Page 41 of The Reluctant Siren
Deranged Dad pointed Taggart’s way. “You are supposed tomonitor her.”
Taggart sat back, tossing her dad a quizzical look. “Youknow she’s an adult, right? She has all the papers and everything.”
“Look, Ian, you might let your girls run around the worldblowing shit up, but I run a tighter household,” her dad shot back.
“He does not,” her mom said, sounding slightly exasperated.She moved into Harlow’s space. “You okay, baby?”
She loved her mom. So fucking much. Her mom had been throughhell and still stood there with all the love in the world to give and all shereally wanted to do was burst into tears and tell her mom everything.
But Deranged Dad was here.
“I’m fine,” Harlow told her with a tight smile.
“Even if I were to agree that a tight ship was being run inyour household, can we both acknowledge that Harlow no longer lives in thathousehold?” Ian sounded so reasonable. It must be nice. “Because she’s atwenty-six-year-old woman and not a wayward teenager?”
“I believe I made all of these points,” Papa said, throwingher a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. He’s been on edge ever sincethe whole incident with Liam’s daughter. When we got the call, he pretty muchlost his shit. I would have texted and asked if you needed anything.”
“Are you kidding me? She’s involved in some kind of drugring and you’re perfectly fine with that?” Deranged Dad was in a full-on panic.
“She’s doing a job,” Papa countered. “Like we do from timeto time. You know happy places and people rarely need to be investigated.”
“Well, she’s not exactly involved with the drug ring,” Ianpointed out. “It’s more like she’s trying to take them down.” Her mentor gaveher a thumbs-up. “You’re doing great, Harlow. You take ’em down. Only thing youdid wrong this time was having these dumbass men around. What did I teach you?”
“Keep sex to the club and the bedroom and don’t takedumbasses into the field with me. That means men or women or anyone in between.You were clear that sexual fluidity did not dismiss dumbassery. Yes. I shouldhave remembered that.” Sometimes she wondered how her life would have gone ifIan Taggart had been her father. Oh, she would have fought her way throughchildhood because they were a feral clan, but she might have fit in better. Andmaybe she would have listened and not tried to take her boyfriend out into thefield with her.
Not her boyfriend. Nope. The plant Jensen left behind. Shefelt like such an idiot.
Her dad’s gaze sharpened, and his head swiveled like apredator scenting prey. As though he had just realized there were two otherpeople in the room he could blame for his precious baby’s bad choices. Not thathe had mistakenly ignored them. Oh, no. The great Chase Dawson would havewalked in, taken a single glance, and been able to describe what they lookedlike, were wearing, and probably be able to discern their chosen professionsfrom clues.
It was hard being the daughter of a genius.
Chase Dawson was one of the world’s premiere investigators.When governments needed a Hercule Poirot, they called her dad. When a murderneeded to be solved and quickly, cops had her dad on speed dial.
Niall stood up. Because he obviously had no instinct forself-preservation. He actually held out a hand. “Hello, Mr. Dawson. I’m NiallGriffen.”
“Neil?” Dad asked, that judgmental brow of his rising.
“Nope,” Ian replied. “It’s some weird Irish thing. And theother dude is named Jensen. Like who names their freaking kid Jensen?”
Jensen shrugged, obviously unbothered. “My mom likedSupernaturalbut she had an old boyfriend named Jared, so I got Jensen. I think Niall’s momread a lot of historical romance. It’s spelled weird, too. I told him he shouldgo by Neil.”
Niall huffed. “Not my name.”
Dad turned on her. “I taught you not to date assholes withdouchebag names.”
She nodded. “And yet you named me Harlow and my sisterGreer.”
He was good with everything except irony.
Her dad’s head shook. “I wanted to name you Mary andElizabeth. Solid girl names. Your mother has an old-school Hollywood fetish,and since she pushed you and your sister out of her hoo-ha, she got first dibs.And you know we should talk about it. If you were named Mary, perhaps youwouldn’t be lost in your own damn noir film.”
He could get lost in his own arguments. Honestly, they couldgo at it for hours, she and her dad. Once they argued for half a day over thevalidity of theStar Warsprequels.
It had been fun.
When had it stopped being fun? Probably around the time hehad to pick her up in another state and bail her out and see her in a cast,broken and bruised. He was overly protective before, but then he’d gone intohyperdrive.
“So, you’re Chase.” Niall seemed to realize he wasn’tgetting anywhere with the most paranoid of her dads. He turned to her papa.“You must be Ben Dawson. Again, I’m Niall Griffen. I’ve been seeing yourdaughter.”
