ask what math they were studying. I can’t put my finger on why, but there’s an itch under my skin and nothing about this conversation feels right. By the time I hang up, I’m more convinced than ever that all is not as it seems with the Davidsons.
Chapter 9
Rob
For the last two weeks, I’ve watched from the widow’s walk as Grant’s made good on his promise. The first day down on the beach, he and Sherm mostly just walked at the edge of the water. By the end of the first week, what started as Grant giving Sherm a noogie ended with them wrestling in the sand. Every day since, Grant has inched Sherm toward figuring out how to fend off his noogie attack. Today, for the first time, he’s teaching Sherm how to throw a punch.
Hopefully, it won’t be long before Sherm will be able to protect himself at school. Now I just need to figure out how to do the same, because a pretty blonde keeps picking away at my fortress, undermining the walls.
Part of it is me. When she smiles at me . . . hell, even when she’s in the same room as me, I catch the scent of Ivory soap and I can’t think straight. When she said she had a date, it was all I could do not to interrogate her. I picture her with someone else and I want him dead.
But it’s also her. She sees things no one else does. I’ve sat at bargaining tables with kingpins, business moguls, and US senators, and I’ve never blinked. I’ve got nerves of steel and a stone-cold poker face. But this girl is my kryptonite. She does something to me that no other woman ever has, and it’s dangerous. She’s so innocent . . . so open and up front, she makes me want to tell her things that no one can know. She asks questions and I want to give her answers.
If Sherm can learn to defend himself, so can I. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her out of my head. I’m not going to let her bring us down.
Grant lets Sherm land a punch squarely into his stomach, and he makes a big production of falling to the sand and flailing. I hear Sherm’s laugh carry up the bluff from the beach, and feel the familiar pinch in my chest.
Grant is taking my place. This is good. Sherm needs someone to look up to. It’s good for Grant too. In Chicago, he had a safety net. Here, not so much. Looking after Sherm keeps his afternoons full.
It’s what he does with his nights that concerns me.
He usually rolls out on his Harley after dinner. We don’t see him again until four or five in the morning. He won’t say where he goes, but he swears he’s not getting into trouble. I have to believe he cares about Sherm enough that he wouldn’t risk exposing the family.
The crunch of gravel on the road below catches my attention. I turn to see Lee pull up the drive. She had what has to be her tenth interview today. So far no luck. Things don’t look like they’ve improved when she slams out of the Beetle and stomps into the house. I head downstairs. Ulie makes a face from the kitchen, where she’s mashing something in a bowl with her hands.
I sink onto the sofa next to Lee. “Any luck?”
She lifts her head out of her hands, gives me an exasperated look. “No one is ever going to hire me for anything I’m actually qualified to do because they don’t know I’m qualified. I can’t put anything real on my résumé.” Her eyes flare hot. “I earned that damn degree, Rob! I worked hard for it.” She slumps deeper into the cushions, totally dejected. “I loved Northwestern.”
I slump down next to her. She should be finishing her MBA at the most prestigious business school in the country, not groveling for jobs from nobody CPAs in nowhere Florida. “We have cash stashed away and we’ll get sustenance checks from the Feds for another year and a half.”
“Then what? I’m never going to find a job.”
Then, whoever did this to us will have paid the ultimate price and we’ll have taken Chicago back. I’ll be back at the helm of the organization and Lee can focus on school . . . eventually transition out of the business if that’s what she wants. “I’m sorting it out, Lee.