Page 62 of Ruthless Cross

"No, I was basketball and soccer. What about you?"

"I played softball from age six to ten. My dad was my coach. I was pretty good, too. I was the pitcher. I was the only girl who could throw a strike at that age."

"Did you quit after he died?"

"Yes. It wasn't the same without him." Her phone buzzed with an incoming text. "It's Arthur's housekeeper, Lois. She wants to know if she should come in to work tomorrow." She glanced over at him. "The answer should be no, right?"

"Right. We don't need anyone else in the house."

"I'll let her know we'll be in touch, that we're still figuring things out." She typed out her text and hit Send. "I really have to start focusing on the funeral arrangements tomorrow. But I have no idea what Arthur would want, and my mom can't tell me yet. I don't know how I'm going to do it all." She felt an overwhelming rush of anxiety at everything that needed to be done.

Flynn put a hand on her thigh. "Callie, stop. Don't think that far ahead. Nothing has to be done this second."

"It has to be done sometime. I can't keep avoiding it."

"Sometime isn't today. Think about it tomorrow."

"That won't make the problem go away."

"No, but you'll be more prepared to deal with it then. You can't take care of everyone and everything. You're only one person."

"I don't take care of everyone, just my mom."

"You take care of other people, too. Didn't Melissa say you'd helped her move?"

She tipped her head. "I did do that. She's a friend."

"And you take care of your friends."

"That's what friends do."

"Good friends—the ones you can count on."

"I try to be someone my friends can count on."

"So do I." He glanced over at her. "You can count on me, too, Callie."

"Does that mean we're friends?" she asked lightly.

"I don't know. Do you kiss all your friends the way you kissed me?"

"Do you?"

"I asked you first."

"We don't need to talk about kissing," she declared.

"You're right. I'd rather do it than talk about it."

"Just drive, Flynn," she ordered, as his sexy smile made her stomach flutter. She turned her gaze out the window, grateful to see the desert mountains. Only a few more miles to Palm Springs. She couldn't wait. She needed to get out of this car and get her mind off Flynn and back on finding Arthur's killer.

Chapter Fifteen

Callie gavehim the address for Arthur's house when they got off the freeway. He pulled up in front of a large home near the base of the mountains in Palm Springs ten minutes later. There were only about six homes on this particular block, with plenty of land and shrubbery between them.

As he got out of the car, his gaze swept the area. There were no other cars in sight, no sign of movement inside the house or in the adjacent yards. There was a quiet stillness to the air, not a hint of a breeze or a speck of a cloud, just sunshine and blue skies. He only wished he didn't feel a sense of foreboding, but he did. The fact that Arthur had kept this house hidden away meant something; he needed to find out what.

"This looks luxurious," he said, leading the way to the front door, which was massive in size and surrounded by two long windows with closed shades.

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