Page 101 of Family Jewels

“As long as it takes, Lady,” was his terse reply.

“I have jobs I need to work on tomorrow.”

He shot me a glare. “Then I’ll send someone to watch over you.”

“Jed?”

He hesitated. “No. I’ll send Miguel. Brett handled the Homer Dyer situation well enough, but he’s still too green. I don’t trust him with this.”

“Why not Jed?”

James slowed down when we got to the road, then turned right and headed south of town. “The truth?”

“Of course.”

“Earlier today, he asked to be pulled off as your backup.”

I sucked in a breath. It hurt that Jed didn’t want to be my guardian anymore—we’d been through so much together, and he was as much a friend as he was a protector—but I had a sneaking suspicion his request didn’t have anything to do with me.

“What’s going on with Jed and Neely Kate?” I asked.

He shot me a sharp look. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“When Jed saved us from Homer Dyer the other day, he and Neely Kate were at each other’s throats, not to mention the repeat this afternoon. What’s goin’ on?” But I had a feeling I knew.

“How would I know? You’re with them a hell of a lot more than I am.”

Was Jed’s attraction to Neely Kate new? Before this mess with the necklace, Neely Kate and I had last seen Jed in April, the week before my trip to Houston to donate my bone marrow to Violet. I’d seen him a few times since my return, but never with Neely Kate. Had they seen each other when I wasn’t around?

I wanted to solve the mystery of Jed and Neely Kate, but I also wanted my friend and protector back. Jed was someone I trusted, literally, with my life. The look James was giving me told me that he understood. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“You trust Miguel?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed.

“Okay,” I conceded. “Stupid question.”

“But you might not be going out in public at all tomorrow. I need to assess the situation.”

“So you expect me to hide out indefinitely?”

“You’re the one who decided to give Dyer the proof he needed that . . .”

His voice trailed off, and I wondered what he’d intended to say. That I meant something to him? It was the reason he refused to be seen with me in public now that I’d retired my Lady in Black veil. “He would never have tied us together if you hadn’t found him in my barn. What were you doing there, anyway? You never come to my farm.”

“It’s like I said. I was checking up on you. Jed told me about your run-in with Homer.”

The pieces fell into place. “Jed didn’t want to come, and you were afraid that it would scare the bejesus out of me if you sent someone I didn’t know.”

He was quiet for a moment. “No. I wanted to check on you myself.”

I had to wonder if it was partially because he’d missed me. Sure, we’d seen each other on Tuesday, but there’d been no chance for us to talk like we usually did. But the last thing I wanted to do was chat about my behavior that night in the barn. “Why wouldn’t you let me have a vision?”

“There was no reason to take the risk.”

“What risk? How many visions did you ask me to have last winter when I worked for you? Dozens.”

“That was different.”