Page 84 of The Moment They Can Never Forgive
“You haven’t tried that new beard oil is my guess. The stuff JD gave you. I can see a couple of house finches have taken up residence in there.”
“Whatever. My point is?—”
Dan’s phone rang, and he answered it. “Hey, Ry. How’s it going? You busy in the cafe this morning?”
He listened as his brother talked and the oldest one stood there, arms folded, glaring at him.
“What design and when?” He listened a bit more. “Sweet. Later then. I’ll tell the grump because he’s here with me.”
“What?” Sawyer demanded once Dan had pushed the phone back into his pocket.
“Pretty sure you need to speak better to an officer of the law,” Dan needled him.
Sawyer’s brows drew together in a fierce scowl.
“You know how we talked about matching tattoos? Well we’re getting them tomorrow at midday.”
“What design? We’ve never been able to agree on one.”
“JD has drawn one, apparently, so I guess we’ll see if we like it or not.”
“Okay, now back to Leah.”
“No. We’re not talking about her, or what I found in that barn, anymore.”
“I can keep secrets,” Sawyer muttered.
“We need to do a random act on Leah soon,” Dan said. “If she’s good at the pottery stuff and wants to get the growing working for her, she’ll need capital, which I don’t believe she has.”
“Agree. Not sure how, though. Woman’s smart, and we don’t have access to what she did for the past seven years. We’ll put our heads together. There has to be something.”
“We’d better think fast. It’s not just about her anymore. There’s that little boy to think about. We need to make sure they’re coping, and to do that, we have to be sneaky,” Dan said. “She’s always been stubborn and filled with pride. But then, considering her upbringing, I’m sure she needed that. I also think she may have bigger problems now that she’ll need help dealing with.”
“Stuff you’re not telling me about?”
Dan nodded.
“There’s plenty of us, so we can look out for her even if she doesn’t want us to,” Sawyer said.
Dan saw his uncle’s cruiser then and went to meet him. Ally and Hudson had beat him to it. Birdie and Leah were walking out of the house when he and Sawyer arrived.
“I got a badge, Aunt Leah!”
Dan watched the boy run to his aunt. She dropped to her knees and studied the little toy badge he held out to her.
“Does this mean you’re a deputy now?” Leah asked.
Hudson nodded.
“That’s pretty cool. Now you go on and take Ally to the house. You can show Birdie where the coffee fixings are, plus there’s juice for you two,” Leah said.
“Do you want to see my tree house, Sawyer?” Hudson said, looking hopeful.
“Hell yes,” his big brother said. After shooting a look at Dan, which told him he’d be asking more questions soon, he followed the kids back inside.
“Hi, Leah. I hear you found some things you want me to look at?”
His uncle had a way about him that instantly put people at ease. Dan had spent years trying to emulate him. Not as tall as his nephews, but he was solid and could take anyone down if he needed to. People respected his uncle, and the ones who didn’t learned the hard way not to mess with Sheriff Asher Dans.
