Keep Her Safe(113)

“I don’t know if I trust anyone, anymore,” I admit. “Except you.”

I feel her eyes on my profile and it instantly brings me back to this morning, to her body pressed against me, her heart pounding in her chest, her breathing fast and heavy. Her skin slick in all the right places.

Not the time to be thinking about that.

I throw my Cherokee in park. “Remember, Gracie . . .”

She rolls her eyes. “Do you honestly think he doesn’t already know that the FBI suspects him?”

“Maybe he does. But if he doesn’t, he’s not going to find out from us.” I climb out of the driver’s seat.

Two sheepdogs come galloping around the house, and a moment later, the screen door creaks open and George Canning steps out, smoothing his button-down shirt over a round, hard belly. The loud thwack it makes when it releases to slam shut echoes, earning a few horse neighs from nearby.

“He looks so . . . harmless.” Gracie eyes him as we meet around the front of the truck, a potted plant for Dolores within her grasp.

Canning eases down the front stairs and makes his way toward us at a leisurely pace, but I sense the extra time isn’t so much on account of his slowness with age as it is his chance to do some assessing of his own, his shrewd, calculating gaze never leaving us. “I’m so glad you came!” He sticks a hand out.

“Thank you for the invitation, sir.”

“And this lovely young lady must be Grace Wilkes. Wait, it’s something else now?”

“Richards.”

“Right.” The corners of his eyes crinkle with his smile. “My, you’ve grown up! You look like the perfect mix of your parents, don’t you?”

“I guess?” Gracie says in an even voice.

“Why of course you do! I remember your mother, at the funeral. Pretty little thing.” His brow tightens. “Silas told me about her affliction. I hope she’s finally on the mend.”

Affliction. That’s a polite term for it.

Gracie offers a tight smile. “We have a long road ahead, but she’s doing better.”

I slip my hand over Gracie’s back, a gesture of comfort.

The move doesn’t go unnoticed by Canning’s ever-watchful eyes.

“So, how are you likin’ Austin, Grace?”

“It’s been . . . eventful so far.”

He chuckles. “I’ll bet. And you.” He turns to me. “Sounds like you’ve been doing a bit of drivin’.”

“Yes, sir.”

His eyes flash to Gracie, and then back to me, a knowing twinkle in them. “Come on. Dolores has been busy in the kitchen all mornin’.”

“We hope she didn’t go to any trouble on our account.”

He waves it off. “Heavens no, son! No trouble at all. Dolores lives for feedin’ folk until their bellies are ready to explode. I’m living proof.” He pats his round belly.

We trail him along the stone walkway that wraps around the house, Gracie walking so close to me that her arm nudges my side with almost every step. “You have a beautiful home,” she finally offers, her overly polite voice sounding so foreign that I can’t help but grin at her.

I get an elbow to the ribs in return.

Canning chuckles in that easy way of his. “Oh, this is my wife’s house. I just take up space here.”

We round the corner to the back, where three young children clamber over a play set.

“Hope y’all don’t mind the noise, but we’re watching the young’ns. My sons and their wives are down in Louisiana with our thoroughbreds. They live just over there.” George waves a hand toward what I assume is his property—rolling hills and trees as far as the eye can see, along with two imposing houses, one to the far left, the other to the far right.

“You have a lot of land,” Gracie notes.

He leads us to a covered seating area with plush wicker furniture. “Yes, ma’am. It’s been in Dolores’s family for generations. We had a house in Austin for some years, ’til it was time to move out here full-time. Her great-granddaddy was big into racin’. Her daddy was hopin’ I’d follow suit, and I might have, had the city stopped beggin’ me to stay on. My sons, though, they got the racin’ gene in their blood, so they run the show. I’m here for the pretty view.”

The back porch door creaks. “George! Why didn’t you tell me they were here!” Dolores—who looks every bit the well-bred Southern woman, right down to the paisley apron that covers her white silk blouse and creamy pleated pants—strolls through the sliding door carrying a silver tray. “Noah! It’s so nice to see you again. And so soon!”

“Good day, ma’am.” I push the chairs aside to make room for her to set the tray down. It holds a pitcher of sweet tea and three already-filled glasses, along with a small basket covered in a tea towel. “We brought you pansies. Thought you might like them for your windowsill.”

“Well, how thoughtful of you. That Jackie sure did raise you right.”

I gesture toward Gracie to make introductions.

“It’s so nice to meet you. Why, aren’t you just the most stunning little thing!”

I brace myself for Gracie’s coarse response to being called a “little thing.”

“Likewise, ma’am.” The genuine smile plastered across Gracie’s mesmerizing face has me breathing a sigh of relief.