Page 46 of Deadly Evidence
“Can I get you anything? Are you due for medicine or anything? What about the sling and the ice?”
When he didn’t answer, she continued. “I...um...want to tell you how sorry I am about what happened.” He didn’t answer, so she plowed ahead. “I didn’t mean to trip over the dog, but then she grabbed my hat, and I couldn’t get it back before she got under the fence.”
Anna had said that he was sleeping a lot because of the pain medication, and now his breathing deepened, slowed. He’d probably just drifted off again.
“I’ll just put this tray in your refrigerator,” she whispered. “You can have it later.”
She stood for a few moments, though, tray in hand, and studied his craggy features.
“I’m sorry you didn’t really want a granddaughter,” she said softly. “But meeting you sure means a lot to me.”
Vicente waited until the door of the cabin opened and closed, and his granddaughter’s footsteps faded away.
Then he opened his eyes and gazed at the photograph of his Consuelo.
He talked to her still, though she’d been gone for so many years. Sometimes he could almost feel her smiling back at him, her beloved face full of love and forgiveness.
“I just can’t do it,mi querida,” he whispered, though he knew she could read his thoughts, even from heaven. “I can’t let her into my life. You understand...I know you do.”
But as he drifted off to sleep, he imagined Consuelo’s troubled eyes watching over him and her soft voice begging him to forget the past and move on...before it was too late.
The same words she spoke on the day she died.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Anna climbed out of the semi, pocketed the keys, and headed for the house, feeling her daily dose of parental guilt.
Lacey would have gotten on the school bus hours ago, thanks to Mia.
And when Anna left last night for El Paso with the load of steers, the poor kid had gone to bed without the usual good-night routine they always shared.
Given Lacey’s inexplicable dislike for Mia, the morning had probably been as chilly inside the house as it was outside.
Trying to estimate the number of missing steers and finding enough of the others had taken far longer than she had expected, and by that time she had needed to load and go.
Paying off the loan due today had been crucial, yet Lacey deserved attention too, and there just wasn’t enough time in the day.
Now, after the three-hour drive home from El Paso—one that had included stopping at the local bank to make the loan payment—she had an appointment with the sheriff.Ifhe showed up as planned.
“Which isn’t likely,” she muttered as she wearily shucked off her boots at the back door.
The house was quiet when she walked into the kitchen, with the pleasant aromas of cookies cooling on the kitchen counter and fresh-brewed coffee, but no one in sight.
Curious, she walked through the living room. Checked her office and the flagstone patio behind the house.
Walking down the hall to the bedrooms, she heard a deep male voice that could only belong to her grandfather and laughter that could only belong to Mia.
If Mia had him talking, she was worth her weight in gold.
Anna stopped at his open door and watched Jonah studying a chessboard set up by the side of his bed.
Sitting on the table by the window was a lunch tray, and from the looks of the plate, he’d done pretty well.
“Gotcha,” he announced, laboriously moving a chess piece with a trembling hand.
Mia looked up at her and winked. “Your grandpa iswaaaytoo good a player for me.”
“He’s good, all right.” Or he had been before his sight started to fade and his mild confusion began.
