Greyson (The K9 Files) - Dale Mayer Page 0,62
promised herself she wouldn’t do. She had completely lost it at that moment, but thankfully Danny wasn’t listening. Except everything she’d read on children’s cognitive abilities said that he was taking everything in regardless. She groaned and sank back.
He turned and patted her cheek. “Mommy?”
“Mommy is fine, sweetheart.”
Of course she was lying; another thing she promised she wouldn’t do. But how did she explain to a toddler that she was infuriated with his grandmother? There wasn’t a whole lot she could do right now, except try to calm down and then wait to see what Greyson might have found outside.
When her phone rang again, she turned it off and set it aside. She wouldn’t talk to either of them again today.
What was her deranged mother thinking? She had just gone way too far.
Greyson walked up to the rear veranda and rapped on the door. Danny giggled and pointed. She got up, walked over, and let him in. “Anything?” she asked in a low voice.
He shook his head. “Nothing new anyway.”
He’d already gone out and done a round, after he’d seen the intruder before. “Lord only knows how we’d find anything at this point anyway,” she said.
He smiled and said, “Not to worry. We’ll get it all sorted out.”
“Glad to hear that,” she said. “I feel like I need to do something today. I’m just getting upset.”
He reached out and gently stroked his thumb across her cheekbone. “What happened?” She shook her head, but he was firm. “Tell me,” he said.
“My sister called, telling me that my mother was trying to get a hold of George,” she said. “And get this. To tell him that I wanted to get back together with him.”
He stared at her in shock. “Your mother doesn’t understand boundaries, does she?”
“No, and I’m obviously not very impressed with her antics. Apparently she saw a report on the news about a stalker in the neighborhood.”
“Did you tell her that George was dead?”
She winced. “I know we haven’t confirmed it,” she said, “but I was so mad that I did tell her, yes.”
He just nodded, wrapped his arms around her, and folded her up against his chest. She snuggled in close and allowed him to comfort her for a moment. It felt so damn good just to be held, just to know she wasn’t alone.
“Do you want to go somewhere in the meantime?” he asked. “Like the park?”
Immediately Danny turned to look at her and called out, “Park! Park!”
Kona barked twice too, her tail wagging, as if she understood the concept.
Jessica smiled. “Maybe that’s not a bad idea,” she said. “We could go to the park for a few hours and then head straight to your grandparents’ place.” She paused, checking her watch. “That’s more than a few hours, but I could pack up some sandwiches and some fruit and some bottled water to take with us. They have picnic tables there, and we could have a light lunch to tide us over from breakfast until dinner.” She smiled and waved a hand at Kona. “And enough for Kona too.”
Kona yipped and wagged her tail.
“If Danny gets tired,” she said, “we can always come back here for him to have a nap before we head out to the grandparents’ house.”
Greyson laughed, patting the dog, smiling at Jessica. “That works,” he said. “That definitely works.” So that’s what they did.
A few hours of escapism, getting to know each other and just having fun, showed what a good man he was with Danny. She couldn’t imagine it being any better. She didn’t know if that would change over time. Would it improve or get worse? She didn’t have a clue because she had very little experience with men and no experience at all with men and children interacting. Even growing up, all her experiences with men were of the short-term variety that her mother engaged in.
The one thing Jessica didn’t want to do was become her mother. That would be awful. Yet her attraction to Greyson had been pretty quick. She knew any attempt on her part to dispute the reality that something special was between them in such a short span of time would be a flat-out lie. Something special was definitely here, and she really wanted to see where it was going.
She laughed as Greyson had Danny in the big round swing, gently pushing him back and forth, Kona right beside them, wherever Danny was.
It was pretty amazing to even be in this situation with him and Kona right