Grace Anne by Kathi S. Barton Page B

hurt, probably from this guy. Trace bundled him up in his
arms and went to find a place to hide him so that when his dad came to get him
they could take him somewhere safe. Grace was coming toward him with a frown
and he was afraid she was going to tell him to do what the guy had done.
    “I won’t throw him outside. It’s
raining and he’ll get a cold. There isn’t any reason for you to be cruel to a
little puppy.” He brushed at the tear on his face and turned away before she
could make fun of him like his uncle did.
    “You feel better for lashing out
at me, or did you want me to kick the dog so you can at least feel justified
for snapping at me like that?”
    He turned to look at her angry
face.
    “I was going to suggest we take
him to the vet just down the block, but I can see you have it under control.”
    She started to walk away and he
said her name. “I’m sorry. I just…I love animals. And that guy over there
wanted me to throw him out back to fend for himself. Could we really take him
to the vet?”
    She told her assistant Becky to
get rid of the man who had wanted to toss out the dog and told her to make sure
that everyone left at five. She grabbed up her coat and they were out the door
and into a cab in no time. Trace looked over at the woman seated next to him
    “You’re not like the other women
my dad sometimes dates.” She snorted and he smiled. “You do that too. The
pretty women that dad used to date wouldn’t do that if you paid them a million
bucks. But you don’t care, do you?”
    “I most certainly do not. And for
the record, I’m not seeing your dad. He and I have an arrangement. He’s going
to buy the building and I’m going to disappear.”
    That made the area around his
heart hurt a bit. He didn’t want her to disappear; he really liked Miss Grace. He
was trying to think of a way to make her want to stick around for a little
while longer when her phone rang. He watched her answer it.
    She was already a very pale woman,
he noticed. He thought her skin looked like milk and was really smooth like it
too. He thought of her as the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and thought
maybe his dad did too. But as soon as she put the phone to her ear she seemed
to get paler. He watched her close the phone with shaky hands and put it back
into her pocket. He didn’t know a great deal about adults and less about what
made them scared, but he’d bet his brand new bed that someone had scared the
crap out of Miss Grace.
    Trace did the only thing he could
think of and he reached out and took her hand. She took it and held it really
tight. She seemed to be so sad all of a sudden when she looked at him and he
decided right then and there that he loved Miss Grace.
    “I’m really going to miss you,
Trace. It’s been a pleasure knowing you.”
    As soon as they got to the vet he
called his dad.

Chapter 11
     
    Michael answered his phone on the
first ring. He was right in the middle of the biggest deal in his career and he
didn’t have time for calls.
    “Whatever you want, you’ll have to
call back later. I’m too fucking busy to talk to you right now.” The silence at
the other end had him close his eyes. He just knew it was going to be his
mother. When Trace spoke, his heart started to pound.
    “Dad, I’m sorry, but I found him
and they wanted to throw him in the back to die and I didn’t know she was going
to let me take care of him, but I was mean to her and then she got this phone
call and whoever it was made her sad, then she held my hand and told me that
she was going to miss me.”
    Michael could hear the tears in
his son’s voice and took a deep breath. “Okay, son, let’s start over. Who did
you find and who wanted to throw them out to die?”
    Seemed a reasonable place to start,
but apparently not to his son. “She’s going to leave us. Are you going to let
her go? I love her, Dad, and I don’t want her to go away.”
    He figured he was talking about
Grace, but wanted to be