Page 140 of Trouble Comes in Threes

“Oh?”

“Just an added insurance,” Joe said. “He can sleep on the sofa.”

“Do you anticipate trouble?” Aunt Bessie asked, glancing nervously down the gravel drive to the main road.

Joe shook his head. “No. We weren’t followed, and no one knows they’re here. But Witt insisted, and I’m not gonna tell him no.”

“Then we’ll just have a houseful, and it will be wonderful,” my aunt said, looking like she meant every word. “Come on in.”

Joe handed Liam to me. “Rose, you go in and see if Witt got the crib set up, and I’ll bring in the rest of the bags.”

Witt was struggling to figure out Liam’s portable bed, so I took over and put him in charge of getting the mattresses blown up.

Within twenty minutes, we’d figured out where everyone was sleeping, and the kids’ teeth had been brushed again. They’d all missed Joe, so they talked his ear off with everything they’d been up to over the last couple of days. Daisy was sleeping with Neely Kate, so Joe and I got Mikey, Ashley, and Hope tucked into the kids’ room. Liam fussed a bit about going to bed, but Joe began pacing with him in my bedroom and shooed me away. As I walked out, I heard Joe telling him that he and Daddy would have a day together soon. My heart swelled, ready to burst.

When I went downstairs, Aunt Bessie was making up a bed for Witt on the sofa, while he protested he could make it himself. Neely Kate and Jed were nowhere to be found, presumably spending some time together in Neely Kate’s room.

There was no way I could sleep anytime soon, and I needed something to do, so I heated up some water for tea. Joe walked into the kitchen about five minutes later, just as I was pulling a tea bag from my cup.

“Want some tea?” I asked as I dumped the tea bag into the trash. “I heated up enough water.”

He walked to me, took me into his arms, and pulled me close. “I love you so damn much, Rose Gardner Simmons.”

I wrapped my arms around his back and held him tight. “I love you too. I’m sorry that my past has put us in danger.”

He leaned back and stared down at me, shaking his head. “Your past is part of you, and I love every part. And that part of your past did a lot of good. We just need to figure out how it fits into the life we have now.”

Tears stung my eyes. “Oh, Joe. I was so scared you wouldn’t forgive me for putting us in danger.”

“You didn’t put us in danger. Whoever is murdering people put us in danger.”

I placed my cheek on his chest. The steady thud of his heartbeat in my ear soothed something deep in my soul.

“Have you had any more visions of the woman being murdered?”

“No. Nothing. I even tried to have another vision with Neely Kate this morning.”

“I wonder if you changed it.”

“Maybe.” But it felt like wishful thinking, especially since we still had no notion of who she was or who she might be connected to.

Joe kissed the top of my head. “I need to go soon. I don’t want to, but…”

“I know,” I said, pulling back and looking up at him. “I don’t want you to go either, but I want you to stop this person.”

“Thanks for the new information. I already have Randy lookin’ into things.”

“I don’t suppose he had a chance to look up anything on Selena or find out anything more about the guy I saw in my vision?”

He gave me a squeeze. “No. I’ve had him workin’ on other things, but we ran both drawings through a couple of databases and came up with nothing. There’s not much else we can do.”

I nodded. “That’s okay. Like you said, I haven’t had another vision. So maybe we did change things.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t have Jed workin’ on it.”

I stared up at him with wide eyes. “What?”

“Jed’s not part of my department, which means he can work on whatever he wants. That’s why he’s comin’ back with me.” He tilted his head. “Do you think he’d leave Neely Kate and Daisy if he didn’t have a good reason?”

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