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FOUR
Her hands instantly flew to her mouth in horror. Hadn’t she learned from the last time she blurted out Cash’s name in this exact spot?
Jackson’s expression hardened instantly.
“You know my father?” he asked, and it wasn’t hard to detect the confusion and disdain in his voice.
“Um…”
Beside them, Parker muttered a curse before awkwardly laughing. “Small world, right?”
Neither paid her any attention.
He continued to stare at her until some sort of realization hit and he reeled back as if repulsed. “You’re the one who’s here with him! You’re…you’re…” He stumbled back several feet, clearly wanting to put some distance between them. “Are you my…I mean…are we…”
“No!”she cried loudly and you could have heard a pin drop. “We are not related. I swear. Cash isnotmy father.”
“Oh thank God,” Parker whispered. Someone walked in and inquired about spa services and she smiled sweetly at them and said, “Can you just give me one minute?” Then she turned to Savannah and Jackson. “Okay, it is obvious that a discussion needs to be had, but not right here. Why don’t the two of you go up to my office?”
Right now, Savannah wasn’t so sure that was the right thing to do, but she’d take her cue from him.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” he muttered and walked to where Parker instructed and jogged up the stairs without giving either of them a second look.
“He’s really a good guy,” Parker softly told her. “But this is just a weird situation.”
All she could do was nod because no one seemed to take into consideration how awkward and weird it was for her too. This wasn’t only about the Coleman family, for crying out loud.
This was why she had been begging Cash to reach out to them—so this would be handled in one massively uncomfortable moment rather than the multiple ones she kept finding herself in.
“I should have stayed in Seattle…”
Parker walked away to chat with her potential client and with no other choice, Savannah slowly made her way up the stairs.
Jackson was pacing and she knew the massage he just had was pretty pointless now. The tension radiating off of him was palpable. He paused when he spotted her, and the look of utter disgust almost made her turn and flee.
This wasn’t her fight, but Cash was her friend and the closest thing to family she had left. So for now, she’d run interference and try to figure out what to do next.
“Where is he?” Jackson asked tensely.
“We’ve rented a bungalow here in town. The trip across the country took a lot out of him and I think he needed a little time to recover before reaching out to anyone,” she quietly responded and wondered if she should sit or stand.
He continued to pace, both hands raking through his short, cropped hair. He was mumbling and she could only catch a few random words.
Unbelievable.
Bastard.
And several colorful words that made her blush.
As much as she wanted to defend Cash, she understood why his son was so angry. “Can we maybe just sit and…you know…talk?” she cautiously asked.
Without a word, he walked over and sat in the chair behind Parker’s desk.
Okay, that’s bold…
With no other choice, she sat in one of the chairs facing him and they sort of stared each other down until she was the one to break the silence.
“What are you doing here in Laurel Bay? We thought you were still deployed.”
