Page 88 of Run to Ground

“Okay.” He didn’t think he could deny her anything. In this, he didn’t think he wanted to. They walked toward the kids and Viggy. “What are the rules?”

She laughed, making him want to kiss her. “We kind of make them up as we go along.” With that, she ran over to Dee, scooping her up and twirling her around, making her shriek with laughter.

“Heads up!” Ty threw the ball to him, and Theo caught it. Turning, he tossed it to Tio, who took off for the big evergreen that was apparently some kind of goal or home base or end zone. Everyone tore after him, and Theo joined them.

For Jules, for this family, for once in his life, he could do it. He could make up the rules as he went along.

Epilogue

The phone vibrated under her pillow, and Jules grabbed it and accepted the call before it could wake Theo. He shifted as she slid out of bed, and she glanced at him, smiling. It felt right to have him there next to her. She slipped out of the room and hurried downstairs, closing herself in the bathroom before she said a word.

“Hello?” Her voice shook. Only a few people had her number, and five of them were sleeping upstairs.

“Ms. Jackson.” The sound of Mr. Espina’s voice saying her name—hernewname, the one he shouldn’t even know—jarred her. Jules reached out and put a hand against the wall to steady herself.

“What are…how…?” She was having a hard time getting enough air needed to talk. Why was he calling? Did Courtney know where they were? Was he going to warn her that they needed to run? Her heart collapsed at the idea. She’d just gotten Theo; she didn’t want to lose him. “Does she know?”

“No.” Mr. Espina’s answer made her muscles weaken in relief, and she sagged against the door. “Her investigator is following up a lead in Dallas.”

Something about the way he said it made Jules certain he’d been the one to plant that false trail, and she let out a relieved huff of air.God bless Mr. Espina.

“You’ll have a visitor tomorrow.”

Jules blinked. That was not expected. “Who?”

“Grace Robinson.”

That told her nothing. “Who is she?”

“She needs a place to stay.”

Her brain racing, Jules tried to comprehend what he was telling her—and what he was not telling her. This Grace must be on the run, and Mr. Espina was sending her to Monroe, to Jules’s house, to Jules’sfamily’shouse. “Is she dangerous? Is someone after her? The kids—”

“She won’t hurt any of you.”

Jules noted that he didn’t comment on whether the person after Grace Robinson would be a danger. “I don’t think—”

“I’m calling in a favor,” he interrupted.

Jules closed her eyes, leaning more heavily against the door. He’d kept her stepmother from calling the police, plus he was leading her private investigator away from them. He also knew how to find them. Really, she had no choice. “How long will she be staying?”

“As long as she needs to.”

“Okay,” she sighed, resigned. How was she going to explain to Theo that a strange woman would be living with them for an undetermined amount of time? “What time will she be arriving?”

There was no answer.

“Mr. Espina?”

He’d already ended the call.