Page 18 of All of Me

“Better than he was a couple of days ago. He’s got an appointment with his doc at three.”

He kept his gaze on Shae and Sadie. “She’s gone into work mode,” he said carefully.

“What does that mean?” I took a gulp of coffee.

“It means she’s sensing something with Shae,” Danny said quietly, but slowly, as if he was trying to work it out as well.

“Sensing what? His heart?” I tried to keep the concern out of my voice.

“No,” Danny said. “She met him plenty of times before and she’s never been so protective, even at Diesel’s.”

Even so, I was very glad we were going to the doc’s later.

“Okay, people,” Rawlings said and led the way into the conference room. I held my hand out casually to Shae, almost daring him to ignore it, but he didn’t. He looked up as Sadie moved off him and reached out. When our hands connected, so did our gazes. And locked.

I knew his eyes were always amazing. Blue, sometimes with darker gray speckles that seemed to change depending on his mood, and as I drew him up, he seemed to come so incredibly close. It was odd how he smelled. Well, no, that wasn’t right. I didn’t mean he smelledodd. He reminded me of sunshine and outdoors. What was odd was that I was even registering it. I took a step back and let go, even as every part of my body seemed to be very aware we were standing close.

“Ringo!” Rawlings yelled, and I shook myself mentally, and we both followed the others. Seb didn’t come into the conferenceroom, as he had some calls to make and speak with his agent, so there were just the five of us.

I knew this was outside of Rawlings’ normal business dealings and I appreciated he wasn’t involving anyone else. Gray had been there when we questioned Jethro, and Danny was our tech guru, which meant Kane was also in the loop.

Rawlings went over everything we’d learned from Jethro. “He’s doing as asked and keeping his head down, but we don’t think Ryan knew about him. I doubt if Lee was supposed to share with anyone what Ryan asked him to do and there’s been no attempt to call him directly.”

“How much is your farm worth?” Kane asked. “Is this Ryan guy desperate for money?”

“Desperate enough to risk the sort of sentence aggravated arson could bring?” Gray added.

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “The working theory is that it would be sold for a housing development.”

“Which is all well and good, but that would depend on the parcel and the road infrastructure,” Danny said, not looking up from his laptop. “I would guess, and obviously this is a guess based on comparisons, that you might get one fifty an acre. But there’s a lot of expensive considerations with the land.”

“And yours is what? Six, seven?” Rawlings asked. “Plus access?”

“Plus the Georgia red clay complicates things and adds to the cost,” Danny hummed. “There has to be additional foundation work, and I imagine the cost of getting the utilities and underground works there has to mean they’d need a minimum number of sales to make it worth it.”

“What about Moira’s place?” Shae asked. “She said herself that developers have approached them.”

“You mean buy them together?” I asked. “It’s a good question. But the whole thing seems messy. Albert and Moira have only got around seven or so acres, so that’s only fourteen between us.”

“Their place backs directly onto protected farmland, which complicates it even more,” Danny said. “They couldn’t expand that way.”

Danny’s laptop was displaying on the huge wall screen so we could all see what he was seeing. It was an aerial view of mine and Albert’s properties and the road work surrounding it. Kane pointed to the area nearest the road where the mine sat. “Would developing your neighbor’s place depend on access via your place?”

I studied the map. The road to their place wasn’t suitable for even moderate traffic, and I knew deliveries always came through mine. “I think Albert told me that at one point they’d all been one spread.”

“Albert?...” Danny asked.

“Davis,” I said. Danny hummed, then a second screen came up with Albert’s driver’s license on it. “Nice couple,” I said. “Good neighbors and helped Jim and Ellie when I was deployed or more recently, taking jobs here.” And I struggled with not being there for them even though I’d contributed financially. Money wasn’t always an answer.

“No red flags,” Danny murmured, and I bit off a sarcasticof course. Danny was doing his job.

Shae gazed at the screen. “What about his conviction?”

Danny typed some more. “No record.” He looked at Shae. “What conviction?”

Shae glanced at me uncomfortably, but he was right, so I explained. “Moira told me the reason they could never foster or adopt was that Albert got intotrouble,as she called it, when he was younger. She didn’t tell me anything else and I didn’t ask.”

Danny tapped away furiously but shook his head. “Nothing.”

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