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tight underwear?”
    “More like an underwire bra that pulls you in and lifts you up in all the right places.”
    “Hmm.”
    “I wasn’t crying because of you. Or maybe I was, a little,” She rubbed her cheeks. “You overwhelm me, you know? In all ways. And apparently when you come really hard, stuff gets shaken loose. Emotions and all that crap.”
    “Twice.” I didn’t realize what I’d said until she planted her small fist in my chest.
    “You never quit.”
    “Yes, I do. Shutting up now.”
    She shook her head, smiling weakly even as her eyes became shiny again.
    My gut clenched. “Ah, Christ, you need to stop that.”
    “They broke into my grandmother’s house.” Her chin wobbled as the tears slipped down her cheeks. In the faint light from the bedside table, their watery tracks seemed way too prominent. She blew out a breath. “I know it’s yours now, but it was hers first. It was ours. She practically raised me. After my parents flaked out, Gram was all I had. She never let me feel the lack. I didn’t have siblings or much contact with my parents, but that didn’t matter. She was all the family I needed. Then she left me.”
    When I started to argue, she shook her head. “I know she had no choice. It wasn’t her fault. But I’m still alone. The only thing that was keeping me going was getting my house back--and hating you.” The corner of her mouth lifted. “We see how that worked out, didn’t we? No house, and here I am. Doing what, I don’t even fucking know. And now someone has it out for the only thing I have left of my grandmother.”
    “You don’t know that. You can’t possibly guess at their motives.”
    “No, but I’m almost positive they were there before. There are valuables left in the house, but not as many as there were. After speaking with the realtor, I did a short sale on some—”
    “You sold items out of the house I’d bought?” Even when I was trying to comfort her, I couldn’t help being a businessman down to the core.
    “The contents weren’t included in the sale,” Grace said stubbornly.
    “Depends what contents we’re talking about. According to my agent, I was to receive—” I stopped and directed my gaze at the ceiling. Focus, Carson . “We should go through the house and make an itemized list of what’s left and what’s been sold, see if you can note any discrepancies.”
    “I won’t remember everything. My grandmother was a collector, and I was in such a state after her passing that whole days blended together. She wasn’t supposed to go then. She’d just been given a clean bill of health at her doctor’s not three days before.”
    “Things happen, Grace. Sometimes the doctors don’t catch everything.” But my mind was whirling.
    There were way too many questions lately and not nearly enough answers. I needed some, and fast.
    “I know that. I’m not stupid, Blake. I’m just saying that I didn’t expect it. If she’d been sick…if there had been some kind of warning…” She sighed and laid her head on my chest, tracing a finger over the light hair on my chest. Somehow I still wore my shirt. It was a wrinkled mess and twisted on my arms, but still on just the same. “You never said how you knew her. The way you’d met.”
    It was easier to give her that than any of the rest. What I’d been willing to do to build my company. The risks I’d taken, the people I’d dealt with. Ones I’d still be working with if not for Annabelle’s intervention.
    “She knew my father,” I said vaguely, hoping that would be enough for right now. The rest of the story would be distracting enough. “Through him, she found out about me.”
    “What do you mean, found out?” She peered up at me, and her still damp cheeks were my undoing. “Odd choice of words.”
    “My father had another family. Several of them actually. He liked to spread it around.” I smiled thinly and stroked a hand over her hair in hopes she’d stop watching me so closely.