“You didn’t rein her in!”

“I warned you to back off.” Jaw clenched, her father wrenched Dan up close. “You should have listened.”

Margo stood there, waiting to see if the pieces would come together. No one noticed them. They were too involved with their melee.

“I tried getting close to her!” Dan defended. “I thought if we were sleeping together—”

Holding Dan by the front of his now bloody shirt, her father slammed his head into the tile floor, silencing him. “She’s smarter than that.” Going nose to nose with the commander, he snarled, “She is my daughter.”

Beside her, Reese shifted, Logan frowned. Their impatience was palpable, but she was too fascinated to interrupt.

“You don’t even like her,” Dan accused.

He hauled up Dan. “She. Is. My. Daughter!” He rattled Dan like a rag doll. “We have our differences, but you actually think I wanted her dead?”

More uncertain now, Dan ran a forearm over his bloody face. “I figured she’d be scared, not dead. It wasn’t personal. It was just a...a solution.”

“I have another solution,” West said, putting a hand on their father’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him. “You can rot in jail.”

“You aren’t even involved in this,” Dan accused.

“Asshole, she’s my sister,” West said with rank humor. “That makes me involved enough to want a piece of you myself, so don’t push me!”

“All right,” Dan conceded. “I deserved your anger. But you need to calm down now. No one is going to jail.”

Whether it was relief, disbelief, or morbid amusement, Margo couldn’t quite say, but she laughed.

Three faces jerked around. One badly battered. One enraged. Only West seemed to understand how the proverbial shit had just hit the fan.

And damn it, that made her laugh even more.

Frowning, Reese muttered to Logan, “She’s getting hysterical.”

Logan nudged her. “Get a grip, Lieutenant.”

“Right.” Still chuckling, she wiped her eyes. “A grip.”

West narrowed his gaze on her...and saw her bruised cheek. “Jesus, what now?” He started toward her.

Until Logan stopped him with his raised gun. “That’s far enough.”

“What the hell?”

Reese stood next to Logan—both of them defending her.

Doing what, until now, her family hadn’t done.

Grinning, Margo stepped between them. “Looks like you’re complicit, West.” She tsked. “When exactly did you plan to report him?”

Not in the least intimidated, West crossed his arms. “Soon as Dad finished handing his ass to him, actually.”

“Oh, really?”

“What? You thought a few punches would cover it?” He chided her with a shake of his head, saying softly, “No. He’s going down. I’ll see to it.”

“Now that everyone is calmer...” Logan holstered his weapon and stepped forward. “Sorry, Mr. Peterson, but you’ll have to turn him loose.”

“I’ll call it in,” Reese said.

Her father still looked...flummoxed. On his knees, a mitt-sized hand twisted in Dan’s shirt, he held the commander suspended above the floor and stared at her. “You’re here.”

“Alive and well.”

Having trouble taking it in, he visually searched her over, stopping on her bruised cheek. “Another skirmish?”

Refusing to be drawn in by false concern, she smirked. “Call the mayor,” she told Reese. “I have a feeling he’ll want to know about this first thing.”

Dan protested—until her father dropped him hard to the floor.

Like a turbulent thundercloud, her father jabbed a meaty finger toward Dan. “He opened your bathroom window! The fucker even hired that little shit to come to your house and...” He gulped. Hard. And his voice lost some of the rage, the anger replaced by something else, something that choked him. “He was to burn your house down.”

“I didn’t think she’d be there,” Dan protested.

Eyes narrowing, her father turned and kicked him in the chest, knocking him flat again, his rage again taking over. “That is not a fucking excuse!”

Reese stepped up and, wrapping both arms around the thicker, older man, pinned his elbows down and immobilized him. Her father jerked, trying to shrug him off, but it had no discernible effect on Reese, who said calmly, “Bring it down a notch, Mr. Peterson.”

Wow, that impressed Margo. True, Reese was a behemoth, but still. Her father was a bear of a man.

With him contained, she came forward. “That bothers you, Dad? That I might have been cinders?”

He stopped fighting Reese to face her. “What the hell do you think? That I’d want my own daughter hurt? Dead?”

“I have to admit,” West said, “there were a few times I wondered.”

All the fight went out of him. He looked away, his jaw working.

Cautiously, Reese let him go.

He stood there while Logan cuffed Dan. When he finished he said, “You, too, sir.”

Still staring at her, her father paid little attention while Logan caught first one wrist, then the other, to fasten the handcuffs. “Margo?”

She felt remarkably like a little girl again, sitting in the kitchen chair with the obscene sound of the clippers buzzing over her head.

That damned squeezing sensation returned to her throat. “You have disliked me a great deal, Dad.”

“No.” He seemed to realize what Logan had just done and while it disgusted him, he didn’t fight. “I was furious over things you did, but...” His brows came down so heavily he looked ready to attack again. “You actually think I’d want you hurt?”

“I assumed you wouldn’t care.” She’d been hurt—and he’d only criticized her.

He breathed harder. “You think I’d let someone like Dan get away with that?”

“What difference does it make if it’s Dan?”

For the first time that she could ever recall, her father looked defeated. Not enraged, not bullying, not self-righteous or in control. “I would never—”

“Dad, please.” She refused to be drawn in. Before Dash...maybe. But Dash had given her new perspectives and, though she only just now really realized it, new self-worth. “I was ambushed and almost killed in that car wreck, and you acted like it was my fault.”

“I want you to always be careful so shit like that doesn’t happen! I raised you to be alert so you would survive, not so some asshole like Dan could...” He took one heavy step toward her. “Damn it, Margo, what was I supposed to say? Should I have cried over you? Babied you?”

Yes, she wanted to reply, you could have shown an emotion other than disdain. But instead she just shook her head. What could she say? That it would have been nice if he’d cared just a little? No, she wouldn’t.

Her daddy hadn’t raised that kind of woman.

She put up her chin. “What made you think it was Dan?”

At the mention of the other man, his eyes went flinty again. “The prick was forever insulting you, worrying that you’d come back and start investigating again. That you’d find out he was involved.”

That sent her left eyebrow high. “Is that why his wife left him?”

“Yeah. That and he’s a hound for porn. She found out, but he bought her off, gave her whatever she wanted in the divorce to keep her trap shut.”

So respectful of the scorned wife, Margo thought.

West nodded. “It’s true. Dad came to me and said he suspected Dan. I rode along with him to keep everything right and tight, but...” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, shit went south when Dan was so cavalier about it.”

“He expected me to understand,” her dad said with another evil glare for Dan. “He wanted me to cover his ass if anyone questioned him.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Logan said. “It’s all out in the open.”

Reese looked at West. “Unless you have any confessions you’d like to make?”

“Not me, no.” West let his arms drop. “Not about that, anyway. Other stuff but...” He shook his head. “But Margo and I already cleared the air on that. At least, I hope we did.” He watched her, waiting for confirmation.

Margo wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily. “There will be another investigation, and your name will come up.”

Dead serious, he told her, “It’s not a problem.”

Meaning he truly wasn’t involved? God, she hoped that was true.

West waited. “Now, about us?”

She believed him, and relief flooded her system, making her so damned tired. “We’ll work on it.”

That seemed to be the permission he needed and he strode forward, lifting her chin and examining her face. “Are you all right?”

Suspect as it might be, his concern still felt nice. “I’m fine.” Sirens sounded out front.

West put his arm around her. “You ready for this, sis? It’s going to be far uglier than the first investigation.”

“Regrets already?”

“No.” He gave her a one-arm hug. “I just want you to know that this time you won’t be alone. I’m here and I’ll support you any way I can.”

His show of affection got interrupted with a ringing phone. Logan pulled out his cell and, with Dan and her father both cuffed, leaned against the counter to answer. Margo watched him, saw the way he tightened, and blew out an impatient breath.

What now?

As soon as he ended the call Logan strode over to her, took her arm and moved her away from West. “That was Karen Ford.”

“Dan’s ex-wife?”

He nodded. “When Dan denied using his parents’ house, I asked Karen about it. I know they’re divorced, but they still share a social circle. Karen was more than happy to turn him out. She said he’s had multiple parties there, almost every weekend since he got the place. Their friends have talked about it, a few with praise, others saying he’s off the deep end.”