Page 31 of The Bronze Garza
“Nice try. I’m almost twenty-four. Agrownwoman. I don’t need a freaking babysitter. You can’t justdecideto dump me at some man’s house.”
“It’s not babysitting,” he argues. “It’ssecurity.”
Oh, for crying out loud. “I don’t need security, Dad!”
A pained and tired sigh drifts down the line. “He believes you, Lyly.”
“What?”
“I told him what you said, about the accident, and he believes you.”
“Well, at least someone finally does,” I mumble.
“I never said I didn’t believe you, Lyly.” A long pause. “I know this arrangement is not ideal, but I won’t be able to sleep or focus while I’m away if I don’t know for sure you’re safe. I’m behind on so much right now and investors are getting impatient. Please, Lyly, do this for me.Please.”
I bang my head back against the tufted headboard and sigh. Loudly. “You do realize that man is a cold, insensitive, unmannerly jerk, right?”
Dad snorts. “And still he’s the only one I trust to keep you safe.”
“Why, though?”
“Because he said he’d bring you home to me, and he did.”
That’s not a strong enough reason. Anyone with his skill set getting paid a bucketload of money for the job would say whatever the client needed to hear. “That doesn’t mean anything. He could’ve brought me back in a body bag.”
“Nope,” Dad says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “His exact words were, ‘I’ll get your daughter back to youunscathed’.”
“Well, that was stupidly arrogant of him,” I grumble. “Let me think about it. I’ll call you back in a few.”
“Okay, sweetheart. I love you.”
“Eh, not sure I even like you very much right now.”
He laughs as I end the call.
Mom glides into the room just then carrying a bed-tray. “Time to eat up! Veggie soup with a side of spinach-banana muffins.”
Her long, multi-colored Boho dress billows as she moves, her waist-length brown hair braided in pigtails. The woman is in her forties but looks sixteen.
Looks wise, I’m her carbon copy. Spitting image. Though I’m a little fairer, much to my dismay, because her deep, olive skin is a flawlessdream.
Personality wise, however, I am one hundred percent Mitch Henderson.
As I sit up properly in bed so she can set the tray over me, I complain, “Your husband’s tripping again.”
“We never married,” she corrects, as she always does.
“You will be,” I singsong. “All roads lead back to you. We all know this.”
“Have you forgotten the part where he’s engaged to Eloise?” She straightens the tray over me. “Or is memory loss a side-effect of your coma?”
“Eh. You and I both know how that’s gonna end.”
Arching a brow at me, she sits at the side of the bed. “I do?”
“Mom, the woman argues with himat leasttwice a month about him not setting a date.”
“Lysandra,” she corrects, as always, and I roll my eyes.
