Free One Night in Weaver... by Allison Leigh

your friends.”
    Seth sucked down the emotion that rose hot and quick inside him. He’d been too young and green to do anything about it when the authorities had decided that Chuck Banyon’s drowning on a boating trip with his business partner had been only a tragic accident. That the business deal they’d been at odds over hadn’t been adequate motive.
    But that had been two decades ago. And despite knowing he’d failed to unearth the truth, Seth was no longer a devastated kid. “Because I
like
her,” he repeated tightly.
    “Then
un
like her,” his boss said flatly, “or be damned certain that her appeal has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she’s the only one McGregor is talking to. I don’t want anything messing up this case, and that includes you messing with Dr. Templeton!”

Chapter Five
    “V ivian.” Hayley maintained a calm tone despite the frustration building inside her. “You
promised
you’d go with me to the wedding tomorrow.”
    Vivian’s diminutive figure was wrapped in a heavy gold silk robe. But even dressed as she was for bed, she still had a long strand of pearls around her neck. She was working them between her fingers as if they were worry beads as she paced across Hayley’s small living room. “You’re going to be busy, dear. I haven’t been a maid of honor since the Stone Age, but I do remember it is a busy time. The styles may have changed, but I highly doubt that has.”
    Hayley sank down on a chair and toed off the shoes that she’d been wearing for the past several hours, all through Casey and Jane’s wedding rehearsal and the dinner they’d thrown at their place afterward. It was late. And on top of a nearly full day at work before that, it felt even later. She wanted sleep. She wanted someone to put their arms around her and solve the world’s problems.
    Who was she kidding?
    Problems were what
she
was supposed to be good at solving.
    She wanted Seth to put his arms around her, period.
    But Seth wasn’t here. She hadn’t seen or talked to him since he’d surprised her with lunch three days earlier.
    And her grandmother
was
here. “When’s the last time you were out of the house? Besides your morning walk?”
    Vivian’s lips tightened. She was eighty-six years old but the same dark brown eyes that Hayley also possessed still held plenty of life, and right now they clearly broadcast her displeasure. “If you want me to leave, Hayley, you need only say the words.” She sniffed haughtily. “You wouldn’t be the first family member to wish me gone, after all.”
    “I don’t wish you gone, Vivian,” Hayley said quietly. Honestly. “You surely know that by now.”
    Her grandmother sighed heavily, some of the starch leaving her rigid posture. She crossed to the couch and sat in the corner, looking smaller than ever and unusually delicate. “You’ve been hospitable for six months.”
    “It’s not hospitality driving me,” Hayley corrected. “You’re family. Maybe if you’d just tell me what happened between you and my father and Uncle David, I could—”
    “They’re unforgiving souls,” Vivian said abruptly. “That’s what happened.” Her lips tightened again. “They’re not at all like their father. He forgave anything, even when doing so proved ruinous.”
    Hayley’s bed was so close, yet further away than ever. “Tell me more about what he was like. My grandfather.” Vivian had already told her how they’d met. She’d been a violin-maker’s daughter and Sawyer had been a rich young man who’d played the violin. “Besides the fact that he played violin.”
    “Rich,” Vivian said so immediately that Hayley couldn’t help but smile even as tired as she was.
    She propped a pillow behind her back and crossed her bare feet on top of the coffee table. Vivian had had three husbands after Sawyer Templeton, but she’d never taken their names. Only Sawyer’s. “And?”
    “And handsome. And...he had a soft heart.” Vivian’s pearls