Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“I couldn’t have them touching you,” he grumbled.
She turned and wrapped her arms around his waist and clunked her head against his chest. He looked at me in absolute agony.
I lifted my eyebrows, mouthed the words, “Give her a pat,” and he managed a quick clap on her back that was more jostling than anything else.
“Look at me.”
She stepped back and tipped her head up so she could peer up into his face.
“As I said in the car, this boy violated your trust. End it now, and end it clean, and not that you’ll be all healed up by next week, but you have that fundraiser for the Field Museum and that nice lord you met from, where is it?”
“Denmark.”
“Yes, Lord Phillips, he’ll be here to speak at the unveiling of the tiara that his grandmother, the viscountess of something or other, loaned to the museum.”
“I was going to ask Kay to go with me.”
“Well, why don’t you bring whatshisname instead, the one you talk about all the time.”
“I don’t talk––”
“It’s Jake, isn’t it?”
She nodded and blew her nose on his handkerchief before looking up at him with a slight grin, still more sad than anything else.
His glower made her give him an all-out smile.
“You dab your eyes with a handkerchief, you don’t blow your nose on it,” he said belligerently, the tone and look not fooling me at all. He adored her just like we all did.
She tried to give it back to him, and he flinched like she was trying to touch him with something radioactive.
“I’ll wash it,” she told him.
“And iron it.”
“And iron it,” she agreed with a sigh.
“Aaron Sutter is your uncle?” Anne gasped.
“Yeah, in fact we have an online event tomorrow that I’m hosting with him to benefit immigration reform, and his mother actually gave us a necklace of hers that is three strands of Tahitian saltwater pearls.”
“His mother?” I asked my daughter. “I thought they weren’t close.”
“We had a Zoom meeting with her,” she informed me, “and it was good.”
Leave it to my kid. “Well, I’m happy for him.”
She smiled at me and then bit her lip.
“Oh no, what?”
She forced a smile. “She sent me a single-strand pearl necklace as well, that Uncle Aaron says should be kept with the tiara and not in my jewelry box.”
“The pearls are South Sea pearls,” George explained as he closed the tiara case, all the locks clicking into place, “all matched, with an emerald-cut three-carat diamond clasp.”
“Do I even want to know?” I asked him.
“I would think not,” he informed me, turning as Sam stepped out onto the porch with a mask on. “Chief Deputy,” he greeted my husband, who walked around the rest of us to take the hand George held out for him.
“I heard there was some excitement,” Sam said, taking hold of George’s arm and giving it a squeeze before he let both his hand and bicep go.
George shook his head. “I had both men down in seconds. It was catching up to your daughter that proved more difficult. She now has two handkerchiefs of mine to launder.”
Which meant that when he reached her, before she returned to Kola, that she’d cried all over him, probably loudly. He had been the one to comfort her, remind her that she was strong, and gird her so she could finish the event. I had the urge to hug him myself.
“I need to get this back to the vault,” George announced, turning to me. “Pleasure as always, Mr. Harcourt, Chief Deputy,” he said, and then turned and was down the steps quickly, on the way to the sleek black sedan with blacked-out windows that was in our driveway.
Hannah raced after him.
“How is the tint legal on that car?” I asked Sam.
“Because it’s for transporting people like Aaron Sutter, so it’s bulletproofed with the one-way glass,” he groused. “That car is safer than our house.”
We watched as Hannah finally stepped in front of George to get him to stop, and when he did, he glared at her a moment before he transferred the case to his left hand and took hold of her chin with his right and spoke to her as she started to cry.
“You would think that self-preservation alone would prevent her from tormenting a black ops sniper,” Sam told me. “I mean yes, he’s a reservist now, but still. The man is lethal.”
“She grew up with you,” I informed him, turning my head to smile at him. “She’ll never be afraid of anyone.”
He grunted and turned for the door, stopping in front of Kay’s parents. “Your son is underage and was intoxicated in public. You might want to discuss that with him.”
Brad opened his mouth to say something, but Sam put up his hand and walked into our house, slamming the door shut behind him.
I moved quickly over to them. “My husband has very strong feelings on underage drinking and driving.”