Page 42 of The Reluctant Siren
Papa shook his hand and gave him a once-over. “It’s good tomeet you. How do you and Harlow know each other?”
Dad stood back and rolled his blue eyes. His arms crossedover his chest as he considered Niall. “They met at The Hideout, of course. Isuspect she’s been playing with him.”
Ian sat back. “Oh, he’s going to do that thing, baby. I loveit when he does this.”
That thing was giving a preternaturally accurate rundown ofpeople he recently met.
She should have let Dave murder her. She blamed Jack.
“Does what?” Niall asked, sounding hesitant for the firsttime.
She could do a little of it, too. She could read Niall inthat moment. He was the good guy, the one all parents loved. He was theclean-cut ex-soldier who held doors open and helped old ladies cross the road.He was used to charming moms and laughing with dads. It was disconcerting tohim that first Ian paid him no mind at all, and now her dad was looking at himlike a bug he was getting ready to pin to his collection board.
Of course she also hadn’t figured out he was there to spy onher, so she couldn’t be too good at this.
“You’re from West Texas but not more than a couple of hoursout of Fort Worth. One of the ranching towns between here and Amarillo,” herdad began. “You recently moved to town. Likely within the last year. You domanual labo…or you work out a lot.” He was carefully watching Niall for anytics as he spoke. Her father was a master at reading micro expressions. He’dtaught her humans give themselves away in far more fashions than lying. “You’rea personal trainer. Ah, you own a gym. Good luck with that, buddy. You’reformer military police. Is there a reason you didn’t become a cop?”
Niall shot her a surprised look. “Is your dad psychic?”
“He’s just really good at reading people,” she replied witha yawn because her dad could do this for hours, and it was getting late.
“He knows the MP part from the tat on his arm,” Papareplied. “It’s not that hard. And it’s a good bet that he already knew aboutyou seeing him at The Hideout. He listens in when your sister and Chloe gossip.He’s the gossipiest old man I know.”
“Hey,” Ian argued. “I have that T-shirt, too.”
Charlotte waved her husband off. “He prints them himself.Pay him no mind. I want to see what else Chase can figure out.”
“Well, I figured out you pissed off my daughter. What didyou do to her?” His gaze shifted to Jensen. “You are harder to read. You’refriends. You were in the military together, but you had your tat removed.”
Jensen’s hand went to his bicep. “You can’t see that.”
“I can see it’s a slightly different color. It’s been awhile since you took it off. Were you ashamed of your service?” Dad asked, hiseyes narrow.
Jensen’s head shook. “Of course not.”
“You have another tat, so it’s not that you suddenly didn’tlike tattoos. You wanted to hide your military service,” her father surmised.
Shit. He was going to figure it all out.
Jensen frowned her father’s way. “I’m not sure that’s yourbusiness, sir.”
“You tell him, Jensen,” her mom encouraged and then shruggedher dad’s way. “You can be an intellectual bully about this. And it’s obviousHarlow is involved with both of them, so you might want to back off and giveeveryone some room before you start a fight.”
But her dad was merely getting started. “You the one whogave Niall there that shiner?”
“I don’t have a shiner,” Niall argued.
“You’ll have some bruising,” her papa agreed with Dad.“Maybe not a full-on black eye, but you got clocked at some point in the lastcouple of hours.”
Jack had taken a seat next to Charlotte and looked perfectlyhappy hanging out and watching her ruination.
“AndSupernaturalhere has some bruising on hisknuckles. You taking out bad guys or your friend here?” Dad asked, gazesharpening. “You were fighting over my daughter?”
This was torture. “I started dating Niall a couple of daysago. Jensen is someone I dated a long time ago. It’s that simple. I didn’t knowthey knew each other.”
“Uncle Chase, things got heated and confusing out theretonight.” Jack jumped in to save her. Finally. The amount of times she’dcovered for his ass… “It was a big brawl, and you know it can be hard to tellwho the bad guys are in the midst of it. I think they were both trying toprotect Harlow and found themselves at cross purposes.”
Oh, it had been super clear, and she was glad she’d alreadygotten Miranda off to the safe house. Jensen and Niall knew better than toargue, but Miranda might have pointed out that Dave got the jump on them, andthere wasn’t a lot of fight to be had.
