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Yeah, right. Jason sighed. “Okay. Thanks, George.”
“You take care of yourself, buddy.”
Next Jason tried to phone his eldest sister, Charlotte. Infuriatingly, he couldn’t remember Charlie’s cell-phone number and ended up having to use directory assistance to reach her at Le Cottage Bleu.
“Oh my God,” Charlotte exclaimed, hearing his voice. “Are you all right? Where are you? Wait, don’t answer that!”
“I’m still at the hospital,” Jason replied. “It’s not a secret. I just saw it on TV.”
“You sound stoned. How are you feeling? Sam said you were banged up but otherwise okay.”
“I’m fine. Just—”
“Sophie’s right. You’ve got to quit that job.”
“I’m not quitting my job!” Proof that he probably was a little stoned, Jason was instantly distracted from his reason for calling. Actually, what had been his reason for calling? He wasn’t sure.
Charlotte was still rattling on. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen to college professors.”
“It doesn’t happen to FBI agents either. Usually. Anyway…I just wanted you all to know that I’m okay.”
“We know you’re okay,” Charlotte said. “Sam’s keeping us up-to-date. I do kind of like him. I admit I was skeptical at first, but… Anyway, you know we love you and we’re thinking of you. Now get off the phone. Your call might be traced.”
“It’s not a secret that I’m in the hos—”
Charlotte hung up.
Chapter Five
When he saw the three poodles, Jason knew he’d made a mistake.
Granted, he’d already decided he’d made a mistake about ninety minutes into the flight from Virginia when they’d hit a wall of turbulence and his back, hip, knee, and ankle had all begun to throb in syncopation. The thirty-minute drive from Cheyenne to Wild Horse Creek and the little house on the prairie hadn’t helped.
The poodles clinched it.
Not that he didn’t like dogs. He did. But these yapping white fur balls in rhinestone collars and tiny bows did not, in his opinion, qualify as canine. More like rodents with
attitude.
“Ma, can you call off the hellhounds?” Sam requested tersely as the dogs circled them, darting at their ankles and then away again.
“Adele! Esme! Remy!” The woman scooping up the fluff balls one by one was probably in her sixties. She was short and trim with spiky brown hair. She wore an oversize blue denim shirt, skinny jeans, and red cowboy boots. She looked about as likely to have produced BAU Chief Sam Kennedy as a scallop shell was likely to serve up the goddess of love.
“I was beginning to think you boys changed your minds!” she called over the hysterical barking of the dogs. Blue eyes, the same shape and bold, bright shade as Sam’s, raked curiously over Jason’s face—and widened.
“Our connecting flight was delayed in Denver,” Sam said. “Jason, this is my mother, Ruby Kennedy.”
Ruby said automatically, “Nice to meet you, Jason,” and offered a small, sturdy hand over the heads of the lunging, snapping dogs.
“It’s a pleasure.” Jason shook hands, narrowly managing to avoid being bitten. “Thanks for putting us up for a few days.”
He wasn’t sure she even heard him. She said to Sam, “He looks like a ghost, Sam.” Her ruddy face grew pinker. “I mean, he’s white as a-a sheet. This boy should be in bed!”
Sam said curtly, “I know.”
In fact, Jason did feel like death warmed over. It was surprising how much damage a little tiny collision with a moving vehicle could inflict on you. Being stuck in a noisy, crowded airport for a few hours hadn’t helped his nerves either.
Hard to believe that very morning he’d been arguing with Sam in a Virginia hospital room and tonight he was standing in Sam’s mother’s living room and being snapped and yapped at by three French poodles. The rest of the day was pretty much a daze, but maybe that was the good news.
