Blake took the picture before his brother could go in search of a pushpin. “It’s worth it to have Paradise here, don’t you think?”
“I thought she was going to move to town.”
“I’m in no hurry for her to do that.”
Paradise lifted the seven-year-old to her lap. “Are you getting tired of me, Levi?”
He gave a vehement shake of his head. “I don’teverwant you to leave, but have you seen Blake get up in the mornings?” He slid off her lap and bent over like an old man and put his hand on his back. “He’s like this and he kind of hobbles to the bathroom.”
“Hey, buddy, it’s not that bad. I’m just a little stiff.”
“It looks like alotstiff,” Levi said.
Isaac turned back toward the kitchen. “Mommy said we could have a brownie since dinner won’t be for a while. I didn’t get one.”
“I didn’t either.” Levi followed his brother.
“Don’t listen to a word they said.” Blake wrapped one of her tawny curls around his finger. “You don’t have to go anywhere. I can move back upstairs now that you’re not in danger any longer. I’ve just been too lazy to haul my things.”
“The new paint is going on tomorrow in the apartment above the vet clinic. I can move over the weekend. It’s time for me to let the boys return to normal life.”
He made a face but didn’t object. “How’d your first morning go?”
“I’m still learning where to find everything. Honey was wonderfully encouraging, and the pet owners all wanted to chat. They didn’t look at me like I had four eyes or anything. One of them was a former schoolteacher from fourth grade.” The woman’s kind manner had been a balm in the middle of a frantic day of learning. “I thought about asking her what she remembered from when I was little. I think I need to find people who knew my parents over twenty years ago. Mom surely has some good friends who still live here. Someone might remember more than my cousin did.”
His breath whispered across her cheek as he leaned in closer. “That’s a great idea. We could go to the library and look at old yearbooks.”
She couldn’t think with him so enticingly close. Before she could lean in for a kiss, the boys burst back into the room. They each had a brownie in one hand and a second brownie on a plate in the other. “We brought you a snack too,” Isaac said. “But Mommy said we could only have one because we’re going to Jesse’s for dinner in an hour.”
She accepted the still-warm and chocolaty brownie. Maybe having her own space wouldn’t be so terrible. She loved the boys dearly, but she and Blake would have a little more privacy, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.
Chapter 4
Sergeant Rod McShea stood hands on hips in the back parking lot of the preserve, waiting for Blake to pull the safari truck into its space. Blake squinted in the bright sunshine as he exited the vehicle for the final time of the afternoon. The day was warm for February, and his forehead beaded with perspiration. “Hey, Rod, are you looking for me?”
“Sure am.” Rod gestured for Blake to follow him to a shady spot under an oak tree. The wind lifted his light brown hair.
Bison grazed on the other side of the fence, and Blake moved a few feet away from their pungent odor. “What’s up?”
“Something interesting turned up in the search at Ivy Cook’s house. We found a chain of emails on her computer from someone who agreed to pay her for information about Paradise. The anonymous email account isn’t traceable by our computer forensic lab, so we don’t know who sent her here or why.”
Blake absorbed the unsettling news. “Did you tell Paradise?” She was Rod’s cousin, but that didn’t gain her any points when it came to interrogations.
“Not yet. I don’t want to worry her unnecessarily if I don’t have to. She’s been through enough trauma. If further investigation turns up anything, I’ll question her more, but at the moment, I don’t think scaring her would serve any purpose. In her interview after the discovery of Cook’s body, she said she didn’t know her.”
If Rod didn’t want to worry his cousin, there must be something to be concerned about. “She didn’t. Even Mom had never met her before the interview. We only know her grandmother. Did the emails sound threatening, like the other person wanted to harm Paradise?”
Rod shrugged. “Nothing overt, but it’s odd. Keep an eye on her.”
“I will.” Blake barely noticed Rod walk back to his car and drive off. Hadn’t Paradise been through enough? Why would anyone want to target her? He didn’t agree with Rod. Paradise insisted on knowing when danger might present itself, and she would want to know about this.
He walked along the stone path toward the clinic building where he could usually find Paradise this time of day. He stepped inside and saw her in the office doing her shoulder exercises. He paused for a moment and watched her. Her tawny hair was in a neat bun today, pulled back from her tanned face, and the sunlight brought out the reddish tints. He liked the way he could see the planes and angles of her delicate bone structure and long, slim neck. What a blessing that she was back in his life. He never wanted to take that for granted.
She looked up and her face lit with affection. “Have you been standing there long?”
“Long enough to know I’m a lucky guy.” He crossed the smallspace in three steps and leaned down to brush his lips across hers. She tasted of chocolate and peanuts. “Yum, any chocolate-covered peanuts left for me? I didn’t get lunch.”
She gave a throaty chuckle and pulled open a drawer in her desk. “I wouldn’t share these with just anyone, you know.”
