Page 18 of Crosshairs

“I’ll try to make it this time,” she said and hurried to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

When she returned, a man’s voice in the kitchen sent her heart racing. Linc. Earlier she’d almost fled the Waffle House when she saw him. Maybe if she hung out in the hallway, he’d leave. Then she heard her grandmother say, “Here’s your coffee. I’ll go see what’s keeping Ainsley.”

“I’m here.” She pushed the swinging door open. “And hello again.”

He stopped with a cup of coffee halfway to his lips.

“I hope you know that’s decaf,” she said.

His eyes twinkled. “Actually, yes.”

“And you’re still drinking it?”

“A gentleman doesn’t turn down his gracious host’s offering.”

He considered himself a gentleman now. Ha.

“Linc stopped by to ask how Cora was,” her grandmother said.

Ainsley tilted her head. She’d just given him a report. Did he think Cora’s condition had changed in the last thirty minutes?

“I actually stopped by to see if you wanted company on the drive out to Rocky Springs,” Linc said.

“You what?” She wouldn’t have been more surprised if he’d said he’d sprouted wings and planned to fly to the moon.

“I heard there were trees down on the Trace and you might have trouble getting to your meeting.” He seemed to have a problem meeting her eyes. “I have a chain saw in the back of my Tahoe.”

Ainsley hadn’t considered last night’s tornado may have wreaked havoc on the Natchez Trace. But ride all the way to thecrime scene with Linc? “You were up all night helping tornado victims,” she said. “You probably need to go home and sleep.”

“I’m good,” he said with a grin.

“Honey, when a good-lookin’ man offers to help you, let him,” Gran said, winking at her.

“It’s only a forty-five-minute drive, and I promise I won’t bite or go to sleep on you.”

“If you promise,” she said. “But in my pickup.”

“Let me grab my chain saw ... just in case.”

She kissed her grandmother on the cheek as Linc shut the door behind him. “I’ll try to be back by early afternoon.”

“Don’t you worry. If I need you, I’ll call,” she said. “And go easy on Linc. He’s had a bad few years.”

“Do you know why he left the FBI?”

“I do, but it’s not my story to tell.”

Didn’t matter. Ainsley didn’t have time to listen right now anyway. She paused at the door. “If you need me and I don’t answer my phone, call the ranger station at Port Gibson. Should be someone there who can get ahold of me.”

“I won’t need you. Cora is going to be just fine. That’s what God impressed on me this morning in my prayers.”

Ainsley bit back what was on the tip of her tongue. Sometimes God’s “just fine” was different from hers.

Linc had set his saw and gas can in the pickup bed and was waiting when she came around the side of the house. “I like your wheels,” he said.

Ainsley did too, and was glad she’d chosen the Ford Ranger over an SUV. She would’ve hated to smell the fumes from the gas can for the next hour.

“I’m not surprised it’s red—that was always your favorite color.”

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