhood a ghostly echo under the sharply focused version provided by her newly honed senses.
She’d already learned that the quickest way to go crazy was by concentrating on the details, so she fought to block them out as she followed her father into the apartment over the diner. “Zack’s at the farm.”
“Since when?” he asked sharply. “And why am I hearing about it like this?”
Fast was the only way to do it. Fast and brutal, and Eden allowed herself only one terrified moment to wonder if she’d still have a father before blurting out the truth. “Because I was attacked by a wolf at the farm two nights ago. A werewolf from Memphis who was there to hurt Zack. And I—I changed. Like Zack does.”
The mug slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor. “You what?”
Eden flinched. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to say it.”
He waved away the words and stepped over the broken mug to grasp her shoulders. “Are you all right?”
The painful knot beneath her heart loosened for the first time in two days. Her father wasn’t Zack’s father. He would never hate her for a twist of fate beyond her control. “I’m okay,” she whispered. “I’m okay, because Jay—Chief Ancheta—he’s like Zack too. That’s why he’s here. He helped me.”
Her father stared at her, an expression of helpless confusion twisting his features. “You’re a wolf now. And so is the chief.”
The urge to soothe him pulsed with every beat of her heart. Not as strong as with Lorelei, but undeniable. “I’m okay,” she said again, putting force into her voice. She caught his hands and pulled him toward the dining room table. “Jay’s not going to let anything happen to me. He likes your cooking too much.”
Her father took a deep, shuddering breath. “Where is Zack? I want to see him.”
“He’s on his way over.” Eden caught his hands. “Dad, he’s hurt bad. Whatever happened in Memphis, it broke him.”
“Worse than living with Albus?”
Eden swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “I’m pretty sure they tortured him.”
Austin sighed, heavy and tired. “The last time I heard from him, he said things were okay. That he was doing fine.”
The wolves who had fled Memphis with Zack seemed to care about him. Maybe he had been okay, before it all went to hell. “It was a werewolf thing. Almost like a war. Zack and his”—she had to stop stumbling over the word—“pack. Everyone who survived came here. Jay thinks he can take care of them, but I don’t know if anyone can take care of Zack. I don’t know if he’ll let them.”
He shook his head. “Zack’s alive. I don’t care what’s been done to you, how you’ve been hurt, as long as you’re living, you can heal.”
“He’s family, right?” Eden concentrated as she clutched her father’s hands, too aware of the broken phone in her purse. A moment of temper, a spike of panic, and she could crush his fingers. “We can help him.”
“Well, of course.” His brow furrowed. “You said he brought others with him. Do they need anything?”
A tiny part of her wanted to throw the whole mess in his lap. Pretend she believed her father could fix anything, maybe pretend she’d ever believed it. God knew he’d always tried.
He’d never stop trying. That was what mattered. “Yeah, they need a lot. Food, furniture and supplies. I thought we could open up our old house. Some of Jay’s friends are coming in from out of town to help.”
“It might need some work—cosmetic things, mostly—but I don’t see why not.”
She heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and leaned in to hug her father. “Thank you, Dad. For not freaking out.”
A shadow of pain sparked in his eyes. “I wouldn’t, Edie. You’re my child. That could never change.”
“I know,” she lied, glad he couldn’t hear the tremor under the words. “Zack’s coming up the stairs. Are you ready to see him?”
He rose and slid his shaking hands into his pockets. “You bet.”
Zack’s knock was almost tentative. When her father didn’t move, Eden rose and pulled open the door with a wide smile. “Come on in. I was just about to ask Dad to make coffee.”