Kaleidoscope (Colorado Mountain #6)(60)

“Father’s intuition,” was Barry’s reply.

Deck nodded and joined him at the table.

“Get you a cup?” Barry asked, tipping his head to his.

“I’m good,” Deck declined.

Barry nodded, put his eyes to his cup and lifted it to his lips.

Only when he put it down did his eyes go back to Deck and he noted, “I’m feeling I’m missing something in all this.”

His father’s intuition was on the mark.

“Emme was not pleased I didn’t give her the opportunity to share direct with you something like this was happening with one of your employees,” Deck told him. “If something’s missing, this morning I promised to let her share that or discuss it with her before it’s shared.”

“So I’m missing something,” he surmised.

“Askin’ you not to put me in this spot, Barry,” Deck replied softly. “Ask your daughter.”

Barry nodded and looked to the dark window over the kitchen sink. He couldn’t see anything out that window, but Deck knew he wasn’t really looking.

“Why are you up, son?” he asked the window.

“Sleep four hours a night. Use the extra time to do shit I don’t have time to do during the day.” Barry looked back at him and Deck tapped the book he’d put on the table. “Thought I’d read awhile.”

“Don’t have to keep me company if you don’t like,” Barry told him.

“Don’t have to keep you company if you don’t want me to,” Deck replied, and Barry shook his head.

“Liked you the minute I met you, Jacob. Liked you and liked how you were with my girl. Never quite understood why Elsbeth ended things with you. Maeve said she was plum stupid. I agreed. It appears things work out the way they’re meant to be, or at least that’s my hope. Bottom line, nice to spend time with you again seeing as I enjoyed having that opportunity occasionally back in the day.”

“Sentiments returned, Barry.”

“But if you break my daughter’s heart, I’ll break you.”

Deck’s head jerked at this swift turn in their conversation.

“Know how sharp you are,” Barry continued. “Don’t know what you do for a living but I suspect it’s interesting. But money goes a long way, I got a lot of that, and you hurt my girl, I’ll use everything I got to hurt you back.”

“Barry, this isn’t—” Deck started to assure him.

“She’s different,” Barry whispered, and Deck shut his mouth at the pain and worry stark in Barry’s eyes.

Old pain and worry. Etched there. Hidden by strength of will. Exposed now for a purpose.

“I know what happened to her,” Deck told him quietly, hoping to ease the burden and not make him say those words out loud.

But he’d find with what Barry said next there was no way to ease this burden.

“Man lives three days not knowing where his daughter is,” Barry replied. “Three days not knowing if she’s eating. Not knowing if someone’s touching her. Not knowing if she’s dead in a ditch. Torture, Jacob. Utter torture made worse by looking at my wife, my boys, my other little girl, knowing they have the same thoughts eating away their brains. We got her back, we went on but we never recovered. You don’t. You don’t forget that feeling. You wake up tasting it in your mouth and you go to bed and send your thanks to God you got through the day and she’s somewhere you know where she is, sleeping safe.”

“I can’t imagine, Barry, and I don’t want to,” Deck said truthfully, holding his eyes.

“No. You don’t. But what I’m saying is, not one thing is going to harm my baby girl. Not again. I like you, Jacob. I respect you. I got the feeling you’re a good man, and I’m rarely wrong about that. And she likes you too, a great deal, years ago, but now, it’s a whole lot more. So if you hurt her, I will break you.”

“Again, I know what happened to her. You don’t know me well but I’ll tell you straight. I would not be at this table with you coming from where I just came from, knowing what I know Emme endured, knowing the woman your daughter is, how I feel about her, taking us where we are and leading us where I want us to be if I wasn’t very serious about being on that path.”

Barry’s gaze didn’t waver from Deck’s for long moments before he nodded.

“You’ll take no offense,” Barry stated, ending it.

“Absolutely,” Deck agreed.

He should have expected it just because Barry was the man he was. And that was a man who loved his daughter and took care of her no matter what her age. In other words, he argued about the bill that night and only backed down when he took a good look at Deck’s expression and the bulk of his frame. But when he backed down, he did it only slightly.

He was a man like Deck. No one paid for his meal. No one paid for his girl.

They split the bill.

Barry kept talking.

“As her father, I got to let her be free to live her life, make her decisions and make her mistakes. As her boss, the same. As both, I got to give her the freedom to share about her decisions or her mistakes if she feels she needs to do that. Emme’s her own girl, and I reckon you had an interesting conversation this morning but tonight you both made it clear there are no hard feelings. I appreciate the respect you’re giving her by making a promise and keeping it. But as just her father sitting at three thirty in the morning at her kitchen table with the man who’s making my baby girl his, I got to know how worried I need to be about what I don’t know.”