I wouldn’t say that Reggie Forester liked me. He sure didn’t hate me, but I doubted I would be one of the people he would send a Christmas card to, or allow to date his daughter.

That was that then, I guess. I was that guy. The one who had a girlfriend. She had never called me her boyfriend, and I had never called her my girlfriend, but we were exclusive. Oh yeah. We were definitely exclusive. No man was coming within a five-foot radius of her if I had anything to say about it.

Especially not Henry Neal.

You know what. I wish he would. I wish he would try and come near Dana again. I wish he would try and intimidate her. That would be twenty-five to life for me, no question. He could touch her if he wanted. As long as he was okay with consequently losing whatever part of his body made contact with her.

The Superbird was now in the shop where I was reworking the interior and doing the paint, so Reggie wasn’t out front to see me roll up on a Harley with his daughter on the back seat. Why was I so nervous? I had been here dozens of times. It wasn’t like this was going to be news to him. He had seen us together; shit he had probably even heard us fucking the last time.

That wasn’t even what we were there to talk about. The issue at hand was his daughter’s safety. Safety from Henry. That was the person she had to look out for. Yeah… that guy.

Why did I sound like I was trying to convince myself? I felt Dana’s hand touch mine and laced our fingers together—practically a reflex. I looked down at her.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

About how much I don’t deserve you and how your father will disapprove of us being together. About how I’ve never had to impress someone’s dad in the past and now I’m feeling inadequate in ways I’ve never had to think about before. About how gorgeous you are and how much I love you.

“About how much this looks like you’re taking me to your father to receive his approval for us to date,” I said lightly.

“Are you nervous?”

“Nervous? What is that? Is that a type of bread? Never had the experience,” I said. She smiled a little. Fuck, she knew.

“Don’t be nervous. That’s not even what we’re here to do. He’s going to love that I have someone he trusts looking out for me.”

“Who says he trusts me?”

“He lets you touch his old cars,” she said.

I shook my head. “If it weren’t me, it would be any other car guy.”

“Well, then he lets you touch me,” she said flirtatiously. She surprised me sometimes. I leaned down and kissed her, my hand squeezing her ass. Was there a worse image for her dad to see when he opened the door? She rang the bell.

He had been expecting us. Technically he had been expecting her, but he didn’t look upset about seeing me. We talked cars for a couple of minutes while she got us drinks from the fridge. Dana sat on a couch and urged me to sit next to her. She grabbed one of my hands in both of hers and rested them on her lap. Reggie looked at them pointedly before he sat down and started asking Dana how she was. Transitional small talk.

“Daddy, I have to tell you something,” she began, when most of Reggie’s beer was gone.

“Are you two pregnant?”

I froze. Dana was laughing nervously. He hadn’t said it like it was an accusation, but I felt like he was onto me. He was onto me, and I didn’t even have anything to hide.

“No, we aren’t pregnant, Dad.”

She let go of my hand, reaching for a Coke on the coffee table. My hand closed lightly around her thigh. Her knee almost—very innocent. Her dad certainly didn’t miss that. His eyes glanced at me before going to her face again. I didn’t think it was a secret that she and I were together. I didn’t know what she had said to him about me—if anything—but I was nervous. I had kissed her in front of him before, but this was different. For one thing, we were sitting, and he was standing. I felt like he was sizing me up, trying to see how good a mate I would be for his daughter. It wasn’t a pissing contest; we weren’t trying to see who the alpha was, but he definitely wanted to see whether I would measure up. To what, though? I had no frame of reference for this.

“It’s about what happened in LA in the months before I moved here,” she sighed.

“You were living with your mother then, right?”

“I was, but it wasn’t because I couldn’t find a house… I had a house. A great place in downtown LA. I was living with an ex there, and I had to move away because when we broke up, he started to stalk me.”

Reggie was silent. His face didn’t give away what he was feeling either. Stone face. Like a mask.

“Stalk you?”

“After he moved out, he refused to leave me alone. He would keep getting into the apartment, moving my things around, taking my mail, stealing my belongings. One day, he attacked me. Remember when you would call, and I would tell you I was in the hospital?”

That got a reaction.

“Dana did that man… force—”

“No, Dad. He didn’t sexually assault me. He… he emptied a pot of freshly brewed coffee over me. I was in the hospital for weeks getting skin grafts over the second and third-degree burns.”

Reggie started pacing. I had to give it to him for his ability to stay calm. If I were him, I would have broken most of my arm punching the wall. Screaming. Generally scaring Dana to death.

“The next part of this story is that he’s rotting in jail, right?”

“After that, I moved in with Mom and Frank. One night, I woke up, and he was standing over me. I screamed and woke the whole house. He was taken away by the cops, and he got jail time.”

“How much?”

“Not enough because he’s out again.”

“What?”

“I got a box at the house. It was full of pictures of me, all taken here in San Diego. He knows I’m here. He knows where I live.”

“Why is this the first I am hearing about all this Dana?”

“I didn’t know that Mom never told you. When I found out that she didn’t, I got scared. I knew you had to hear it from me, but I didn’t want you to worry about me like that.”

“You didn’t want me to worry about you? Sweetheart, I’m your father. My only job is to worry about you.”

“I thought it was over when he went to jail, and I moved away. I know that was stupid of me to think, but I didn’t want to believe that I was that easy to trace. I didn’t want to believe that he would come after me again. Not after the threats from Mom and Frank.”

“You have to move in with me,” he said.

“One of the pictures was taken outside this house, Dad. He knows this address.”

“She’s staying with me. Her roommate’s also moved away temporarily,” I said to Reggie. He looked at me.

“Did you know about this?”

“I was with her at her house when she received the box.”

He kept looking at me, and I swear to God his eyes narrowed.

“Dana, honey. Go upstairs.”

Dana looked between us.

“I’m not a kid, Dad, you can’t send me to my room.”

“I want to talk to Adam, Dana,” he said.

“It’ll only be a minute,” I assured her. She kissed me before heading up the stairs. We watched her leave in silence before I spoke. I had to say something. I just hoped I’d say the right thing.

“I care about your daughter, Reggie. I won’t let anything happen to her.”

He looked at me like he was sad.

“Thank you for letting her stay at your house,” he said. “You don’t have any kids, Adam. That’s my little girl. I know you won’t let anything happen to her, but that doesn’t mean I won’t spend the whole night worrying. You know the guy who’s doing this to her?”

“She only told me his name. Henry Neal.”

“Henry Neal… I want to wring his neck,” he said.

“That makes two of us,” I said quietly.

“How old are you Adam? Thirty? Thirty-one?”

That was sudden.

“Thirty-three next year,” I said.

“Dana’s twenty-five.”

Oh shit.

“She is,” I said, agreeing. Seven years. That wasn’t that many. Fuck, it wasn’t that many, was it? I wasn’t going to lie about my age to her dad.

“Her mother and I were younger than she is now when we had her. You know about her stepfather, in Los Angeles?”

“Yeah. She told me her mom remarried.”

He looked at me. We were about the same height, but I probably had some weight on him.

“That’s two fathers you need to impress, Adam. And her mother. Most guys just get one guy mad-dogging them and questioning their intentions with their daughter.”

Oh. My. God. I had only ever seen this sort of shit in movies. He wasn’t, was he? It wasn’t like I was proposing to her. We were just… what? Dating? What the hell was I supposed to say? I had never felt so sleazy in my life. Sure, I was actually the guy who was fucking his daughter but the way he was looking at me, talking to me, made me feel like the guy who was fucking his daughter. Slimy. A dirty mechanic who wanted to defile the pretty blonde from Los Angeles.

“Dana was really lucky growing up, having both of you around,” I said, not knowing what the hell to say to that. It sounded like a threat. She had two fathers to my zero.

“What I am saying Adam, is she has a lot of men who love her. A lot of men who are going to take her side if you put them in a situation where they have to choose—either you or her. Do you understand?”

That one was definitely a threat.

“Reggie… Mr. Forester. I would jump off a bridge before I hurt your daughter. I would get twenty-five to life before I let that guy near her.”

He laughed a little.

“Frank and her mother are going to be a little less accepting of your criminal record. I should warn you.”

Was that approval? What did parental approval sound like? I hadn’t had much experience. And the girl had two more parents on top of Reggie. Growing up in a two-parent household must be exhausting… so many fucking people.

“Don’t do anything stupid. You can’t protect her from prison,” he added.

“When she told me what he did to her, I wanted to kill him. I still want to kill him.”

“You love her. I get it.”

Shit, was it that obvious? Had she told him? There was no use lying. Dana was in trouble. I’d stroke my own ego later. This was serious.

“I do love her. I want to find some way to put Henry behind bars. For a long time.”

“Stalking charges aren’t that heavy.”

“He doesn’t need to get charged with stalking; he just needs to get charged with something. There are much heavier sentences out there. He just needs to get caught for one.”

“Don’t get my daughter involved in criminal activity, Adam.”

“I won’t. I’m not trying to get locked up again.”

“Then what do you have in mind?”

I looked at him. Shit. Anything for his daughter, huh? I didn’t know whether that was crazy or admirable.

“I might know some guys who can help.”