Look at the pretty banner mrsjbehr made for this story! I didn’t even ask her to and look at how wonderful a job her kindness had brought about.
This next chapter, in thanks, appreciation, gratitude, and all that good jazz is dedicated to…who else?
mrsjbehr!
* applauds *
And now….on with the story!
~~~
Blood Will Tell
Chapter 5
~~~
Jeffrey Parker woke up that morning with a throbbing in his spirit, a sort of melancholy wistfulness that he hadn’t experienced in years. Instantly on alert, it took him a moment to determine there wasn’t anything demon-y or spirit-like in the room…that in fact it was simply his subconscious letting him know what was so important about today and tonight in particular. Relaxing slightly, he slipped the large hunting knife back in its sheath on the edge of the mattress near the wall, and paused to take in the sounds of his home.
A few bedrooms away he could hear the spray of the shower going and a smile crept across his craggy face.
Liz is up early, he chuckled silently.
Still, he stayed alert, senses attuned to everything around him.
A familiar warm body curled next to his on the bed and Jeff looked down at his wife of over twenty-eight years. The years and the rough circumstances that had marked their first decade together and that insidious Three had etched themselves in that fair skin Jeff loved. The golden hair that had captured his attention wasn’t as shiny as it once had been, having darkened instead of lightened in the years spent in Roswell, but despite it all she still had the ability to make his heart stop beating with just a smile or word.
And she doesn’t even know what she does to him, the stinker, Jeff smiled as he gently traced the curve of her jaw. She only twitched in her sleep, but smiled, even in sleep recognizing her husband’s touch.
“Nancy…” he whispered in a voice roughened by sleep and unwillingly, she started to wake to see what he wanted.
“Hmmm?”
“Nancy…Liz is awake, already. You slept in.”
“Uhm…wha-? What?”
Nancy shot upward, wide-awake now, and Jeff’s reflexes just barely saved his chin from being smacked as she jerked.
Hair sticking all around her face, some of it poofing as it pulled away from the little elastic band she’d gathered it all in the night before, and little red lines from the pillow crisscrossing one side of her face made her the most beautiful and favorite sights Jeff had ever seen.
Nancy blinked and looked at the clock on the nightstand, and as her face puckered in a pout their daughter had learned and utilized well, she wailed, “Jeff why didn’t you wake me sooner!”
Dashing out of bed, and hastily stripping out of the baggy men’s lounge sleep pants and extra large t-shirt she wore as pajamas, she charged the personal bathroom like a madwoman.
Flipping onto his back in the middle of the bed, with arms crossed behind his head and long legs stretched out before him, Jeff listened with amusement his wife’s irritated commentary through the partially opened bathroom door.
“You can sit there all smug like all you want…
you didn’t make plans to make your daughter a large breakfast for her last day of school…
I did! And I wanted to get it ready before she was up but did my husband wake me up so I could surprise our daughter? Noooo…Oohh,” Nancy growled the last in frustration.
It was the fastest shower Jeff remembered her ever taking, not even five minutes, and he made sure any signs of his smile or other mirth was careful blanked away as the little blond tornado sending droplets of water all over the place came bursting out in a towel that barely covered her.
Not that Jeff was complaining.
His eyes followed hers; hunger and amusement warring for dominance, as the towel went flying off the still wet and mumbling figure that grabbed the first articles of clothing she came across. A pair of lacy red low rise bikini bottoms and their matching bra set that did nothing whatsoever to hide what was underneath went on first; Jeff’s right eyebrow raised upwards, completely alert now if he wasn’t.
He also tried not to laugh, because he was sure that Nancy in her haste, didn’t realize she had grabbed her under things from the lingerie drawer and not her ‘bland’ under clothes drawer she wore on normal days.
Whirling slightly Nancy grabbed the first pair of pants off the pile of clothes on the dresser waiting to be put away; they happened to be a pair of Jeff’s red flannel pajama bottoms that she tightened but they still rested low enough he could see the edges of her lacy underwear peeking through.
What time does Liz have to leave? Jeff wondered, doing nothing to hide the wicked gleam in his eye, or the pleased smile curving his lips as he watched his wife toss a black tank top on top of her pile and quickly dash around to the little vanity off the side to grab a scrunchie and whip her still wet hair in a messy bun.
“Love ya, gotta go!” and Nancy was out the door in a spray of water.
“Love you too!” Jeff grinned, then sighed, knowing he was going to be taking a cold shower this morning.
As he turned on the spray, he wondered if he could wait long enough for his little girl to take off for school before ravishing his wife.
~~~
A much calmer Jeff emerged from his shower some twenty minutes later, shaved, dressed, and smelling of the cologne Nancy had bought him that he wore only for special occasions. The day his daughter graduated was certainly one of those special occasions, and if it was also the same cologne that Nancy had admitted to driving her wild whenever he wore it, then, well who was he to protest whatever his wife might do to him?
“Hello, my most beautiful of beautiful ladies,” he called out to them in greeting.
“Hey, Dad!” Liz looked up at him from her place behind a mountain of food, a sweet smile upon her lips, not the partial quirk of the mouth she’d been giving them the past couple of years, and it warmed Jeff’s heart. His little girl was making a comeback from whatever abyss she’d slipped into slowly but surely.
“Hey, Honeybear,” his mother’s favorite nickname for her came out of Jeff’s mouth easily, and he could have winced, but Liz didn’t seem to mind. In fact, her smile got bigger, and she left her plate of Nancy’s good cooking to come give him a full two-armed hug.
She hadn’t hugged him like that since she was ten and informed him that since she was now developing her breasts due to an increase in hormones signaling the onset of puberty that she would hug him from the side with one arm as was appropriate. She’d then went on to explain that she was tender in that particular area and that this was the first step toward womanhood. It had been one of those moments where he had kind of blanked out with a glazed look, and Nancy had had to hold back her laughter at him.
“Thought this wasn’t appropriate,” Jeff couldn’t help but tease and laughed at the telltale blush that spread across her delicate heart shaped face.
“Da-ad!” she whined, affecting a pout similar to her mother and also reminded him of someone else. His breath hitched in his chest while his heart ached.
“Oh, don’t listen to your father, he’s still mad that you didn’t join the girl’s basketball team and ruined his dreams of raising a future WNBA star,” Nancy smiled, finishing making breakfast, knowing how much Jeff loved to eat.
“Hey, now!” Jeff protested, releasing his daughter with a wink and grabbing a mug by the counter. “That was a great dream.”
“Yeah…until she decided to follow in her mother and grandmother’s scientific footsteps,” Nancy beamed proudly, pouring Jeff some coffee and handing him the sugar bowl and a spoon.
“Or could it have beeen the incredible height disadvantage to your vertically challenged daughter?” Liz interjected, grinning.
“That’s not an excuse…look at the Valenti boy. He’s hideously short for a guy and yet he made Varsity captain when he was a freshman
and held it through the remaining years.”
“Dad! Kyle is not hideously short!”
“Then what do you call his lack of manliness?”
“Jeffrey Adam! Height has nothing to do with manliness and you know it!”
“It has everything to do with manliness…the poor kid’s going to be picked on for the rest of his life because he’s a runt.”
“Oh…don’t tell the Sheriff that,” Liz giggled. “I’d hate for Mom and I to have to bail you out. It might take an exceptionally long time to process through.”
“That’s right…those things take time,” Nancy nodded, agreeing. “It’d take a lot of skill and careful negotiation.”
“Not to mention butt-kissing.”
“Yes, can’t forget the butt-kissing.”
“There will be no butt-kissing of any Valenti male by my girls!” Jeff growled, eyes narrowing.
“What do you think Mom…a month of free meals at the Crashdown?” Liz went on, purposefully ignoring her father while Nancy winked at her.
“A month, hell no!” Jeff winced. He could just imagine those two bachelors eating them out of business within the first two
days. “What did I do in a past life to deserve this?” Jeff mock sighed, affecting being highly put upon.
Today was a lazy day of sorts, he wasn’t going to open the Café until about noon and even then they would be closing at about four, so he took his time to enjoy his family.
Family.
Jeff’s eyes turned sorrowful for a moment, then glinted hard, and he hid his expression from the two most important people in his life, who were talking and laughing at some female joke. It did his heart good to see that. Guilt had wracked Nancy so hard, when she found out she was pregnant with Liz, and all the contributing circumstances that when she was born it took Nancy a while to try and connect with her new daughter.
Jeff had taken one look at those newborn dark eyes –
Winchester eyes, a voice whispered in his mind – and he couldn’t hate her anymore than he could kill his brother. It had been difficult for Nancy to get over her guilt, and her relationship with Liz had suffered, as she constantly reminded Nancy of a truly painful time and bad decision. So Jeff had made his peace with the daughter of his brother and accepted her as his own, and tried to make up for Nancy’s lack during those intervening years.
“Never had a female Winchester before,” he had surmised that day, knowing it was truth. All the female Winchesters had married
into the family, and each and every one of them were exceptional in their strength and determination. But none had been born of the Winchester line.
Nancy’s one condition was that Jeff never, ever teach their daughter to Hunt. And Jeff had acceded to her wishes, but he couldn’t leave it completely alone either. For he knew exactly what was out there, and he couldn’t ignore a lifetime of instruction, or bear the thought of Liz getting hurt because he didn’t prepare her.
So he took his daughter on camping trips and taught her the basics of survival and self-defense. Nothing that would make her Jackie Chan or Annie Oakley, but enough to keep her alive until he or other help could arrive. It helped that at a young age, Liz’s little scientific mind had kicked into overdrive, and those trips were made to collect various ‘specimens’, whether it was dirt, rock, twigs, or any and all things slimy, scaly, or creepy crawly.
So it had been with an aching heart that Jeff watched his little girl grow up, eventually pulling away even from him, and Nancy had had to restrain him when she first went out on an actual date. The fact that it was Valenti’s boy did nothing to assuage the overprotective instincts, as the Hunter in him screamed to keep his little girl safe.
He almost did go off when he found out that the Valenti boy had dared to kiss
his little girl…two days prior to The Date! In the Eraser Room no less! Jeff knew what went on in the Eraser Room and the fact that his baby girl had been in there…Jeff came close to breaking his promise to Nancy and nearly went on a Hunt just to have something to kill.
But the real clincher that made him like raising a teenage girl even less was the whole fiasco with that Evans boy that was
still going on but not quite to the extent it had. Since the shooting here almost two years ago, he’d watched his bright cheerful little girl turn into a sad, almost war wearied woman and a lot of it he was sure was Evans’ fault.
He wasn’t stupid; he could see the influence that he held over the others of that little group as if he were their king. At first Jeff had thought that they had all grouped together for some unsupervised Hunting that they might have stumbled upon, and dragged his little girl down in the process, but he quickly discounted that after discussing the issue with the local Hunter.
So he’d watched as Max Evans and the others stomped on his little girl’s heart and when Alex had died…well, it was like Liz died with him. When he heard the rumor that Liz and Kyle had slept together he’d rushed to the Valenti household to strangle the little bastard within every inch of life for even daring to
think about touching his baby that way. By the time he’d got there, he’d somewhat calmed down, and rational thinking told him that Liz wouldn’t have done that…especially not if he and Nancy had been in the house as they had been that night.
A tense Jim Valenti had answered the door and both fathers cornered an unsuspecting Kyle who not even Buddha could save if Jeffrey Parker let Jeffrey Winchester take over. He wasn’t nicknamed JAWs in his Ranger unit for nothing.
Talking to Kyle only caused more questions and after reassuring both Valenti’s he didn’t harbor any ill will – unless Kyle actually
did sleep with his little girl sometime later without the safety of a marriage ceremony and license – he’d left and started to pay as much attention to what went on as he had on any Hunt.
“Hey, Dad!”
Jeff jerked out of his thoughts and looked at Liz, who was wearing an amused grin to match her mothers. He couldn’t help but see, every now and then, another dark hair and eyed toddler when he saw her.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“I said I’m leaving for school now. Walk me to the alley where Maria’s waiting?”
“Sure thing, Honeybear.”
Smiling, Jeff drained the last of his coffee after shoving the last bite of waffle in his mouth and then followed his little girl out the door, Nancy watching them go with a pleased smile. She hummed as she went about cleaning up the breakfast dishes, contented that they had had a family meal without any interruptions for the first time in years.
~~~
“Where is she?”
Jeff paced an angry swath in his office and just barely restrained himself from rushing out to check every time a door opened. He drummed his fingers against his thigh, and cast an annoyed glance at the phone, the mutinous item in question blatantly defying him by remaining silent.
“Jeff…” Nancy warned, peeking carefully around the corner of the open office. She knew better than to enter without warning. Jeffrey Parker he may be, but he would always have the skills and instincts of Jeffrey Winchester, Army Ranger and Hunter first and foremost.
“Where
is she?” Jeff grit out, looking up at his wife with poorly veiled concern and worry.
It wasn’t that she was late – well not just because of that- but he’d been having some extremely weird dreams. Dreams of his past life as a Hunter, and always nagging at the back of his mind was the thought,
what if this is the day that the Demon finds out about Liz?
“Relax, Jeff, what could possibly get her in broad daylight? Something major bad?” she corrected herself.
“What could possibly get her? Rapists, kidnappers, murderers, drunk or high creatures, and those are only the
human baddies,” Jeff growled. “Not to mention shapeshifters, witches, warlocks…some subspecies of vampire, ghosts, wil’o’the wisps, pixies and other fey…most of those are unhindered by sunlight.”
“Jeff…I think you’re overreacting. It’s only been…”
“An hour! I know, only an hour, but Nan, she usually has already called in by now to say she was detained or something…an hour! And the Mad Hatter is already here with the rest of the Tea Party so where. Is. She?”
“Maybe she found the clock for the White Rabbit,” Nancy folded her arms across her chest, watching as Jeff spun around and crossed the short distance to the largest of the tall cabinets, the one that was always locked.
Opening it, Jeff revealed weaponry and ammunition of all kinds, from shotguns to handguns, knives to bows and arrows, crossbows and bolts, wooden stakes, holy water, rock salt, a machete and an M16, another short sword almost the length of Nancy’s arms, and four Winchester rifles.
“Good Lord, Jeffrey…is that even necessary?” Nancy paled at all the weaponry.
“I’m going to find my little girl and I’m going to be prepared just in case,” Jeff answered without looking over his shoulder, strapping on various deadly weapons that seemed to disappear within pockets, clips, and folds of clothing. There was at least six knives that Nancy saw him pick up from her awkward angle guarding the door, and three…no four handguns he secreted away, plus spare clips of ammo.
“Who do you think you are…Rambo? For goodness sakes, Jeffrey, she’s only been missing an hour and we don’t even know that she’s missing!”
Jeff shut the door and locked it, placing the key on the chain about his neck, the heavy metal coming to rest against the platinum colored pentagram pendant with a blood red ruby centerpiece.
“Who’s missing?”
Jeff did nothing to hide the scowl as Max Evans looked around Nancy Parker to see what was going on.
“None of your business, boy,” some of the old Hunter growled out in warning.
“Jeff,” Nancy hissed, eyes begging.
Max for his part, had to do everything not to flinch back, but the Parkers had said something about ‘she’s missing’ and the only one who they’d get worked up over was Liz. If anything happened to her and he did nothing because he was afraid of her father…he’d never forgive himself.
“Is it Liz?” he forced himself to ask and Jeff’s deepening frown and glare told him everything.
“You’re not looking for her and that’s final.”
Jeff carefully moved his wife aside and brushed by the irritating snip of a boy his daughter had somehow seen something in, and proceeded to walk out toward the door. The rest of the gang was there in the back room to help with some of the decorations and looked startled at Jeff’s thunderous countenance. They’d never seen him this way except when Liz was seriously in trouble.
“Mr. Parker,” Maria began timidly.
Jeff stopped abruptly and told himself to breathe, relax, breathe and pay attention. He’d lasted eighteen years and nine months without giving away himself, so his Hunter could wait just a few moments longer.
“Yes, Maria?” he managed in a tight voice. He couldn’t look at them, or her, now. He wasn’t in enough control and the Evans’ boy continued presence by his side had his Hunter instincts screaming ‘smack’.
“What’s wrong?”
That was from Michael and something in Jeff told him he could trust the surly lad. Reminded him a bit of his own family and he was able to meet the young man’s eyes. He didn’t know what it was about him, but the soldier in him recognized a kindred spirit.
“Liz hasn’t come back yet. I’m going to look for her.”
Watch my home and family?
Yes, sir, I will. A look between two soldiers was what it was and Michael curtly nodded at the unspoken exchange.
“Oh, well, she’s probably with still with Sean,” Maria began and Kyle slapped a hand over her mouth, grimacing. He backed away, taking Maria with him, recognizing the look in the elder Parkers eyes. He’d rather face Hurricane DeLuca than Jeffrey Parker in Overprotective Father Mode any day.
“Sean,” the name was ground out before he spun on his heel and into the diner.
The six left behind in his wake stared after him and Nancy could only shake her head and give a shaky smile towards the younger people who stared at her in askance.
“Jeff’s always been protective over Liz,” she shrugged lamely.
“That’s an understatement,” Michael grunted.
“Hands off!” Maria slapped Kyle’s hand away from her with a glare. If he thought that just because he might be extremely close to becoming her stepbrother that he could do what he just did…well, she’d have to disabuse him of that notion.
“Hey, everybody, what’s going on? I just saw Jeff and whew!” Jesse Ramirez came in the back, looking for where his wife was sure to be.
Six people only shook their heads and Isabel let out gusty sigh.
“Let me just say I am glad I am not Sean or Liz. Definitely not Sean.”
The others couldn’t agree with her more.
Nancy just hoped Jeff didn’t shoot or maim him.
)