Protector by Ashlee Price

Author:Ashlee Price [Price, Ashlee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ashlee Price
Published: 2018-05-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Conner

I’d forgotten what home felt like, but now I remember it.

As I stand over the bed where Ingrid and Alexa are sleeping soundly, arms around each other, my heart dances to the beat of a soft melody playing inside my head. Before I know it, the corners of my lips curve up into a smile.

I move closer, seized with a desire to run my fingers through the ethereal mess of Ingrid’s hair, to plant a kiss on the top of my daughter’s head. I don’t give in, though. I don’t want to wake them. They both need their sleep, Ingrid especially after last night.

At the memory, my heart beats faster.

Ingrid might have been upset. She might simply have been looking for solace. Still, she came to me. She might not know it, but she bared more than her body to me.

She stirs, her head slanting to one side.

I step back and carefully make my way out of the room, glancing back at them one last time before closing the door.

On the kitchen counter, I scribble a note saying that I’m going back to Dallas to interview the couple for my story, something I didn’t get the chance to tell Ingrid last night.

Smiling, I end the note with ‘Yours, Conner’.

I put her mug over the note to hold it down and make sure she sees it, then grab my laptop and walk out of the apartment, humming.

I almost don’t want to leave, but knowing they’ll be here when I return spurs me on.

Glancing at the closed door behind me, I make a solemn promise.

I’ll be back as soon as I can.

~

“Can you tell me more about that first meeting?” I ask Howard Boyle. I’m sitting across from him and his wife, Sylvia, in the music room of their elegant and, of course, immense Dallas home.

He strokes his pristine, winter-white chin curtain. “Well, it was a rehearsal for an upcoming concert for a small hall in Boston. I remember the piece well. It was Richard Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. She was a second violinist and she was taking the place of someone who’d gotten sick.”

“Myrna,” Sylvia supplies, her hands fidgeting with her pearl bracelet. “She got the flu.”

“I already noticed her at first, with her messy red hair…”

“I was in a hurry,” Sylvia says. “I was sound asleep when they called me and told me I had to fill in for Myrna. I had to rush to the hall. I barely had time to brush my teeth.”

“Yeah, she looked like she had just gotten out of bed,” Howard recalls, chuckling. “But then the rehearsal started. I began conducting, and when their section came, she held up that violin and she started playing and…”

“I messed up,” Sylvia interrupts. “I got out of tune and he scolded me.”

“He did?” I raise an eyebrow in surprise, not expecting that twist in the story.

“I did,” Howard confirms. “And she started spouting excuses and I lost my temper a bit, so I asked her if she was serious about playing the violin or if she could, in fact, play it.

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