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“That’s where you work.”
I nodded, glad he hadn’t added, ‘as a janitor’ even if I wasn’t ashamed of what I did for a living. That gray guy was still watching me with deep suspicion.
“You are attending some form of higher education, though.” He was very good at drawing conclusions with minimal facts. Smart. He was very, very smart, like Percy.
“Yes. I’m going part time to the community college in between jobs. I’m going to be an accountant. Or something.”
He actually stopped and turned to face me at that. Of all the things to shock him, it was my accounting major? Apparently. His eyes were slightly glazed, and his brow definitely furrowed. “Your mother wants you to follow in her footsteps?”
I snorted. “My mom’s a bush healer. I’d love to be like that, but I have no talent for it.”
“A bush healer. Your mother is a bush healer?” He said the words slowly, apparently deeply confused. Crap. What if my mom had lied about her career when she’d met him at a bar somewhere and lured him home with her wiles and possibly underhanded drugging? I hadn’t learned my drugging skills from books. I just got her talking when I needed something that would knock out Percy with a certain kind of delivery, and she’d go into it like she was pro.
“I don’t mean literal bushes, just informal learning bushes. As in, she’s a professional healer, but her education wasn’t conventional.”
He shook his head slightly and pulled me into a dance that, between the dress and his excellent guidance, I had no trouble navigating. It helped that he kept it incredibly simple compared to the other couples whirling around the floor.
We were silent for a few seconds, but it was too awkward to be dancing with my father without talking. “What do you do for a living?” Could I ask that? ‘I run half of the world,’ was the gist of it, but I didn’t really know what that meant.
“I worked at a medical clinic when I met your mother,” he said absently, gazing off into space as we rotated smoothly.
“Oh. Did she drug your drink?” I definitely shouldn’t have said that. The dress was super disappointed with me and wanted to wilt in shame, or maybe that was me. This dress was giving me a complex.
“She did not. She brought flowers to the children’s ward.”
“Oh. That’s sweet. Yeah, she’s always loved children and animals. So, she was a flower delivery girl. That sounds like a good gig for her. Too bad she couldn’t do that now.”
“I’m mystified why your mother couldn’t deliver flowers at any time in her life.”
“She can’t remember much. In fact, she barely remembers me when it’s really bad, so delivering flowers, having to deal with new places and new people all the time would be really disorienting for her. Maybe she’d get worse.”
“That explains it,” he said with a slight nod. “Pity. Flower delivering could have been a great career for her.”
“I agree, except the pay couldn’t be great, and probably no benefits, so that’s why I’m aiming at something practical, like accounting, where I can have regular hours and money to keep someone around who can watch my mom when she starts getting worse.”
“Is she getting worse?”
“Not exactly, but Earl says that it’s inevitable. Advanced age always brings a more tenuous grasp on reality.”
“Earl is your step-father.” Aha. He didn’t know everything.
“No, he’s the healer mom works with. She’s not interested in men like Earl personally.”
“She dislikes healers?”
“No, it’s her superficial streak. She’s incredibly down to earth about everything except how handsome a man is that she’ll date, and all the pretty boys she likes aren’t interested in her. She’s, um, badly scarred, so I’m sure that you understand.”
“Not remotely, but I’ve never had a daughter before, so I imagine there must be a period of adjustment before things become more comprehendible. Do you have the same streak as your mother, or do you like Percival Marigold for something other than his good looks?”
The dance ended, and I was standing there, kind of bowled over by the sudden sharpness in his voice as well as the cutting words that put me back up on the precipice of life in a dungeon or servitude. Had I offered to be his janitor for the rest of my life if he turned me back from stone?
“There you are,” Percy drawled from directly behind me. “I see that you found your father.”
I shivered and pulled away from the man with red hair who hadn’t seemed threatening until suddenly his very mildness became a threat. Had I said anything that he could use as a weapon against me? I shouldn’t have said anything at all, because the dress was right, but I was too stupid to keep my mouth shut and had so quickly forgotten that this was the man who had impregnated a woman when he knew that their child would turn to stone.
I leaned back against Percy and his arm came around my waist as he pulled me protectively closer.
My father gave Percy a cold glare. “You will dance two dances with Gabriela then return to the hotel for the night without discussing her background or your history with anyone here. Understood?”
