Page 103 of Protected By Duval
Noelle looked down at the tray in front of her. The tall stems tipped with purple blossoms were indeed lavender.
She nodded. “Sorry, I was... thinking...”
“You don’t have to apologize. You’re not on a timetable here.”
Noelle looked up at the rest of the garden center and smiled.
“I’m just happy we got you out of the house to come out and spend some time with us.”
Turning to look at Tracy, Noelle reached out a hand to brush it over the silk-like hair of Tracy’s daughter. The day had started with her mother shaking her awake to get showered and changed.
Once she was knee-deep in a project, she could go for days with just a handful of hours of sleep and questionable shower time.
While she’d been planning to forge on ahead in the Indian School project, the idea of going out and seeing the other women connected to the S.W.A.T. team was a welcome change of pace.
Now, besides Tracy and her baby, her own mother, Ciela, Katie and Finola were moving around the garden center picking out plants for their own yards. Jack wasn’t there as she was on shift with the team.
“What do you think of Duval’s yard?”
Noelle shook herself and looked at Tracy, wondering why she was asking.
Tracy smiled. “It’s just a question.”
The coquettish fluttering of her eyelashes was enough to make Noelle chuckle a little.
“It’s just a question? More like a fishing expedition. Right?”
Tracy gestured to a tray of marigolds beside the lavender pots. “These are great for color.”
Noelle picked up the little plastic tag that was stuck into the medium surrounding the plant. “If I was putting something into Duval’s yard, I’d go with something that doesn’t need a lot of care-”
Her eyes moved over the instructions and general plant information.
“These bloom once and then they have to be planted again. I don’t know if McCrae has the time or the interest in replanting over and over again.”
Noelle moved to the next tray and picked up a card to read, deciding almost immediately that the paper-thin petals of the flowers wouldn’t survive him handling them very much.
“Then again,” Tracy leaned in, bouncing her baby slightly in her carrier, “I have a feeling that he might be moving soon.”
Noelle frowned at her words, lifting her eyes from the plant tag in her hands. “Moving?”
Tracy’s smile was more of a mischievous twist of her lips. “In with you, sweetheart. You know that’s where y’all are headed, right?”
She was right.
At least in Noelle’s heart, McCrae was already there.
And her mother already had her eye on a prefab ‘granny cabin’ to put in the backyard.
Noelle smiled at the idea.
“Pretty sure the team is already betting on a move in date.”
Noelle lowered her voice. “Are law enforcement personnel allowed to bet on things like this?”
Tracy bit her lips and her daughter reached her hands up to touch her mother’s face. “Unofficially.”
Noelle smiled at that. “Unofficially.”
