Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,165
hadn’t warned me either, that jerk. He was super dead.
Les and Rita were both in their late sixties and gray haired. Despite the hour, they were fully dressed, as if they’d stayed up to talk with their son. Like Sean, Les had crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, and Rita was checking me over for visible injuries. To my surprise, I instinctively liked them—a far cry from the abject terror I’d always felt at the prospect of finally meeting Sean’s parents.
“Hello there, Alice,” Les said warmly. “Sean told us you’re a mage private investigator. This case you’re working on must be a doozy.” He held out his hand.
My hand was as dirty and bloody as the rest of me. I glanced at my palm dubiously, then at Les’s outstretched hand.
“I’m not afraid of a little dirt and blood,” Les said, his dark brown eyes twinkling. “I’m a farmer and our son’s a werewolf.”
I wiped my hand on my pants, but that made it more dirty, not less. I shook his calloused hand. “It’s great to finally meet you,” I managed to say.
Rita elbowed her husband. “Let the poor girl go inside and get cleaned up. She’s got to be miserable.” She held out her hand. “Hi, Alice. My goodness, you look like a warrior, back from the battlefield.”
The scent of sea drifted past my nose. Ronan was lurking around somewhere and probably laughing his fine feathered ass off.
I hid my free hand behind my back and extended my middle finger. The sea scent swirled, then vanished.
Sean frowned. He must have caught Ronan’s scent. Before he could say anything, another man appeared in the front doorway. He wore a plaid shirt, jeans, and hiking boots.
I stared. “Daniel?”
His bright gold eyes met mine, and he smiled just a little. “Welcome back,” my father said.
My mouth opened and closed like a fish.
Sean finally took pity on me. “I think Alice needs a shower, some food, and a stiff drink.”
“Not necessarily in that order,” Les added with a smile. “Whisky, anyone?”
When we went inside, I found out Sean had sold his house and moved us into the farmhouse while I was gone. My house still needed to be sold, but he’d moved my furniture and combined it with his own to furnish the new place. He’d also painted the rooms the colors we’d picked out before I left and set up the downstairs office with two work areas: one for himself, and one for me.
And he’d done it all without knowing if I would ever come back, because he believed I would.
It was too much to process in front of the others. I scratched Rogue’s head, let him sniff me, and then excused myself and took my backpack upstairs to the master suite. My clothes were so disgusting, the only appropriate thing to do was burn them. I stuffed everything into a black trash bag, shoved it into a corner in the bathroom, and got in the shower with the bottle of Charles’s finest moonshine.
I shampooed my hair twice. Then I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed my body, washing away layers of blood, ash, dirt, grime, and goop. And in between soaping and rinsing, I took swigs of moonshine.
Already I felt as though the whole experience was some kind of nightmare. For crying out loud, thirty-six hours ago, I was fighting for my life in the Underworld. Two hours ago, I tore curses out of Valas and nearly died from death magic. Now I was home in the farmhouse I was going to share with Sean, and his parents and my father were downstairs, drinking whisky and chatting like old friends.
I slid down the wall, sat on the floor of the shower with the bottle, and pulled my knees up to my chest.
That was how Sean found me when he finally came looking for me. He left his clothes in a pile on the floor outside the shower and sat on the tile beside me.
“You smell better,” he said, lacing his fingers through mine.
I rested my head on his shoulder.
“My parents went home,” he told me. “They were going to stay over, but they figured we needed time to talk. Daniel’s gone out to walk around the property. He’s been staying here for about a week, in the guest room.”
I had so many questions, not the least of which was why Daniel was here and why he’d changed his mind about staying with us, but that would have to wait.