3) Pick up Randi and drive her and my dad to Seattle.
4) Somehow not get killed by Talia when I get back.
I could do this—Team Garrett for the win, and all that good shit.
“Dad, can you start packing for Seattle?” I asked when we reached the top of the stairs. My father frowned, staring pointedly at the gun in my arms.
“Why is that out of the case?” he said, shaking his head. “Your mom will blame me if she sees you with that, Tinker Bell. You know better.”
“We were just putting it away,” I replied quickly. “She asked us to make sure all the guns were locked up while she was out, remember?”
He seemed confused, then nodded his head.
“Sounds like her.”
“Are there any more around the house? Maybe in your room?”
“Yup, I got one in the bedside table,” he said. “I’ll go get it.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Twenty minutes later all the guns were accounted for. Not that we had a ton of them, but for most of my life Dad had hunted—providing almost all of our meat growing up, actually—so he had several hunting rifles in addition to the shotgun, not to mention the pistol next to his bed. They were all safe and secure in my grandfather’s cabinet now, using an old bicycle lock. I’d put the only key on a string around my neck until I figured out somewhere to keep it. Maybe a safe-deposit box?
Exhausted and knowing I still had a ton to do before we could leave town, I headed back downstairs, stopping dead when I saw Cooper in the living room. He was leaning against the back of the couch with his arms crossed and a determined look on his face. Huh. At least he’d been easy to find.
“So . . .” I started, wondering what the hell I should say.
“So?” he asked, raising a brow. “That the best you got?”
Sadly, it was.
“This is awkward,” I said softly. “Um, we should probably talk about what just happened.”
“Ya think?” he asked, jerking his chin toward the stairs. “Your dad just went from absentminded to dangerous as hell. This is a problem, Tinker.”
“Are you going to call the cops?” I asked, feeling sick. Cooper raised a brow.
“Do I look like the kind of guy who goes running to the cops?” he asked, and I wondered if it was a trick question. I mean, he had the criminal-biker look down perfect, but who was I to stereotype? My dad was the one with the gun.
My chest tightened as the full reality of the situation hit.
I’d gone to work this morning and had my life threatened by a crazy woman with a machete, and it wasn’t even the most fucked-up thing that’d happened to me so far that day. Suddenly I felt dizzy.
“Breathe,” Cooper said, lunging toward me as I started to sway. He caught my arm, pulling me down to the couch. Then we sat down, and he pushed my head between my legs, which helped.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” I moaned, wondering if a person could splinter from too much . . . too much whatever the hell was wrong with me? Grief? Stress? Just too much, period. “It’s so much worse than I ever imagined.”
His hand rubbed my back, something I should’ve discouraged but it felt really good to lean on someone else, even for a few minutes. I still couldn’t believe what’d happened. Since when did my father start pulling guns on people?
“What does his doctor say?” Cooper asked, his voice a low rumble that I felt all the way down my spine. Shit, I needed to sit up and move away from him right now, before I did something stupid, like lean in and let him bear some of this endless weight for a while.
Yeah, because having a man fixes everything, right? my brain sniped. How’d that work out for you and Brandon?
Apparently I wasn’t so good at the whole learning-from-my-mistakes thing because I stayed right there and answered him.
“He hasn’t been to the doctor, at least not since Mom died,” I admitted.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because he’s a stubborn old bastard,” I said, forcing myself to sit up and look Cooper in the eye. “Because it didn’t really seem that bad, and every time we talked about it he put me off, and I guess I was in denial. This is a big deal, isn’t it?”