Love's Protector: A Maverick's Shield Novel by Charisma Chloe Page A

week he’d spent in North Carolina on a case a few years back where he’d guessed she was a native to. “Hello Mrs. Pruitt,” he said with a smile.
    “Please, call me Abigail.” Her aging skin wrinkled around her green eyes as she looked up at Jason and smiled. “You remind me of my late husband.”
    “Do I?” Jason replied.
    “He was quite the looker just like you.” She turned to Amour. “Is this your husband dear?”
    Amour awkwardly looked at Jason and then turned back to Abigail. “No, he’s just a friend of mine.”
    “Well why not? Every girl should have a nice strong handsome man like him to keep her warm at night.”
    Her words instantly brought Jason back the memory of the night he and Amour spent in bed together. He cleared his throat. “We’re just friends ma’am.”
    “What’s the matter sugar, you don’t think she’s gorgeous, because I do.” She gave Jason a quick wink as she continued to talk. “Surely you find her attractive.”
    This conversation was beginning to make him very uncomfortable and from what he could tell, so was Amour. He felt a sigh of relief when Millie entered the room with a tray full of drinks. The distraction allowed him to change the subject. “We’d like to talk to you Mrs. Pruitt, about something very important.”
    “Please, have some lemon aid, its home made.” She picked up one of the glasses and sipped from it.
    Both Amour and Jason gave her a simultaneous “Thank you.”
    “Anytime, now what would you like to talk about?”
    Amour spoke before Jason could. “We would like to ask you a few questions about my mother Carly Graciette.”
    “Carly…I remember her. She was a sweet girl; very young.” She sat her drink down on the table and wiped the corner of her mouth with the napkin she held in her other hand. “That was your mother?”
    “Yes she was,” Amour replied.
    “Well I’ll be. You were a tiny little thing the last time I saw you. Boy, have you grown up to be quite a woman.” Her eyes squinted as she gently dug her finger in her head full of silver hair and scratched her scalp. “I thought it was something familiar about you. You look just like her.” She turned to look at Jason. “This one here used to love my oatmeal raisin cookies. She ate five or six of them every time I made them. She ate so many one time she got sick. I’d never seen such a young child eat so much. Good thing she was potty trained or else I would’ve had a mess on my hands that day.” Jason chuckled as Amour’s face turned red from embarrassment. “Would you like me to make you some now? It’ll only take a half hour. I already have the batter made up; I’ll just tell Millie to pop them in the oven.”
    Jason spoke before Amour could protest. “Sure, we’d love some.”
    “Great.” She instructed Millie to bake them and then focused her attention back to them. “So you’re Ted’s little one.”
    Amour looked up at her and smiled. “Yes I am.”
    “Your father was a wonderful man. He loved your mother very much.”
    “How could you tell?”
    “Honey, any man who sends a chuffer driven limousine to pick his wife up for a night on the town is a pretty good man in my eyes. He also brought her flowers almost every day.”
    “Really? My father?”
    “Yes, long stem roses. I would always see her with them smiling from ear to ear.”
    “Wow!” Amour said in surprise.
    “Now, back to those questions,” Jason said in an attempt to rush the conversation along.
    Abigail turned to Jason. “Sure sweetheart, what do you want to know?”
    Jason swallowed a gulp of his lemon aid. “Do you remember anything at all about the day Carly died?”
    “It’s kind of fuzzy. See it was so long ago and my memory is not what it used to be.”
    “You said that you saw someone at her house that day.”
    “That’s right. I was in my garden pulling up my tomatoes when she first arrived. She had on a long brown coat with a big hat and sunglasses. I remember because