Free Stone Kissed by Keri Stevens Page B

hand over, checking it carefully.
    Delia’s father stepped back. “Wolverton, this isn’t any of your business.”
    “My business is exactly what this is. What are you doing with this kid?”
    Delia deflated—she was hardly a kid anymore. But she knew better than to voice a protest, especially in front of her father. Spreading her fingers, she forced herself to pull away from the angel’s glorious warmth.
    “That’s my daughter, and I’ll thank you to get out of my way.” Her father’s words were forceful, but his voice was weak.
    Wolverton turned back to look at her, his blue eyes full of concern. Wolverton? Wolverton! This was Grant Wolverton, the dealer her father was always complaining about. He always managed to find the best pieces and pull them out of circulation before Vernon Forrest had a chance to bid on them. In only a few short years, Wolverton had taken his grandfather’s dying antiques concern and built it into everything her father had wanted for himself.
    She was in so much trouble.
    “It all right.” She could hear the quake in her own voice. “It’s all good.” But he didn’t look soothed. She stepped to his right, back toward her father. She needed to get him away from Wolverton now, or it would be so much worse later.
    Wolverton turned back to her father. “She’s a smart girl. She knows her art history. Are you the one teaching her?”
    Forrest looked at him in astonishment, then narrowed his eyes at Delia. “She makes up things. She has a big imagination and a bigger mouth.”
    She backed away from both of them now. It was going to get ugly and she couldn’t figure out how to make it stop. “Please,” she whispered, and Wolverton heard her.
    He searched her face and rolled his shoulders back. “Are you finished here, Forrest?” It was an order, not a question.
    Her father reached his hand toward Delia. She pulled her arms around her body, and his gazed flicked between her and Grant. Turning on his heel, he gave his own order. “Let’s go.”
    She sighed. It would be a long drive back. Father would rant his way down Route 52, making the drive up into the hills that much more harrowing. But if she were lucky, when they got home she’d slip out of the car and go to Grandmère. He would pass out on the couch. It wasn’t an ideal system, but since her mother had died, it worked most of the time.
    She looked back over her shoulder as they reached the end of the aisle. He stood in the dark, a shadow among shadows, and then the electric flash of the overhead lights flared and Grant Wolverton, tall and strong and beautiful, glowed for her once again.
    ***
    She’d delayed long enough. She’d visited the house. She’d visited the hospital. She’d laundered her vacation wear at home and ordered stacks of T-shirts and jeans online to replace the ones she’d have to burn. But like it or not, Cecily had a mess to clean up. Orgasm aside, she still found tying up loose ends distasteful.
    Russ was right where she expected, sprawled in front of the TV in the rental unit she’d housed him in, his jeans unbuttoned and his T-shirt covered with pizza grease. He hadn’t washed in days, and the small house was a pit. Cecily was so glad that, after her parents moved away, she’d kept their house for herself and put her “workers” in separate quarters.
    “God, you’re worthless.” She dropped her red leather purse on the counter and let the duffel bag she kept in the trunk of the car fall to the floor
    “Honey.” Russ’s voice was slurred with sleep and beer. He sat up and ran his fingers through his thinning blonde hair. He’d already gone about half gray.
    “Did you cancel the mail?” She smiled at him and began unbuttoning her jacket.
    He nodded uncertainly.
    “Good boy.” She added a thread of caramel to her tone as she unzipped the red pencil skirt. “You need a shower, Russ.”
    He perked up visibly, pulling off his T-shirt, and she winced. His pecs had depleted so that he