hadn’t known. Grace hadn’t said, nor had Mom told me when we’d been in the car. For a time, at least, it had been just between them, which somehow gave it greater meaning. Touched, I pressed a hand to my chest, not sure if I would cry or seize up. Had my mother been looking at me, I would likely have done the former, tears being my go-to since the flood over the green velvet box.
But she was looking at the TV again, then back at Edward. “Will there be fallout for the Inn?”
He shrugged. “The computer hacking was worse.”
He was downplaying it, I knew. But the fact that he did it for my sake turned a little something inside me. Same with the sight of my mother and brother, staying with us, sounding for all the world like they were on our side rather than walking out in disgust. They were a blessing, so much so that I was suddenly overwhelmed.
Pulling my knees up, I closed my eyes against them. Breathe in, breathe out, repeat. In, out, repeat.
Edward’s hand came to rest ever so lightly on my head. It’ll be fine, that hand said, but I wasn’t so sure. The other shoe hadn’t yet fallen.
Keeping my eyes closed, I did my best to tune out the television. Those voices didn’t matter to me. The only ones that did were here in this room.
Liam’s voice came first. “Where do you think he’s taken Chris? Did he book a room here at the Inn?”
“Not under his own name,” replied Edward with a certainty that said he had checked.
Margaret spoke. “They’re at the Town Hall now, but it’s after seven. They have to eat somewhere. They have to sleep somewhere.”
“He’ll get the hell out of Dodge,” said Liam.
“With his son in the middle of a court case?” Mom countered. “He can’t just pick up and leave the state, can he, Edward?”
I had been listening with my eyes closed, trying to best absorb the confidence in Edward’s hand. When that hand left me, I opened my eyes to see him clasp his hands at the top of his head. The motion made his shoulders look all the broader, though that certainly wasn’t why he had done it. This was his frustrated pose. He was watching the screen again.
“The rules change when a US congressman is involved,” he said.
“That’s not fair,” complained Liam.
“Life isn’t,” my mother told him just as my phone dinged.
My heart pounded when I glanced at the screen. I held it up for Edward to see. Are you watching TV? Shanahan wrote. I warned you.
There it was, the other shoe. Talk about life not being fair? I had finally reconnected with the three people who mattered most to me, and, four months shy of the end of my probation, I would be nailed for having befriended a woman with a past. I hadn’t known who Grace was; I didn’t intentionally help her hide. But the facts would say that I did aid and abet an accused felon, just as they would say that Grace did kidnap her son.
Heartsick, I rose from the sofa. My face must have shown the extent of my distress, because Edward was quickly beside me. His large hand was warm at the back of my neck. “Where are you going?”
With my throat tight from holding back tears, a hoarse whisper was the best I could do. “Home. My pets.”
“They’re fine,” Liam called. “All fed and walked.”
If I’d been able to speak, I might have thanked him. But I was crushed. I needed my own world, at least until the last of it fell away. Wasn’t alone my default?
But my mother was sitting up in alarm. “Stay.”
It was just one word, but I heard the rest. Hiding won’t help. Don’t shut us out. And there it was, a return to the time when she and I understood each other without having to speak aloud, which was exactly what I’d wished for not so long ago. And then came her “please,” along with a look so vulnerable that my heart would never have let me leave.
But I did need a minute alone. So I gave the quickest little nod and simply went to my room. The door was barely shut before I began to cry. Swallowing the sobs as they came, I stumbled to the bed, climbed on, and curled up on the pillow with the scent of pine and my tears. Overwhelmed was one word for what I