“Don’t forget your helmets, ladies!” he belts out after them. “I’ll be watching.”
Then my eyes fall to the table in the eerie silence.
My laptop rests there with all the damning, but hidden data I hope I’ve stolen from the rescue. Faulk has some sort of small black external device hooked up to it that looks like a tiny box. There’s also a second laptop on the table, presumably his.
As soon as the girls are gone, Grady looks at me.
“He’s transferring what he can to an external drive, then we’ll get it on a secured cloud backup and hook it up to my computer,” he tells me.
“Yep, it’ll be a while before I transfer it to the other machine,” Faulk says. “Right now, we’re just aiming to get backups. Can’t let whatever’s on this thing disappear into the ether.”
Faulk rattles off a litany of techno-babble terms that are over my head, all the things involved with securing, storing, and decrypting data.
“So we won’t know what we’ve actually got for a while?” Grady asks.
“Yep, no telling till I get a good look. We could be talking hours, or days.” Faulk’s eyes gleam like emeralds as he rakes his fingers through his hair. “Soon as I’m in, you’ll be the first to know.”
Grady stands and takes my arm. I gasp and instantly feel like an idiot. His touch is always gentle, yet here I am jumping like he hit me with a cattle prod.
Seriously embarrassing.
“You need a minute?” he bites off.
“No, no, I just...you surprised me. I’m fine.” I pause for a breath. “I’m ready for this, guys. Lay it on me. The good, the bad, and the ugly.”
“And we will, just as soon as we check on the girls. They never go messing around the barn, but I want to make damn sure,” he growls. “Be back shortly.”
Faulk nods at us as Grady escorts me out the sliding glass door.
“The four-wheelers get parked in the pole shed when they’re not using them,” he says as we round the corner of the house.
The barn is to the left of the house and the pole shed, as well as a wood shed, and two other metal storage units are up ahead, directly on the other side of the driveway.
“Are they real four-wheelers?” I ask, knowing the girls are only ten.
“Yep. Both Hondas that are better for kids. They’ve been riding them for a couple years with me, and now they’re old enough to stick to the trails around my place, where I know it’s safe.”
“They’re such nice girls, very polite and—”
“Talkative,” he offers. “I’m sure they’ve told you everything about our lives.”
“Not everything,” I say. “Just enough. I know your Aunt Faye went to Colorado to take care of a sick friend and set up a woman to help you with the girls...but it sounds like all three of you said no to that idea.”
His grimace says it all and I try not to laugh.
Apparently, the girls weren’t exaggerating about how much Hailey’s mom chases him. No need to look hard to find out why.
He’s a bearded Hercules, sociable and nice, growly and guarded in a sexy way I can’t describe. But I also know that just like my dad, Grady’s daughters are his life.
Period and end of story.
If he wanted a woman, he’d have no trouble finding her and moving her in. The fact that he hasn’t means he has zero interest in romance.
“Sorry again about the nanny thing, even if it was your idea,” he grinds out. “My only other option would’ve been to say you were a new employee from the Bobcat, but they’d have seen through that one easy. I don’t invite waitresses to stay at my house.”
I laugh. “You wouldn’t have wanted me to pretend I’m a waitress. I couldn’t pull that one off if I tried, but a nanny...” I shrug. “I had enough of those growing up and I’ve seen what they do.”
The overhead door on the pole shed raises, and before it’s all the way up, two identical lime-blue four-wheelers come roaring out with Sawyer on one, wearing a blue helmet, and Avery with a lime green helmet on the other.
“See? Helmets!” Sawyer yells, tapping the side of her head.
Grady holds up a hand and they wheel up next to him, stopping, but don’t turn off their ATVs.
He checks the helmet straps on each girl, then their gloves and knee pads, and what he calls the kill strap that each girl has strapped on their wrists.
“Stay on the short track, girls,” he tells them.
“We will,” Sawyer says. “We know the rules. Sheesh.”
“We’re going to pick some flowers near the creek,” Avery says. “I want to press them in the notebook with the poems I’ve written.”
My heart softens for her. She’s a really sweet kid.
Sawyer is a bit harder, more serious, more impatient, but she has an explorer’s heart. I’m glad that they balance each other out. I remember how tough being alone with nobody but Dad could be.