Free Gone to Her Grave (Rogue River Novella Book 2) by Melinda Leigh Page B

doesn’t feel right. I was wondering if you could ask Seth to help. He’s part of the new task force on this drug investigation.”
    “If you want Seth’s help, you’ll have to ask him. We had a huge fight.”
    Stevie stopped and pivoted to face her. “Doesn’t matter how much you fight. He’ll do anything for you.”
    Carly felt her eyes bulge. “What are you talking about? I can’t get anywhere with Seth. We can’t have a single conversation without him going berserk.”
    Stevie shook her head. “If you snapped your fingers, Seth would come running like a golden retriever. Or maybe a Rottweiler.”
    “Doesn’t feel that way,” Carly said. “It always feels like he does the opposite of what I ask.”
    “I’ll bet you a dollar he says yes,” Stevie challenged.
    “You’re on.” Carly dug the lighter out of the backpack. “Now I really want to blow something up.”
    Stevie grinned. “Let’s do it.”

CHAPTER NINE
    Crickets chirped and frogs croaked as Seth lifted his sleeping daughter out of the backseat. He draped her limp body over his shoulder and bumped the door closed with his foot. Patsy was waiting, her front door open and welcoming, as always.
    Smiling, she pointed up the stairs, and Seth carried Brianna to the room she usually used when she slept over at Grandma’s house, the room that used to belong to Carly and Stevie. He flipped the light switch. Posters of Disney princesses all but covered the pale-purple walls.
    The oak floor creaked under his foot as he transferred Brianna from his shoulder to the twin bed closest to the door. A pair of pajamas lay across the foot of the mattress. Not wanting to wake her, Seth just slipped off her sneakers and tucked her under the covers. Turning off the light, he left the door ajar.
    He descended the stairs and poked his head into the living room. Patsy sat in her favorite overstuffed chair. Her feet were curled under her body. He hesitated in the doorway. What did a man say to his soon-to-be ex-mother-in-law?
    “I didn’t change her clothes,” he said. “I didn’t want to wake her.”
    Patsy looked up from the photo album in her lap. She pulled off her reading glasses and waved them in the air. “A little dirt never hurt anyone.”
    “Good night.” He backed away.
    “Seth?”
    The voice pulled him back as if he were an obedient child. Patsy had that way about her, a combination of sweet and firm, love and expectation.
    “Sit down.”
    He dropped into the chair angled next to hers, the one that Bill used to sit in every night to read his paper. The seat felt too big, as if Seth would never be able to fill the dent in the cushion left by Bill’s body.
    She set her album on the coffee table next to an open book. Thirty-year-old pictures of a young Bill and Patsy filled the pages. In every sepia-tinted photo, their arms were around each other, as they had been in life. Seth recognized Bill’s handwriting on the open book’s pages. His journals. Patsy was reading Bill’s accounts of his days and looking at pictures of the corresponding years. Loss swelled in Seth’s heart.
    He’d been a late-life baby, an only child. His parents had died years ago, and he’d left New Hampshire with no regrets. When he’d married Carly, he’d been folded into the Taylor clan. It had taken him a long time to adjust to their constant presence. At times he’d resented what had felt like intrusion, but now he missed them almost as much as he missed Carly. He hadn’t appreciated what he’d had until it was gone.
    Patsy leaned forward. “You know I love you.”
    The words struck a jarring chord in Seth’s heart. He could hear the but on his mother-in-law’s tongue. She’d never given him a harsh word, not even after her daughter left him to move home, and up until this moment, she’d never butted in either. But Seth had an uncomfortable feeling that was about to change.
    “I love her.” The words slipped out before he could stop them, frustration