"Anything much." Shelby flung her black hair over her shoulder with a surly twitch. He knew too well how much could be accomplished on a sofa in a couple of hours, and his daughter better not have been doing even half of it.
Julia swept past him. "Where's Patrick?"
Shelby winced, looking guilty for the first time. "He's asleep." She snatched the monitor from the coffee table and held it up in defense. "I kept this on the whole time I wouldn't let anything happen to him."
Julia took the monitor from Shelby, lips tight as if holding back the very accusations Zach longed to hurl at his daughter. A shuddering sigh later, Julia hurried past and down the hall.
John ambled forward, baggy clothes rippling with each step. "Sir, this is my fault. I shouldn't have been here."
"That's right. You shouldn't." Zach kept his voice level a near-impossible task, reminding himself John was just a kid.
A kid who'd had his hands all over Shelby a few short minutes ago.
The red haze threatened to blaze over him again. "It's time for you to leave. No detours, I'll call your house to make sure someone's up waiting."
"I'm not going until I'm sure Shelby's okay."
Restraint edged further away. "Want to run that by me again, boy?"
"I'm not leaving yet."
He might have admired the kid's courage, if it weren't so damned stupid given the circumstances. "Keep this up and I can guarantee your father will be volunteering for an assignment in Nairobi." Zach stepped toe-to-toe with the kid and allowed the quiet heat of his anger to seep into his words. He wanted this boy scared and running. "Good luck finding a girl to sweet-talk into falling asleep with you there when everyone's speaking Swahili."
Shelby slid between them. "Stop, Colonel. Okay? This is so lame." She turned to John.
"Go home, really, it'll be better if you leave. He's not gonna hurt me. He'll just ground me again, but I'll see you at school Monday anyway."
John hesitated, then nodded. Shelby followed him to the screened porch while Zach waited, piecing together control and what the hell he would say to his daughter.
He pressed a thumb between his eyes, right above the throbbing headache with Shelby's name tattooed all over it. Honest to God, he was going to have a stroke before the girl graduated high school.
What would Julia say? He steadied himself with thoughts of her calm voice.
The door snapped closed and Zach opened his eyes to confront his daughter. "Well, Shelby Lynn, what do you have to say for yourself?'
"Nothing. Not one thing." She spun on her heel, flouncing out of the room.
"Think again."
Shelby sighed a lengthy beleaguered teenage exhale that had long ago lost any impact due to overuse. She pivoted back around and stared at some point over his head with pretended boredom. He wished he could just lose his temper and have it out with her as he had done with John. Except, control became more elusive with this daughter of his who meant so much more to him.
Zach clenched and unclenched his fists and knew he would never use them on his children the way his father had. But he also knew angry words thrown like punches could leave other bruises. He tried to think as a reasonable parent or even a logical commander, not just an enraged father who'd found his kid a second away from screwing on the sofa while she should have been watching her little brother.
Brother?
Zach pinched the bridge of his nose. "Shelby, we trusted you to watch Patrick tonight."
"I was watching him," she insisted, swiping a strand of her rumpled dark hair out of her eyes. "I could hear him on the monitor. I checked him every twenty minutes."
"You knew there wasn't a chance I would agree to John being here alone with you."
"I needed to be with him tonight."
Shelby blinked back tears, which would have moved him if it hadn't been for that damned hickey on her neck. Zach wanted to pound a wall. "Sex without commitment is wrong."
She rolled her eyes. "Like you're really committed to Julia. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you two just married because of your kids. And it's no great lean either to guess that you didn't spend all this time on your motorcycle."
True, but none of her business. His daughter needed to remember who was the adult.