Kaleidoscope (Colorado Mountain #6)(74)

Now, with shower, meet-the-parents prep and travel time, I’d be way late. In other words, there was no time to waste since there was no time at all.

So I did what I promised.

I raced upstairs and hurried.

* * *

I opened Jacob’s back door thinking inanely, from the SUV I saw in his driveway, his parents didn’t mess around with rentals. The minute I got the door open, I saw Buford who, as always, came to greet me.

“Hey, puppy,” I murmured, bending and giving him a rubdown, which, out of necessity, had to be a quick rubdown since I had to get my behind into the house to meet Jacob’s parents.

I gave him an extra ear scratch to make up for it, straightened and saw Jacob moving down the hall.

This did not bode well. Jacob never met me in the back hall.

I smiled at him hesitantly. “Hey, honey. Sorry. I hurried as best I could. Did they have an okay trip?”

He stopped, did a top to toe with his eyes, didn’t answer my question and asked his own, “Where’s your bag?”

“My what?” I asked.

“Bag, Emme. Your overnight bag. Did you leave it in Cletus?”

“Persephone,” I corrected automatically, but didn’t get the usual grin that came fast and easy whenever we were talking about my Bronco.

Instead, his mouth got tight.

It was a scary look and indicated he was still angry.

I didn’t know what to do with this. I didn’t think Jacob had ever been angry with me. Not real angry, as in we weren’t fighting about gun control, which he didn’t really care what I thought about, he just liked fighting about it. But instead, he was actually upset with me.

It did not feel very good to have him upset with me, not at all. More so because he had reason.

And further, I didn’t understand why he was asking about my bag.

“I, well… didn’t bring a bag,” I admitted.

His mouth got tighter.

Then he muttered as he reached out and grabbed my hand, “Doesn’t matter. You got enough shit in the bathroom here to work with and you can sleep in one of my tees.”

I did have enough “shit” in his bathroom. That was, if he was referring to shampoo and moisturizer and stuff. I’d doubled up on a few things so I didn’t have to lug so much around all the time.

But sleep in one of his tees?

I wasn’t spending the night with his parents there. I may have forgotten about meeting them but I didn’t forget about us making plans for me to spend the night. I would have remembered that, as in discussed it and declined the option.

It was okay for Jacob to spend the night at my house when Mom and Dad were around. They knew him.

His parents didn’t know me.

They might think I was a floozy. The last impression a girl wanted to give the parents of the man she loved on first meeting them was that she was a floozy.

I wanted to tug my hand to stop his advance in order to explain this to him as he was now dragging me down the hall, but I didn’t figure that would better his mood. So I let him drag me down the hall.

We moved through the opening to the great room and I saw Jacob’s dad sitting at a stool at the bar and his mom standing behind it. Both of them were sipping coffee.

Even though I met them only once and spent maybe ten minutes with them, I remembered them vividly. This was because Jacob meant a lot to me so meeting his parents would too.

This was also because they were a surprise.

He got his coloring from his mother. Same hair, same eyes, same olive skin tone.

She was, however, relatively petite. She couldn’t be over five foot five. And she was rounded. It was in a pleasant way that she obviously liked because she didn’t try to hide it. She also didn’t hold herself like she wasn’t comfortable with it.

His dad, however, was the big surprise.

Although there was a hint of his strong, handsome features in Jacob’s face, Richard Decker was fair. His blond hair had still been mostly blond when I met him over a decade ago. Now it was a silvery white. He also had blue eyes. He was tall and built, now slightly soft, and that would be slightly soft in a way he clearly liked his beer because he had a relatively large beer belly. He was way taller than his wife but he was nowhere near as tall as Jacob. Maybe six foot.

I knew Jacob had a brother named Shane who I’d never met. But I’d always wondered if Shane looked like his dad or mom or if he was like Jacob, a best of both but even better kind of offspring.

“Hi,” I greeted, pinning a smile to my face.

Returning my greeting, I saw Karla Decker eyeing me closely but her expression was friendly and welcoming.

Not returning my greeting, Rich Decker was also studying me, doing it closely, but there was speculation in the back of his eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t look friendly. It was just that, with one look, I knew I was under review and needed to pass inspection.

In order to do that, I pulled my hand from Jacob’s and moved to his father first since he was the closest. I lifted my hand and made my smile bigger.

“I’m really sorry I’m late. I have a project I’m in the middle of that’s so far lasted three years,” I tried to joke. Rich didn’t crack a smile. This made me nervous, so I kept going. “Sometimes when I’m in the throes of it, I lose track of, well… pretty much everything,” I told him, still smiling.