Part 1 (1/2)

Jamie.

The Grant Brothers Series.

By Kathi S. Barton.

*CHAPTER 1*.

Dane Wallace watched the man walk by her and released the breath she had been holding.

He was safe for another night. Picking up her bag, she made her way to her car parked on High Street. She was nearly home before she let herself think what she was doing. Again.

For the past three nights she had been going to sit on the park bench at dusk to watch this stranger walk by her. Dane knew if he noticed her he would probably not come this way again, and she was sort of hoping for that. But the dream had not changed in the two weeks before she started coming here and it had not changed in the three nights since. Her cell phone rang when she was stopped at a light. She groaned when she read the caller ID.

”h.e.l.lo, Pi. I'm on my way home now. Why don't you order us a pizza and I'll pick it up for us?”

”Missy Dane, you get hurt and I not have a house to pee in. You should tell police. Not walk streets like common hooker.”

Pi and Dane had been living together for ten years and she still could not get the idioms right. Dane hardly noticed it anymore.

”I'm fine. Just order the pizza and I'll pick it up. I'll even bring you home some cola if you promise not to nag me anymore tonight.”

”You bring home what I order? What if I order fishy pieces and eggs? You eat then?”

”If you order anything fishy on my half I'll send you back to China on a slow boat with all women. Tell me where you're ordering from and call. I'm tired and I have a headache.”

”You be dead if you don't get help. I order from the Daddy place. You like him. He has nice commercials too. I want root beer, not cola. I like bubbles.”

”I'll be home in an hour. Make sure you tell them I'll pick it up in forty minutes. And order a large salad and bread sticks. I have cla.s.s tomorrow and I can take it for lunch.” After they hung up, Dane thought about Pi and their strange but strong bond. Even after ten years, Dane barely knew much more than Pi's last name and the only thing personal she knew about the older woman was what she had read in her file and the tiny snippets she'd gotten from touching her. Dane had gone to her country for a seminar and to learn the culture at sixteen. She then ended up trying to help find Pi's daughter.

Ping Chang had been walking home from college one day and had simply disappeared. Dane had been called in to help. Her special talents were revered rather than ridiculed in that country like they had been in the States and when asked, Dane had tried her very best to find the then eighteen-year-old girl. Dane knew that the girl was troubled, but she didn't know the extent of it until it was too late.

It had only taken her four days to find the girl. Her body had been in a boat that was sitting in a harbor. Ping had committed suicide. She had shamed her family by unknowingly having an affair with a married man and had gotten pregnant. Dane told Pi this after she told the police where Ping was.

”She was heartbroken and when she wrote the letter, she...she was most upset that she couldn't come to you.”

”Why, Missy Dane? Why she not come to Momma? I love her. She my only baby. Why, Missy Dane?”

Dane didn't have answers for Pi, but she did have friends.h.i.+p to offer. When Dane had gone back to the States after her education, and then suddenly returned several months later, Pi had opened her home and her heart to the then broken Dane.

Dane had changed a great deal in the ten years. When she had come back to China after an incident in Chicago, she was badly injured and had lost a great deal of weight. Now she was a very beautiful woman. She also had a better sense of her self-worth and her abilities. Now Dane could help most of the time and it didn't hurt her as it had before.

Her hair was a plethora of autumn colors, browns, reds, yellows, and even some deep black that looked almost blue. Her olive complexion was light, but come summer she would tan nicely and become a golden brown. The sprinkle of freckles over her nose and shoulders gave her the appearance of someone very young, she knew this. But she also knew she had a body that left no doubt that she was very much a mature woman. Her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s were large, much larger than someone with her tall, slim frame would be able to carry off, she supposed. But she thought she wore them very well. Her dark green eyes sparkled. She supposed she looked okay, but never really cared one way or the other.

After picking up the pizza without anchovies, salad, and bread sticks and heading home, Dane thought about the man on the campus. She didn't know anything about him other than she must have touched him somewhere over their lifetimes. It would only take a small b.u.mp, an accidental touch of skin to skin. It was so dark where she had to wait for him to pa.s.s her, she wasn't even sure what he looked like. But she knew that if she didn't intervene, he would die.

And if he did, it would be her fault.

It was seven o'clock in the morning before Dane decided to go to bed. She had finished up her reports due the following week and had made a list of things she was going to do this weekend. The emails she had put off until the very last minute and even now, put it off for another day. They would still be there tomorrow. There was nothing ever in it that couldn't wait.

She was brus.h.i.+ng her teeth and getting ready to get into bed when she stormed back into the office and looked through them. Nothing. But she knew that if she hadn't checked, she would only toss and turn until she did.

Pi woke her at noon to tell her there was a phone call for her. ”Man say to tell you it important. Said that you are only one to help. I tell him you no help without sleep and he told me to wake you.”

”Tell him I'll be right there.” Dane dumped herself out of the bed and sat on the floor for a couple of minutes before she got up and pulled on her robe. She knew it could only be one person. He was the only one with this phone number. Picking up the receiver in the office, she snarled at him.

”I get four hours of sleep every day. You couldn't wait until two or later to call and bug the s.h.i.+t out of me? It's barely nine o'clock where you are. This had better be important.”

”Dane, I have another one for you.”

Before she could catch herself, Dane was on the floor again. The room had tilted and she couldn't keep up with the way the room s.h.i.+fted and dropped. Her head was spinning and she could just make out someone yelling her name.

”You make her sick again, I put hex on your c.o.c.k. It never work again. I told you before no more. Why you tell her stuff that make her sick? I will do it you-”

”Pi, give me the phone. It's all right. He needs me and he's the only one I trust. Let me have the phone and could you please fix me a gla.s.s of tea?” Dane didn't think she was going to do it, and before she handed Dane the phone, she told Markus once more about the hex. Dane didn't think Pi knew how to spell hex much less try to execute one, but didn't think now was a good time to point that out.

”Tell me as much as you can. I'm not quite settled just yet, but I do have an office downtown. I don't know...I think I need a break soon, Markus. This is taking more out of me all the time without any down time. I told you before how much it takes from me.”

”I told them that. Jefferies said to tell you he has your back. I told him I was doing just fine with it, but thanks. I also, well, I told him you wouldn't come and he offered five times your fee.

I said I'd ask. Dane, I can't do this without you. But I can understand why...this little boy. They think it's...I know you don't want information, but it's been four days. You know as well as I do what the chances of getting them back even after twenty-four hours are. They didn't let me know until this morning.”

”Send me what you have. Right now I can't leave here. There's something going on where I am. Don't give Jefferies anything until I call you after I receive the information. Markus, make sure you send the usual with the paperwork too.”

”Got it. You should have it before ten tomorrow morning. Will Pi...I know she hates me, but will she accept the package if it comes before you're awake?” Dane didn't know, but thought there was a good chance she wouldn't. Pi hated Markus and it was nothing he'd done so much as what had happened to her. Dane took a deep breath and closed her eyes. ”You just send it and I'll make sure she signs for it.” It took Dane two hours and a promise of a day at the spa for Pi to agree to accept the package from Markus. By the time Dane was getting out of the shower to go to work, she had the makings of a major headache. Pulling on the first thing she could grab, she was ten minutes behind and had forgotten her lunch.

”Jamie, please come over for dinner? We haven't seen you since we got back from our honeymoon. I miss you. I'll have Byron make your favorite meal?” Jamie had to smile. Byron had married Jamie's best friend and his brother did all the cooking. Of course Taylor did most everything else, but cooking was not something she even was sort of okay at. Taylor was, by far, a worse cook than even his and Byron's mother. And that was saying a lot.

”All right, but I have a late cla.s.s tonight so I won't be able to come over until after six. And I want pasta alfredo with chicken. And apple pie for dessert. Tell him not the store bought kind either. I want him cutting up apples and making crust. Tell him if he wears an ap.r.o.n all night, I won't tell you about the time he was caught with Beth in the back seat of Mom's car.”

”Ah, you mean the girl he popped his cherry with? Yeah, he told me about that. He also told me about the time you two were caught in his bedroom with Sadie and Angel Davison. Shame on you, James Grant! That poor girl is probably scarred for life.” Jamie sat up in his chair and was ready to blast his brother when his other line rang. ”It was her fault. I'd never had anyone...you know, I'm not going to justify this to you. Suffice it to say, she is not scarred. I gotta go, I'll see you tonight. Love ya, Ta.” Jamie cut his friend off while she was still laughing. ”James Grant.”

”What a way to answer your phone. Does anyone say, 'h.e.l.lo, Mother, how was your day?'

anymore. I was wondering if you've heard from your brother yet? He is supposed to be at the house this weekend and I don't know what he wants for his birthday dinner. And are you bringing a date? A mother likes to know these things.” Jamie had to smile at his mother. There was no doubt in his mind that she was the most loved mother in the world and she had each of her sons, including their wives, wrapped tightly around her fingers. And he knew this was her way of reminding them all that it was Byron's birthday this weekend. He could get a date, but he was not really seeing anyone he wanted to take to his family's house. That was something no man did to a causal date. The girl did fine, but the man would hear about it for months.

James Grant had no delusions about his looks. He knew he was pretty good-looking, or so women had been telling him since he knew the difference between boys and girls, he thought with a grin. He was well over six feet tall and had a head full of black hair. It was longer than his brothers', just over his collar and while not curly, it had a wave to it that women could not resist touching. His body was tight with muscle and not the kind made in a gym, but of hard work and real labor. Every year he and one of his brothers or more would be at a project site somewhere building a house for some organization. He also helped the elderly with construction projects they needed around their house in his free time. His hard jaw was in direct contrast to his easy nature, he knew. His mother often told him that he had a hard head, too, but he doubted it was a compliment. Dark brown eyes and long thick lashes under dark brows gave him his rugged looks, and his high cheek bones and sloped nose hinted of his Indian heritage back along his family line. Jamie, to his friends and family, was hard to anger and quick to forgive. He'd always tried to live by that.

”I'm going over to have dinner with them tonight as a matter of fact. Taylor is cooking me my favorite dinner. And apple pie for dessert.” He waited for the explosion and was not disappointed.

”Oh good heavens! Please tell me she's not cooking again. I don't think I've ever had anyone burn a cup of coffee before. Oh, Jamie, take over some pizza or something. Don't let her poison you. I love the girl very much, but...you're kidding me, aren't you?”

”Yes, Mom, I am. Byron is cooking. But he is making me my favorite. I have a late meeting then I'm going over there at six. You should come with me. I'm sure they won't mind.” He was positive they would not mind, but hoped for some reason she said no. He loved spending time with his brother and Ta.

”No, I have two meetings as well. I also have to go over and see to this family. Why some people think it's their right to abuse children...I'll talk to you tomorrow. Tell them I love them and will see them both on Sunday.”