Damn, my skills were slipping.
I sighed and walked over to sit beside him.
He watched me carefully, his eyes narrowed and his hands wrapped tightly around his coffee mug.
“Good morning, Mr. Joppa.”
“Coffee?” he offered.
I nodded. “Thank you.”
Mr. Joppa stood and grabbed a mug from the cabinet above the stove, filling it to the brim. He set it down in front of me. “Black, right?”
“Always.” I tried to smile although I knew he had something to say that I wouldn’t like.
“What are you doing here, Zane?” he asked.
His question was obvious, but I didn’t have an answer. “Alicia and I fell asleep last night,” I said stupidly. “I’m sorry, sir. We didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Which part? Falling asleep, or being in the bedroom to begin with?”
“Falling asleep,” I answered honestly.
“That’s great,” he said with a small chuckle. “She’s not even back a week and you already have your hooks in her.”
“That’s not—”
“Listen,” he interrupted. He leaned forward and fixed his angry eyes on my face. “You don’t know what you did to her when you left. You have no idea how badly she was hurt. It’s not right for you to just swoop back in and—”
“I know about Lizzy,” I said suddenly.
Mr. Joppa’s expression changed from angry to surprised, and then back to angry. “She told you?”
“Yes. And I met Lizzy yesterday. At Allie’s. Then we came back here to put her to bed and talk about things.”
“I see.” Mr. Joppa sat back in his chair and took a long sip of coffee. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew she would tell you eventually.”
“I’m glad she did.”
“What do you plan to do about it?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but no words came out. The truth was, I didn’t exactly know. All I knew was that I loved Alicia and Elizabeth. “I don’t know. We haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“Well, that’s something you should probably figure out.” Mr. Joppa stood from the table and took my untouched cup of coffee, dumping it down the drain. With a meaningful look, he jerked his head toward the back door.
Without another word, I crossed the kitchen. When I glanced back at him, he was busy washing out his own mug. I slipped through the back door, out into the early morning, my head spinning.
CHAPTER 30
Zane
As I walked around the back of the house that afternoon, Mr. Joppa’s words still echoed in my ears. I could still see the look on his face while he’d scrutinized me in the dim kitchen lighting. He didn’t trust me, that much was obvious. But even worse was the fact that he was right.
It was ridiculous that I hadn’t figured out some sort of plan for being in my daughter’s life. How could I have let the night pass without discussing the logistics with Alicia, knowing they would be leaving for New York soon?
How often would they come back to Savage? How many times would Alicia allow me to visit them in the city?
Questions whirled a destructive path through my brain as I stepped into the backyard. I glanced around until I saw Elizabeth running toward me. She threw her arms around my waist and grabbed my hand.