Page 64 of Sycamore Circle

“How long do you need?”

“An hour?”

He needed to do the same, which meant he needed to head home. He contemplated logistics. He could meet her at the station, come back here to pick her up, or they could even meet somewhere halfway. None of the choices sounded like a perfect option—mainly because he didn’t want to let her out of his sight.

But she was a grown woman and they had a long way to go before she was ready for him to be her man. “How about we meet at the police station? Then if things run long or you want to do something else you’ll have your car.”

She nodded. “That sounds good. You’ll have yours too.”

“I’m not thinking about me.” That was true too. At the moment, he couldn’t care less about the men he was supposed to meet with or the two houses he’d planned to inspect with Lincoln. “I’m happy to wait here while you shower, then take you to my place while I do the same.”

She arched a brow. “Then head to the station together before you drop me back off here? No, I think it would be best for me to meet you there.” After a pause, she added, her voice low, “Or, I could go to the station on my own. It’s my problem, not yours.”

No, that’s not how it was going to go. Sometime in the last twelve hours, things between them had taken another turn. Joy would probably not care for the descriptor, so he kept it to himself, but her problems were absolutely his problems now.

Or, more to the point, he didn’t want her to have any problems. He found himself caring so deeply about her happiness. There was a protective streak in him that wanted to take each of her burdens on so she would have nothing to worry about beyond her daughter and her work.

“There’s no way you’re going by yourself—unless you forbid me to come, I suppose. I’ll meet you there.”

Her eyes filled with relief. “Okay.”

After taking a sip of coffee, he said, “Joy, are you going to tell Tony about the texts and the calls and the letter?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to tell him?”

“I’m afraid... no, I’m pretty sure that he’s going to blame me if I do.”

It took him a minute to control his reaction. “Say again?”

“He’s never wanted me to do literacy training. He never understood my painting, either. He’s always said my choices of jobs weren’t safe.”

“What does he want you to do? Sit at home?”

“No. I went to a couple of semesters of college. I had thought I wanted to do something in banking.”

“Banking?”

She nodded. “I thought I could be a teller, then work my way up to something with more responsibility.”

“Try as I might, I can’t see you doing that.”

“Me neither. I realized that while I like working with other people, I like it in limited amounts. The tutoring and painting give me that. The literacy volunteer work fills my heart.”

“But Tony wanted you to go into banking?”

“Yeah. He thought it would be good for me to have more structure in my life.” She wrinkled her nose. “He had other ideas too. Like maybe I could be an assistant manager of a boutique or something.”

“An assistant manager.” Because he hadn’t thought she should be the actual manager. Every bit of what she was saying grated on him. “Joy.”

“I know.” She took another sip of coffee. “He could be really condescending. I realize that now.” Looking away, she added, “Tony’s told me more than once that the people I help learn to read can be dangerous. He’ll say that this texting, letter-writing person is the direct result of my foolishness.”

“I see.” Bo blinked. His sisters would be having a heyday right about now. He’d never been one to be so guarded.

“What do you think?”

“About what? You telling him about this?” When she nodded, he weighed his words carefully. “This is how I see it. We’ll talk to the cops and see what they say. If they give you some advice, I imagine you’ll take it. Then see what happens. But you can’t leave Chloe in the dark. She needs to be at least a little bit aware of what’s going on, right?”

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