Page 68 of Sheltering You

“It’s still not my place to tell her story. Put her on the phone.” Michael tagged on a “please,” but it wasn’t a request.

“Fine.” Derrick turned and headed back to the house, still angry but also…worried. “I’m sorry I said all those things.” He ground out his apology, knowing he owed it, even if he didn’t feel it. “I shouldn’t have, and⁠—”

“Why are you sorry?” Michael sounded genuinely confused. “You have every right to be ticked. I did what I had to do, but if I were you, I’d want to punch me. Not that you should try it, ’cause, you know, I’d throttle you.”

“You wish.” Derrick tried to match his brother’s joking tone. “I didn’t mean what I said, you know, about the secrets. I was just…” What? What was he? Hurt, but he wasn’t going to say that. “Are we good?”

“I’m good if you are.”

“I…will be. I’m just… I’ll get there.”

“Fair enough,” Michael said.

Just like that, it was over.

Huh.

Derrick returned to the house, where Jasmine stood in the living room, waiting for him. Rabie wasn’t in sight.

“I asked him to play in the bedroom for a few minutes,” Jasmine said.

“Good.” Derrick held out the phone. “You should probably go into the kitchen.”

She took the handset and walked away, perhaps hoping for privacy.

But Derrick wasn’t going to make it easy for her to keep secrets. He’d had enough of those, both from his brothers and from the woman he loved.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“What do you know about Dari Ghazi?” Michael asked.

Jasmine stopped near the window beside the kitchen table and gazed at the deep forest, feeling more isolated than she had since she’d escaped Iraq. She hadn’t realized how much Derrick’s friendship meant to her until it was gone. Yes, she had Leila and Michael, but they had each other. She was back to being barely a shadow.

This was not the time for such dreary thoughts. “I only met Dari once. He is polite and charming on the surface, but there is something about him that is like a tiger, you know? Like he is…stalking?”

“Predatory?”

“This is a good word. But also sneaky. I think, even if Basma had not told me about him, he would have made my skin crawl.”

“What’d she tell you?”

“When she was a child, he used to frighten her. She said he was always kind when people were around, always well-behaved. But when nobody was watching, he found pleasure in scaring her. He did not hurt her or even touch her. But she said his presence was…like a monster? I cannot think of a good word for it.”

“Menacing?”

“I do not know.”

“It sort of means threatening, but maybe a little more dangerous, a little more hidden. Not that I’m Noah Webster, so⁠—”

“Who is this Noah Webster? This is somebody I should know?”

He chuckled. “Nobody. Never mind. So Basma told you he was like that, and when you met him, you could see it?”

“Not see, but feel.” Maybe Michael would think she was crazy, but she was only trying to be honest. “This makes sense to you?”

“I get that. Can you describe what he looked like?”

“It has been many years. I think he was not as tall as you and your brothers. His hair is curly. It was short then, and he had a beard. Brown eyes and thick eyebrows. He was not handsome and not ugly. He had the kind of face nobody would notice, you see?”