Red Dirt Heart 3 by N.R. Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

top. I watched as he read through them, seeing a reoccurring name, looking at grainy, dated newspaper photographs of some kid I’d never seen before.
    “Who is this Samuel Jennings?” he asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    His brow creased as he knelt back, thinkin’. Then he simply got up. “Come on,” he said, walking out of the room. I followed him into my office, where he stood at my desk and opened my laptop.
    “What are you doing?”
    “See if you can Google any information on this guy,” he said, holding up the newspaper clippings.
    I took the small papers from him and slowly put them on the desk. “I’m, um…” My voice was quiet. “I’m not sure I want to.”
    Travis sighed. It wasn’t an all-out-of-patience sigh. It was an I’m-sorry-I-rushed-you sound. He put his hand to my face and gently kissed my cheekbone. “I should have asked, sorry.”
    “Don’t apologise,” I told him. We still stood so close, so close I could have kissed him if I wanted. But I wanted something else a whole lot more. I dropped my forehead onto his shoulder and leaned into him, waiting for him to put his arm around me. It didn’t take long. I breathed him in and let my breath out in a rush, feeling my worries leave me as I did.
    He rubbed his hands over my back, spreading his warmth into my body. “You okay?” he asked quietly.
    “I am now,” I answered. “You have some weird magic power to make everything less heavy.”
    His voice was close to my ear. “Less heavy?”
    I didn’t explain what I meant, I just nodded against him. “Yep.”
    He chuckled, the sound all warm and rumbly. He kissed the side of my head and pulled back. “I’d suggest you come help us out there on the roof, since doin’ something manual might clear your mind. But Bacon’s telling Trudy that she’s not getting on any damn roof and she’s calling him a bunch of four-letter words, so if you value your sanity, stay in here,” he said with a smile. “Stay close to Ma. I know you’re worried about her.”
    “I am.” I nodded. “But thanks for the heads-up on Trudy and Bacon.”
    Travis chuckled. “It’s all good, Charlie. They’re fine. Nothing for you to stress over, okay? You have enough to worry about right now.”
    I leaned up, just a fraction, and pressed my lips to his just as there was a thumping on the roof. “Charlie,” Ernie called out. “You’ve got company. There’s a car coming.”
    “Expecting someone?” Travis asked.
    I shook my head. We were too remote to have anyone turn up out of the blue. If someone did come out here, it was usually because someone asked ’em to.
    As I walked out into the hall, I almost ran into George. He must have heard what Ernie said. “Expecting someone?” I asked him.
    “Nope. You?”
    “No.” I gave a nod toward his bedroom. “How’s Ma?”
    “Sound asleep,” he said. Then he gave me a bit of a smile. “She’ll be fine. You know how she is.”
    The sound of the approaching vehicle got closer, so we walked out the front door to see who it was. They were driving slow. Like real slow. An uncertain kind of slow. “Might be lost,” I offered.
    “Could be,” George said.
    The car, a late model Subaru, crawled toward the house, eventually stopping about twenty metres away. If they were expecting to find an empty house, they were wrong. Three men on the roof, one woman holding a ladder at the side of the house, and three men on the veranda stopped and stared.
    No one got out of the car.
    Travis, being Travis, walked down the steps with a welcoming grin and headed toward them. He leaned his hands on the top of the car and the driver’s window opened a few inches so he could see inside.
    Travis took a reflexive step back, his eyes were a disbelieving kind of wide, and my instinct was to go to him. I didn’t know what was wrong, who was in the car, or what they’d done to scare him, but I leapt off the veranda. “Travis?”
    The car door opened slowly, and a woman got out.
    I