Dominik (Arizona Vengeance 6)

Connecting the call, I put the phone up to my ear and tentatively, with no small amount of fear in my tone, answer, “Hello?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Dax asks, sounding confused.

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? Calling me twice in a row like that? Something’s wrong, right? Mom? Dad? You? Regan?”

“We’re all fine,” he replies a bit stiffly. “Outside of playing like shit the day before yesterday in the first game.”

“Yeah… I read about it,” I commiserate. I’ve been wondering how Dominik is taking it but of course, I’m too proud to reach out and ask.

“Listen,” Dax says with enough hesitation that I go on high alert. “I have a few people on the phone with me.”

“Is everyone all right?” I screech, unable to control my fear that someone in my family is dead and the rest are on the line for moral support.

“We’re fine,” he insists again. “I swear. But I do have Mom and Dad on the phone, and well… Dominik, too.”

The mention of Dominik’s name causes me to go numb. Because, for the life of me, I can’t imagine in a million years why he’d be on a phone call with Dax, my parents, and me.

“We’re worried about you, honey.” It’s my mom’s voice, and I sag onto the bed.

“Worried?” I mumble. What in the hell had Dominik told them about our relationship?

“About the danger level of your job,” my dad pipes up, and the numbness disappears at the hard tone of his voice. “You were fucking injured by a grenade, Willow. How could you keep that from us?”

I’m stunned into immobility again because my dad just dropped the “F” bomb. Never in my twenty-seven years have I heard him do so, and it’s as shocking as when I actually had gotten shrapnel from a grenade blast.

“I take great precautions—”

“You were hit with a grenade,” my dad snarls. “Had I known that, you can be rest assured you would be in another line of work—”

“I’m an adult,” I snap. My voice carries all the ice I feel inside over them treating me like a child. “You have no say in what I do.”

“I have the right to express my concerns,” my dad thunders, and I wince. “Do you think I want you coming home in a body bag?”

“Of course you don’t,” I soothe conciliatorily, but then something strikes me. “Wait a minute… how did you know I’d been injured?”

And before anyone can tell me, it hits me like a sack of bricks falling right on top of my head. I snarl my fury into the line as I understand why he’s on the phone. “Dominik… you asshole. What did you do? Run off to my family and tell them so you could… what? Have me dragged back and put in my place like a good little girl?”

“You never said it was a secret,” he growls right back at me. “And I didn’t run off to tell them. It came up in conversation with your brother and I assumed he already knew about it. Don’t get mad at me when you’re the one keeping secrets from the people who love you.”

I get no time to respond to Dominik, which I’m actually glad about. He’s sort of right. I never told him it was a secret.

My mom speaks again, ever the peacekeeper in any given situation. She also has backbone, which I admire. “Honey… I was not in favor of calling you like this. I said it would be better to discuss this when you returned home. However, the men in this family seem to think they can convince you to get on a plane right now and return home. I know you better than that, so I’m just going to ask you to give our worries some thought. We want you to be happy and in a career you enjoy, but please respect now that we’re aware of exactly how dangerous your work is, we’re frankly terrified.”

God, that makes me feel like shit. It’s the exact reason I kept this from them.

But I love my family, and I don’t want them to suffer. Most of this intervention is probably fear of the unknown, and I need to give some assurances. “As it stands, I’m flying out in the morning. I promise we can talk when I get home.”

“Okay,” my mom replies with a gusting breath of relief. “We love you so much.”

“I love you all, too,” I murmur, and then trying to add some levity into the situation, I turn to tease my father. “And next time, Dad, maybe leave the “F” bombs out of it. You about gave me a heart attack.”

“Now you know how I feel,” he replies sadly, and I grimace. I’d walked straight into that one. “But I love you, Willow, and we can talk about this when you get home.”