Own the Wind(79)

I didn’t give up. “Okay then, Dad, he’s a doctor, not a heavyweight fighter. Three guys? That’s insane!”

“Not insane either, Tabby.”

“Dad!” I snapped and he leaned in, his voice going low.

“Lesson,” he started and I drew in a sharp, annoyed breath but at his tone, a tone I’d heard often in my life, I knew to shut my mouth. “You do somethin’, you do it right and you do it so there’s no blowback.”

There it was again. Blowback. A word which I was beginning to think they didn’t really know the meaning of, but since it was a brand-new word coined by, my guess, Hollywood, perhaps it hadn’t made it to the dictionary.

My eyes narrowed.

Dad kept talking.

“To make his point Shy needed firepower and he needed presence to make certain that weasel didn’t hightail his ass to the cops. Shy needed to make certain all his messages were clear. Those messages being, one, he does not f*ck with you. Two, he does not f*ck with the other nurses. Three, he does, Shy’s got the backing to f*ck him up worse than he did during his first lesson. Four, he does not go to the cops and report the assault or he buys Chaos displeasure. Shy’s lean but he’s tall, fast, smart, and he’s got one f*ckuva power punch. He could have taken care of that * on his own but if he did, he wouldn’t get his point across.” Dad dipped his head to me. “He did it smart, doin’ what he had to do to get his point across, and he got his point across.”

I ignored Dad knowing Shy had “one f*ckuva power punch” and, more to the point, how he might come about that knowledge and instead, snapped, “I’ll repeat, that’s insane!”

Dad’s brows went up. “He apologize?”

Oh. My. God!

Ty-Ty was totally right. Shy was Dad, just younger.

“Yeah, he did, but that isn’t the point,” I answered. “Shy didn’t talk to me about it and, I’ll add, he didn’t tell me about it after the fact either.”

Dad’s face registered surprise and he asked, “Jesus, why would he do somethin’ stupid like that?”

I stared at my father.

Then I replied sarcastically, “I don’t know, maybe because it’s me”—I jerked my thumb at my chest—“who has to work with this guy.”

“Bet that’ll go better,” he muttered.

I rolled my eyes.

“Thinkin’,” Dad continued, “we’re gettin’ in the zone where you should be talkin’ to Red.”

“Well, Tyra isn’t here, so you’re going to have to guide me through this one, Dad,” I pointed out, and Dad’s gaze locked to mine.

“He loves you.”

I sucked in breath as that hit me in the gut.

Dad was far from done.

“He loves you, Tabby. Boy’s totally gone for you. He don’t like you eatin’ shit, he can do somethin’ about it, so he did. He let you have your time to sort it, let you have your time to stew about it, but you didn’t make a move, so he did.”

“But—” I started, but Dad shook his head.

“This is the life. It’s the only thing you know. It’s different, when you’re a kid, you’re shielded from a lot of shit but that don’t mean, darlin’, that you don’t feel the umbrella of protection that Club provides to family. I know my girl’s not dumb, she’s not gonna sit there and tell me she doesn’t know every brother in that Club was willin’ to have her back every breath she took on this earth. Now, you got a different position in the Club, one you chose, one you fought for. You’re still shielded but you are no longer a kid. You’re an adult and you’re puttin’ things together and you now are seein’ how they can directly affect you. Do not fall down at this first hurdle with your man. As his woman, you got a job, that’s to let him be who he is and do what he feels he’s gotta do. You find common ground in your home with the life you live together day to day. But what it takes to make him the man he is, you give him.”

I pulled in another breath.

Dad still wasn’t done.

“That other guy, your Jason, I liked him.”

Another hit to the gut, and I pressed my lips together.

Dad kept talking, his tone gentle, his eyes on me the same.

“He loved you. I liked the way he treated you, liked the way he looked at you, liked the way he handled you. I hated you losin’ him. But I’ll say this, what Shy did to that * who was makin’ work an unhealthy place for you to be, I like more. You asked me five years ago what I’d want in my daughter’s life, I’d pick a man like Shy. I told him that after we had our fallin’ out. And, as far’s I’m concerned, him steppin’ in and sortin’ your problem, Tabby, darlin’, proves I was right.”

One could not say I didn’t like his words (as lunatic as they were).

Still, I turned my head away and took a drag of my beer.

I was contemplating it in my hand when I heard Dad order, “Cajun popcorn and two meatloaf cheeseburgers. We’re eatin’ at the bar.”

Well, at least dinner was going to be awesome.

I sucked back more beer.

“Tab,” Dad said, and I looked to him just as his hand came up, curled around the back of my neck, and his face got close. “You made the conscious choice to step back into our world. You live here again with all of us. And you made that commitment when you took on the Club and Red and me to have Shy. You knew what you were gettin’. You can’t pick the parts you want and force out the parts that make you uncomfortable. He is the man he is. With men like us, you accept him as that or you don’t take him at all. You gotta decide, what’s it gonna be?”