Page 51 of Finding Silence
“He says he’ll take him back if you’ve changed your mind.”
Unsure what he’s talking about or even who he’s talking to, I sit back up and swing around. My face cracks open with a wide smile when I see who he brought out here.
“Oh my goodness, Diesel!”
At the sound of his name, the dog rushes toward me, his entire back end wagging.
I hadn’t mentioned the dog; at first, because I was still recovering and didn’t want to burden Brant—who was already looking after me—to take on another dependent, and later because I was afraid to find out he’d already found another home.
I throw my arms around the dog and smile at Brant over Diesel’s big head.
“Not a chance in hell I’m changing my mind.”
He grins back. “Didn’t think so.”
“I was afraid he’d found another home,” I confess.
“Buck held on to him. Fattened him up some. I was kinda waiting for you to bring him up, but when you said you wanted to start spending time at your house again, I figured the time was right.”
“You figured correctly,” I inform him, letting go of the dog and getting to my feet.
I watch as Diesel wanders off toward the creek for a drink.
“Do I have to worry about him taking off?” I ask Brant, who approaches and drops his arm around my shoulders, pulling me to his side.
“Nah, Buck says he spent some time training him and his recall is pretty good.”
I turn in his arms and place my hands on his chest, looking up into his clear blue eyes.
“What did I do to deserve you?”
His arms tighten around me.
“Should be me asking that question.”
I shake my head. “I’ve done nothing. You’re the one who’s been looking after me,” I remind him.
“Nothing?” he reacts. “Phil, don’t you know I wake up every morning looking forward to the day ahead because of you?”
I’m not a sentimental person, I tend to show emotion through my music, but the beautiful simplicity of his words strikes a chord, and I find myself blinking at tears.
“God, I love you.”
The lines by his eyes crinkle as his smile deepens.
“Right back atcha, Sweetheart.”
Brant
* * *
I feel better leaving her to putter around her house, knowing she has the dog looking out for her and the alarm is working as it should.
That bitch, Grace, had disabled the alarm on the window in the garage. Apparently, the alarm goes off when a magnetic relay is broken as a window opens. She mounted a powerful magnet right underneath the contact on the window sill, which ensured the relay remained intact, even with the window open. No alarm would sound, and since the connection remained uninterrupted, no notification would show up.
It had been Duncan Brothers’s way in.
Grace survived the bullet in her stomach, but she’s currently sitting in jail, and is likely to spend the rest of her life there. It’s where she belongs. Savvy mentioned Grace lawyered up right away, but they won’t need a confession, there appears to be more than enough evidence to ensure a conviction without it.
