Avery and Courtney had their heads together discussing catering. Simone had sent Tyler sixteen different emails, which he was dealing with at the moment. The cell phone designated to them for the gala kept ringing and all the while he’d watch Courtney and notice she was smiling.

This gave her purpose and she was enjoying it far more than he was at the moment. It might not be assembling a building, but he sure was busy arranging just as many people and jobs.

The room stilled when there was a knock at the door. When Tyler looked up Michael Field stood in the doorway.

“Hello, sir.” Tyler quickly got to his feet and moved to the man who stood very large and stiff looking at him.

Courtney rose as well. He hadn’t even spoken, but she knew who was standing there. She certainly had an uncanny gift.

“Tyler,” Michael gave him a curt nod.

“It’s nice to see you. Please come in. We’re kinda spread out, but there is a chair…”

“I’ve just come for Courtney.”

Courtney moved around the table, her hands on each chair guiding her toward her father.

“I’m sorry. I forgot about meeting today.”

“Your mother said you were here. The receptionist out front showed me to the room.”

Courtney nodded and turned her head toward Tyler. “If you don’t mind, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“That’ll be fine,” Tyler said, his voice tense. “I’d be happy to pick you up.”

“Thank you. That would be nice.” She smiled at him and reached for her father’s arm. “Goodbye, Avery. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good-bye,” Avery called back as Courtney walked out of the room with her father.

Avery exchanged glances with Tyler.

“That was tense,” she said.

“Yep.”

“She didn’t even kiss you goodbye.”

As strange as it was, that part hadn’t fazed him. He’d expected her to be that way around her father when she was at the funeral. But to think that this was the normal way of life for her didn’t sit well with him. She was too much of a free spirit to be belittled by just the way the man said her name.

Avery tapped her pen against the table and bit down on her lip. “You don’t think she was abused do you?”

“Courtney?” The very suggestion was shocking to him. “No. I don’t think that.”

“It’s just I’ve seen women jump like that for men who abuse them. I’ve been around that my whole life with the work my mom has done.”

Tyler shook his head. “No. I don’t think that at all. I just think that he’s over protective of her.”

“Because she’s blind?”

He tucked his hands into his front pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Yeah.”

“My grandfather talks to my mother like that,” Avery said sitting back in her seat. “It’s as if no matter what she’s done in her life or no matter how many lives she’s changed, he wants to make sure she knows she’s beneath him.”

“That would be why she never went back to Paris?”

Avery nodded. “He doesn’t talk to me like that though. He’s very considerate where I’m concerned.”

“You’re his only granddaughter. Maybe that means something to him.”

“Maybe. And maybe Courtney’s father will begin to ease up on her when the pain of losing his son is over.”

Tyler thought about her father—and the fact that he wasn’t her birth father. He wondered, because it was normal to do so, if that had anything to do with how he treated her.

Pulling his hands from his pockets he rested them on the back of one of the boardroom chairs. “Okay, well, let’s get back to work. I want to have the catering menu finalized before we leave tonight.”

Avery pulled her hair back in her hands then let it drop down her back. “Will you at least feed me before we work all afternoon? I had a piece of toast for breakfast. I could really use something more substantial.”

Tyler laughed. “Of course. Chinese or Italian?”

“Oh, I only want a hot dog from the cart in the square.”

“Oh, good. You’re a cheap date. Why haven’t you been scooped up by a man yet?”

“Because I call the shots and too many men can’t handle that.”

Tyler grinned at his cousin as she stood from her seat and walked toward him.

Yes, it was going to take a very special man—a very secure man—to love Avery Keller.

~*~

Courtney sat in her father’s car with her hands clutching her purse on her lap. He hadn’t said a word to her for almost twenty minutes, which meant he was headed home with her.

“When they get Fitz’s headstone up I’d like to go out and plant flowers,” she said trying to ease the tension between them.

“We will make it a point to do that.”

“His birthday is next month. I think we should have dinner—a big dinner. Cook steaks and potatoes, just like he’d have wanted. Maybe I could even bake a cake.”

“Let’s see how your mother is doing by then. She’s had a hard week of it. You haven’t been around much.”

Ah! This was a buffer talk before her mother became emotional on her. Considerate, she thought.

“I spent the day with her last week clearing out Fitz’s things.” There was tension in her voice, she was sure her father picked up on that.

“She said you had Tyler over. That he’d spent the night.”

Courtney kept still, but took a moment to collect her thoughts. “He was there, yes. He was there through the night, yes. But she thinks he slept over, that’s not exactly correct.”

She heard her father’s large body shift uncomfortably in his seat and then he cleared his throat. “Do you want to elaborate?”

“Daddy,” she said knowing it would ease him back down. “I didn’t want to get rid of everything that was Fitz’s. There was no need to pack him away the day after we buried him. I asked Tyler to come over and help me find a few things. Nothing anyone would miss. But I needed his eyes.”

“You just met him.”

“I know. But you have to know there are just some people you meet that make everything okay. They are good people and Tyler Benson is one of those people.”