“When I asked you to lunch, I intended to take you to Per Se or somewhere nicer than this.” Douglas’s blue eyes rolled toward the hospital ceiling. He bit off a healthy chunk of roll.

“What’s wrong with this?” Larkin patted the white sheet covering his legs. “We have white linens, and the most important things.” She leaned forward and placed the opened packet of applesauce on the tray between them. It smelled like medicine, not fruit. No doubt, she should’ve ordered in their lunch. “You and me.”

His gaze cast down toward his belly, but he wasn’t looking at the hospital gown or the drain tubes poking from it. He was a thousand miles and a million years away.

“I said me and you,” she dragged out the conjunction.

He blinked her into view and swallowed his roll.

“Where were you?”

Douglas huffed. He looked older than his fifty-eight years. Once, he’d told her it wasn’t the age but the mileage. He gained a hefty chunk of miles a few short days ago.

“Before your mother died, she contacted me.”

Larkin set down her spoon.

“I thought she was being melancholy. Selfishly, I hoped she’d regretted the decisions she’d made.”

A hundred questions swarmed her like angry bees. She clamped her lips shut and listened.

“We grew up together, your mother and me. On the wrong side of town, on the wrong side of the tracks. She and her mother lived in a one-room apartment above my family’s one-room apartment. My mother, father, three siblings, and me.” He grabbed the tray and slowly shoved it to the side.

Her palms itched to help him, but she had a feeling it would hurt him more than shifting the rolling buffet would.

“You could hear everything. Above. Below. To the left and right. We were loud and boisterous, but at our core was love and a yearning for better things. Her mother ...” Douglas drew a deep breath. “Cruel fit the woman too well. She beat Gwen with sharp words at first, but later, she and her many boyfriends used their fists.” He wiped at a tear that’d collected in the corner of an eye.

Larkin imagined a dingy apartment with faces like Lucas’s staring angrily at her mother. For the first time in a long time, a pang of sympathy struck her between the boobs. She’d been a woman when dealing with Lucas. Her mother had been a girl, alone and betrayed by her own blood.

“I did well in school. Had a full ride to Columbia. Your mom didn’t do too well. How could she? I tried to get her to come with me. It would have been another tiny apartment, and it would have been full of love, but she wanted out. After high school, she used one of her mom’s old boyfriends as a stepping-stone to a wealthier one.”

“And somehow, she ended up with my dad.” She could see the probable chain of possession in her mind. Any of them could be her father. The thought knotted her stomach, slamming it against her spine.

Douglas nodded. “I was glad she got out. Glad she found a man who treated her with respect. My life went a different route, and I left the past where it belonged until my mother’s funeral. I made my way to Brooklyn from Marrakesh and was floored to see Gwen.” His eyes closed. “Everyone wore black, and she strutted into the church in a violet number that wrapped around her body. She’d always been beautiful, but for a man who’d seen dusty desert for five years to see the woman he loved in that rich purple.” He placed his hand over his heart. “When she asked me up for a drink, I didn’t question anything. Not the state of her relationship. Not about birth control. Nothing.”

Larkin’s heart slowed. “When was the funeral?”

“Thirty years ago.” He stared at her, a smile curved his lips. “It was wrong. She was married, but I wouldn’t have changed it. Not then. Not now. Not ever.” His hand wrapped around hers.

“She refused my calls. Didn’t return my letters. So after six months, I let her go again. I would change that if I could. If I’d known …”

“You didn’t know?” Tears filled her eyes. Sad ones. Happy ones too.

“Gwen called me the day before she took her life. I’d retired from the CIA. Contrary to popular belief, you can retire without being whacked. She begged me to take this job. ‘Drive my daughter around. Keep her safe. You can do it better than anyone else. I need you, Doug.’ I didn’t know how old you were until after her funeral.” He sighed. “Then it was too late for me to confront her. You were your father’s daughter. You’d just lost your mother. I wasn’t about to take him away from you too. So I protected you just as she’d asked me to until Lucas Backstrom.” His head hung low.

“Hey.” Larkin grabbed his hand with both of hers. “He tricked us all. And he had help.”

“It was my job to sniff him out. It was my job to keep you safe.” He buried his face in his hands.

“Look at me,” Larkin ordered. “I’m not going to waste a minute more on Lucas or Tarin—until her court date. I’m not going to piss my precious time away with the people I love worrying about things we can’t change. Do you hear me?”

She held his brittle fingers and cried and laughed.

“I’m here. I’m safe and alive because of you and me and Beckett. I’m here with my dad.”

His laugh, as full and rich as she’d ever heard it, surrounded her. It wrapped around her and pulled her in close. “I love you, Larkin.”

“I love you, Dad.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but if you cause my patient distre—” The nurse stopped halfway into the room. “Oh, sorry.” She slowly backed out.

Larkin straightened and squeezed her dad’s shoulders. “So you want to help me and Beckett?”

“Beckett, huh?” His wet eyes waggled with mischief.

Her grin was too wide.

“Wow. That’s a new look.”

“It’s a new feeling too.”

“You know … ah.” Douglas—her dad—reclined onto the bed, covering his side with his hand.

She schooled her features, careful not to show too much concern. He was on the mend, and she knew there would be pain, but he’d already shown such progress in just a few days. “I know …”

“I was loopy and close to passing out, but I saw the way he moved. I don’t know exactly what he is, but I have an idea. There’s not going to be anything easy about a relationship with him.”

“Dou—Dad.” She winked. “I know what he is. Better than that, I know who he is. It’s not going to be easy, but when it comes to men, I’ve had easy. I’m ready for a challenge.”

“I read your speech in the paper. Now, Beckett.” He cupped her cheek and smiled. “You’ve gone and grown up before my eyes.”

“It was bound to happen.” Larkin held his hand to her face until he let it fall away.

“What do you lovebirds need my help with?” He gestured to the hospital bed.

“The doctor plans to release you tomorrow. We need your brain, not your brawn to catch a bad guy.”

Her dad’s gaze narrowed to an angry slit. “Another one?”

“Bronson Beauregard.”

“I knew that kid was bad news,” he growled.

“Could’ve told me.” She smacked his foot, knowing it wouldn’t hurt through the sheets.

“Pfft, you wouldn’t have listened.”

“True.” Larkin rolled her eyes at herself.

A knock sounded on the door. Douglas’s gaze slid to the nightstand beside his bed instead of the door.

“Don’t tell me you have a gun in there,” she whisper-screamed.

“Okay, I won’t tell you Beckett put my gun in there.”

“You two.” Her heart pounded. They were going to be the end of her. She shifted toward the door. “Come in.”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

“Room service.” Beckett opened the door with a sack in one hand and a tray of drinks in the other.

“Hot damn.” Douglas clapped his hands and waved the man she loved inside. “Tell me about Beauregard and what you need from me. Oh, and give me one of whatever’s in that bag. It smells like real food.”

“Yes, sir.” Beckett strolled in, closing the door firmly behind him. He planted a kiss square on Larkin’s lips, handed Douglas the bag, dragged a chair close to the bed and sat with a smile on his face and a devilish glint in his eyes.