Page 15 of Shadow Boxed (Shadow Warriors #2)

Chapter thirteen

Muriel headed toward the open door; her hair still wet from the shower.

A neighbor must be handing off another dish.

It happened like clockwork every night. Not even Penny the peafowl’s aggressive defense of her perceived territory had stopped the nightly catering visits.

And it wasn’t just food people were offering.

They offered all sorts of other services too—snow shoveling, wood chopping, and salting the steps.

The house was obviously on a neighborhood schedule, where everyone took turns caring for them while Olivia camped out beside Samuel’s hospital bed.

This was a good community. A neighborhood full of good people, the kind who stepped up and helped out when needed.

A low, rumbling, male voice came from the door. One she recognized, even though she’d only heard it once—three days ago—in the past two decades. Her feet froze in horror before taking flight.

O’Neill. O’Neill was at the door…talking to Gracie.

Good Goddess.

She leapt forward, her pulse throbbing in her head.

She hadn’t told Gracie about him yet. Her daughter had been avoiding her over the past three days, disappearing for hours on end.

Muriel had planned to talk to her tonight.

She hadn’t expected O’Neill to track her down here, not when he could find her on base, at the clinic.

By the Goddess, this was not how she wanted the pair to find out about each other.

“I’m nineteen. Not that it’s any of your business.” Gracie’s voice carried a rare hint of defiance.

“You’re Daniel’s twin,” O’Neill said tersely.

She could hear the shock in his voice. He’d figured it out. He knew.

Muriel’s stomach tightened into a cold knot. She needed to get Gracie away from him before she found out too.

“Gracie.” She practically flew to the door. “Would you get something out of the fridge for dinner?”

The blood was pounding so hard in her ears, she didn’t hear her daughter’s reply, only saw her let go of the door and turn, stepping back into the hall. Muriel squeezed past Gracie’s slender frame and blocked O’Neill’s path into the house.

“What do you want me to get out?” Gracie asked as Muriel stepped onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind her. O’Neill backed up, his face still as stone.

Muriel nudged the door open enough to yell through the crack. “Whatever you feel like.” She tried for an encouraging tone, but feared it sounded more terrified than reassuring.

Once the door was closed again, she turned to her unwelcome visitor.

His tall, broad body looked rigid. Intimidating.

His face unreadable. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and dark brown tactical pants.

And of course, the perpetual warrior’s military-grade ass-kickers boots.

Her gaze touched on his bare arms before lifting to his face.

Why in Hokalita was he wearing short sleeves and no coat in the middle of winter? Was it some kind of macho thing? Not that it mattered. She needed to get rid of him.

Below the porch came the sound of a car running; whoever had brought him here was waiting. “You need to leave. Now. We’ll talk at the clinic,” she said in a low hiss.

Anxiety settled like a low-pressure storm in her chest. She’d been lucky so far. Gracie still didn’t know he was her father. She didn’t want her to find out like this, out of the blue—with no warning. She wanted to ease into the revelation...and tell Gracie herself.

“She’s mine, isn’t she?”

Muriel’s hackles rose. She set her feet and shoulders, then leaned forward to drive her index finger into his chest. “Gracie isn’t yours. Or mine. She belongs to herself. She’s not a collection of our combined DNA.”

O’Neill swore softly and took a step back, then stopped to stare at the door, as though he could see right through the wood and into the kitchen where Gracie was rifling through the fridge.

“She said she’s Daniel’s twin, and you said Daniel was my son, which would make her my daughter.” His gaze dropped back to her face and his jaw hardened. “Is it true? Is she my daughter?”

Muriel swallowed hard. “Yes. But she doesn’t know it yet. You need to give me time to tell her…to explain. Once she’s aware of who you are, I’ll feel her out. See if she wants to meet you.”

Before he had a chance to answer, the door jerked open.

“Let him in, mom. I already know who he is,” Gracie said quietly from behind her. “And I want to talk to him.”

Muriel turned, her stomach dropping. Gracie must have been listening at the door. “Oh honey. I didn’t want you to find out like this. I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

Gracie’s hazel eyes were guarded, as they met and held Muriel’s own. “I already knew who he was. I’ve known for years.”

“What?” Muriel swayed, her legs going weak. “How did you find out? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ignoring the questions, Gracie pulled the door open all the way, her guarded gaze lifting to O’Neill’s face. “I need to talk to you. Will you come in?”

Need?

Muriel frowned. Gracie’s tone sounded like a plea. “At least give me a chance to explain why I didn’t tell you about him. I—”

“That doesn’t matter, Mom.” An odd tone entered her voice. One of longing and urgency. Her gaze remained on O’Neill’s face. “There are…other things…I need to know. Things you can’t help me with, but he can.”

Off-balance, Muriel wavered. “Honey, at least wait until I have a chance to tell you what happened.”

After a long, tension-filled second, Gracie shifted her gaze to Muriel. “Please, Mom. I really need to talk to him.”

Need. There was that word again.

Muriel studied her daughter’s face. Gracie wasn’t going to tell her what was going on with her, or why she needed to talk to her father. She’d have to find out alongside O’Neill. She stepped aside and gestured toward the door. “Go on then. We’ll play this Gracie’s way.”

He hesitated, then stepped forward. His face carried the exact same expression as Gracie’s did—guarded.

In fact, the resemblance between father and daughter was incredibly strong.

And not just their wary expressions, but the faint glow in their green eyes.

When had Muriel’s eyes started to glow? She’d never noticed that before.

Maybe the shine came from the porch light’s reflection.

But the resemblance was more than their eyes.

Their hair was even the same shade of silvery brown.

She’d known Gracie resembled her father, but her memories of him were twenty years old, and she’d forgotten some of the details. Like the sheen to his eyes, and the way his hair turned silver beneath certain lights. She hadn’t realized they looked so much alike.

Muriel waited for him to pass through the door before following him inside the house and shutting the door behind her.

Gracie led him toward the kitchen. But Muriel paused in the hall.

After several deep breaths—in...out...in.

..out—her heart calmed. But weakness still shook her legs as she finally followed her daughter into the kitchen.

She found O’Neill just standing there, barely inside the archway. While Gracie stood braced against the refrigerator at the back of the kitchen. Tension rode the silence. Now that she had him in the house, Gracie didn’t seem to know what to do with him.

Muriel slid past O’Neill, stepped into the room, and gestured at the table. “Why don’t we sit? I’ll make some coffee.”

It was late for coffee but at least making it would give her something to do, and the beverage would focus her mind.

She went to work filling the water dispenser and adding scoops of ground beans to the filter.

Behind her came the scrape of the chairs being pulled back, and the even heavier screech as they were scooted back in.

By the time she turned back around with cups and spoons, the father-daughter duo had taken positions directly across the table from each other and were busy staring.

The silence was deafening.

Regardless of her daughter’s insistence on this conversation, it was apparently up to Muriel to get the discussion going. With the sounds of percolation and the rich smell of brewing coffee filling the kitchen, she pulled out a chair at the table and sat down between them.

“Since I don’t need to introduce you two, how about we start with you Gracie.” Muriel said quietly. “You said you’ve known about him for years. When did you find out?”

Gracie finally pulled her gaze from O’Neill’s face and turned to Muriel.

“Remember that trip to Europe when I was twelve and you got me that passport? Well, I needed it for a school project a couple of years later. I called you and you told me the passports were in the second drawer of the file cabinet in your office. While I was looking for it, I found the file from the private investigator.”

Muriel remembered the school project Gracie was talking about. Her daughter had created a montage of their European vacation from the previous summer, with stamps from the countries she’d visited. But that was five years ago. Five years and Gracie never indicated she knew who her father was.

“But detective Malone’s report never said why I wanted to find O’Neill. It never said he was your father.” She was certain of that.

O’Neill stirred at the mention of the private investigator, a frown crossing his face.

Gracie shrugged. “It wasn’t hard to figure out why you were looking for him.

The file listed the date he left the Brenahiilo, which was eight months before my birthdate.

Why would you be looking for some random dude from your past unless it had something to do with us?

” She shrugged again. “Because his age was the same as yours, I figured he must have gone to school with you. So, I looked him up in your senior yearbook. As soon as I saw his picture, I knew for sure. I look like him.”

“You hired someone to look for me?”