Page 91 of The Gift
“Vince!” he called when he noticed them. “Get over here and make yourself useful.”
His dad didn’t look up when he approached, just nudged the tongs toward a side table. “Stand by with that platter.”
Coop grabbed it without question then stood by, smoke from the grill rising between them. The meat and the platter weren’t what this was about.
Sure enough, he got to the point a moment later. “You were protective back there. The way you claimed her hand before she could shake mine.”
Coop kept his eyes on the steaks. “She doesn’t like being touched.”
“Hugging your mother didn’t bother her.”
“She read her,” he said simply. “Mom’s safe.”
“And I’m not?”
“I didn’t say that.”
His dad watched him, methodical and precise, processing the facts like he always did. “Is she the nontraditional assistance I read about in the paper?”
Coop’s jaw flexed. Even as a teenager, he’d never been able to slip anything past his father. “Yeah. She’s a source.”
Ray’s brows lifted. “You think it’s wise to date a source? A potential witness?”
“It happened before everything blew open,” he said. “Before it turned into a case inside a case. And it’s too late now.”
“You’re hooked, huh?”
“Line and sinker.”
The judge stared at him for a long moment, the kind of look that made attorneys squirm and had him, as a teenager, confessing to things he’d only thought. “You haven’t gotten where you are by being reckless. I trust you to do what’s right. By her. And by the law.”
Coop’s chest eased, not with relief, exactly, but alignment.
He flipped another burger. “She seems steady. Stronger than she looks.”
“She’s both.”
Ray gave him a sidelong glance, his mouth curving slightly. “Good. You’ve been alone too long. It’s about time.”
“Burgers are done,” Coop said, ready with the platter and a topic change.
His dad chuckled as he piled them on, still sizzling and perfectly done. “Take these over. And try not to hover. You’ll scare her off.”
Coop thought of her at the homicide scene, the cabin in the dead of night, and with Gruzinsky—vulnerable but iron-willed. He shook his head. “Not likely.”
***
Erica lingered near the edge of the patio, sipping her iced tea and watching father and son at the grill. There was an ease between them, both quiet and familiar. A shared history.
Ray had glanced her way twice now. She didn’t need to be psychic to guess what, or rather who, was the topic of conversation.
She didn’t want to consider what an educated, powerful, worldly man like the judge would think of her story, so she didn’t. Instead, she focused on Vince in his dark swim trunks and a molded-on charcoal-gray T-shirt. Handsome and fit, with absolutely no dad bod.
But he was so much more than that. Capable. Considerate. She wished she had a thimbleful of his confidence.
Her nerves weren’t about dinner with his family. They seemed wonderful. It was what came after.
She rarely swam; pools were too crowded and unpredictable. One accidental brush against the wrong person and she could end up drowning, literally, in someone else’s emotions. Being resuscitated by a lifeguard or a helpful stranger wasn’t on her bingo card this century—or ever.
