“Sorry, but you called megirl, so it seemed fair. I didn’t think it safe to meet anyone driving that car and calling himself my guardian. Who is it, do you know?”
“Yeah, that’s Jax’s adoptive dad. Want to hear the fireworks?” He flicked on his phone just as a pudgy balding man stomped out of the school.
Reuben apparently alerted Roark that he was with her, because his partner climbed back in the van, out of the line of fire as Jax confronted his father. Loretta knotted her fingers into fists, hoping she hadn’t caused a whole lot of trouble. She liked Jax, even if he didn’t believe in bubbles.
Reuben put the phone on speaker and let her listen. These guys had mics everywhere.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Damon?” The older man pulled a cigar out of the handkerchief pocket of his coat. “This damned school can’t even find the kid. She needs to be in a place with security. And where the hell is Ariel? She didn’t run off on her own.”
“Lorettaisin a place with security. That’s why you can’t find her.” Jax wasn’t even breathing hard. He snatched the cigar from his father’s hand, flung it on the parking lot, and ground it with his shoe. “Doctor says you have to cut these out. And Ariel did run on her own. She caught a taxi. What did you do to scare her?”
“I didn’t doanything! What the fuck is the matter with you these days? I’m trying to take care of the kid and your sister and you, whether you want to believe it or not. Have I ever done anything to convince you that I’d do otherwise?”
“His bubble is too far away for me to see,” Loretta said with regret. “But it was pretty small when I saw him last time, and he’s using bad words. Is he a bad man?”
“If bubbles are souls, he’s too rich to have one.” Reuben shrugged and sat on the roof’s edge where anyone could see him.
Loretta pondered being rich in money but poor in bubbles as Jax and his father fought.
“To start with, wanting to take Loretta out of a school she loves and put her in one she hates is nottaking careof her in my lexicon. I don’t know what you did to scare Ariel, but transferring Loretta’s funds to the Caymans, then putting them in my name scaresme.”
Reuben whistled. “Jax got more guts than sense.”
Loretta swelled with pride just a little bit that Jax used his guts to protecther.
“I did it to keep all of you safe!” Stockton shouted.
Then without explaining, he stalked off to the long black car.
Very weird. Now that the danger was over, Loretta handed Reuben his phone and headed for the tree. “I want a phone too. You won’t always be around to lend me one.”
“They’re tools of the devil, kid. You’ll have to ask Jax.” He climbed over the edge first and helped her down.
Jax met her at the bottom of the tree, caught her in his arms, and gave her a big hug. “When the guys sent me that photo of you grimacing into the roof camera, I turned gray. Don’t ever do that again.”
Wiggling a little in happiness that he held her just like a dad should, Loretta glanced dubiously at his buzz cut. “Your hair isn’t long enough to see gray. Are you going bald?”
“I am not bald, unless you cause me to lose my graying hairs. Now promise me next time that you’ll talk to a teacher instead of running off! They’ve all been told to watch out for you.” He hugged her again and set her back down.
“Then they should have called Evie before they called me out of the classroom.” Loretta looked at him accusingly. “We need phones.”
To her absolute and utter amazement, Jax gestured at Reuben. “See that they get phones or I’ll be both baldandgray.”
Then taking her hand, Jax dragged her back toward school. “No cookies for you when you get home. When I tell Evie what you did, she’s likely to rope you to a post.”
Loretta almost skipped beside him. It was almost like having parents again.
Twenty-two
“Why areyou letting them dig up the lake?” a male voice roared into Evie’s ear.
She scratched Psy’s head, held out the shop’s old-fashioned phone receiver so she could contemplate it, and tried to recall the name behind the voice. It took a moment, but high school eventually returned to her. “Toby? After all these years, you finally call to yell at me?”
“The cops are digging up the lake! That’s a delicate ecosystem out there! You have to stop them. That’s the last place gopher frogs have been seen this far west of the coast. They’re endangered!”
“Well, thepondand all of Witch Hill are endangered if your father has his way. Go yell at him. I can’t stop the cops.” Evie spun on the counter stool and admired the rainbows of light dancing on the walls through the crystals she’d hung on the front window. She had to unwind the other way to prevent running out of cord. “Or call the governor and have him stop them, although I don’t recommend it. I just laid a pair of ghosts to rest out there, and they’re likely to come back and haunt me if their bodies aren’t found.”
“Just get your family over there protesting in all their craziness. I’ll call journalists. Let me know when you’re—”