When her eyelids begin to droop, he tucked her in and kissed her on the cheek again. “How about when you get well I teach you to ride the wind, Millie? That could be your one wild thing.”

“I’d like that,” she added, already more asleep than awake.

Hank meant to leave, but she was still holding his hand. Her trust in him was the one thing in the world that mattered to him.

He leaned back against the pillow that braced her shoulder and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t going to leave her alone. He had a feeling they’d both been alone too long.

Chapter 11 - Ketch

Chapter 11

Ketch

Ketch left Tuesday Raine asleep in the attic room and retraced their steps back to the tiny passageway. On the opposite wall, halfway down, he noticed a lever that easily opened the hidden panel door into the kitchen. Anyone could take the stairs to the attic from the main stairway, so why did the builder include a secret passage?

“And are there more?” he asked himself aloud. Nothing about this house was standard construction.

He left the passage open so Tuesday could find her way down and went back to work. The hammering and whine of the saw didn’t wake her. When she finally wandered down wearing his T-shirt and her shorts, she stretched and yawned.

Ketch had packed up his tools. “Finished,” he said.

She admired his work. “Thanks. What do I owe you?”

“Another dinner sometime?”

“Anytime.”

Neither said a word. He knew their friendship was too fragile to tease about. He simply walked to his truck with the house plans tucked under one arm.

“See you, kid,” he finally managed as he climbed into his truck.

She waved. “See you, old man,” she answered.

Ketch grinned. At twenty-six he was her old man and at twenty-two she was a kid. Between them, they had a lifetime of living.

Later that night, in his apartment, he studied the plans and thought there was one thing he should have done before he’d left.

He should have kissed Tuesday. She’d looked so adorable in his old army T-shirt. He loved how she’d slept on his chest like they were wild pups.

Trying to get his mind off of the way Tuesday’s body felt bumping against him in the tiny passage, Ketch googled Tony Raine. If the brothers had kept the same name, he might find out if Tony Raine ever worked on any other house.

No luck.

Ketch tried Anthony Raine.

His laptop lit up. An artist turned architect, he had worked on county courthouses all over the state. Every county in Texas, all 254, had a county courthouse in the center of town. Picture after picture of stately buildings appeared.