“You should just let me handle this,” he replied. “Like I should have done six years ago.”
She shook her head at once. “I’m not letting you deal with this all alone again. That was the problem the first time around,” she pointed out. “But we can’t just let them get away with this. Think about how many people they must have hurt over the years, how many victims have gone without justice. I can’t just walk away from this. Even if you could.”
He winced. It was a low blow, and she knew it. But she wouldn’t apologize. He should have stood up and fought all those years ago, even if it meant putting himself in danger. She had always seen him as a principled, passionate cop, but to know he had left without trying to do more made her doubt all of that.
He seemed to be able to tell that he wasn’t going to change her mind, and he checked one of the nails in the fence before he replied.
“At least stay here while we work out a plan,” he suggested. “That way, I know you’re safe.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to send me away again?” she fired back. “Maybe Florida this time?”
He glared at her, a flash of anger in his eyes. “You know I did the best I could at the time.”
“Your best wasn’t good enough,” she spat back, even though she knew she was being unfair. She couldn’t make herself care. Everything in her life seemed unfair right now, and she neededto take it out on someone. Since he was partly to blame, he was her target. If he’d only confided in her, let her help…
He took a step toward her, his eyes blazing. “You don’t get to decide that,” he told her. “If you had any idea of what I’d been up against—”
“I would have helped you!” she protested, shaking her head. “I would have done everything I could have to work with you and bring those guys down, you know that. You didn’t give me the choice. You got me shipped off to the middle of nowhere because you thought you knew what was best for me.”
“I wasn’t going to let them target you!” he exclaimed. It was the most emotion she had seen from him since she’d shown up at the sanctuary. Even though it was more anger than anything else, it was a relief to see him as emotional about this as she was. Her whole life had been torn apart—the man she had admired, maybe even loved, had betrayed her. He couldn’t expect her to just forget about it and move on, even all these years later.
“I cared about you too much to put you in the line of fire,” he said.
“And I cared about you too much to believe you could do something like that to me,” she snapped back. “You threw me aside like I was nothing. Like I was a bad cop. How was I supposed to feel?”
He opened his mouth like he was going to answer, but clamped it shut again with a sigh. He looked away like he would rather be doing anything else except having this conversation. But they would have to talk about it sooner or later. Better to get it over with now.
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I wanted to keep you safe, and that was the only way I could think of to do it. I didn’t have a lot of time to think through options,” he told her. “It wasn’t what I wanted. I never wanted you to hate me.”
“What did you want?” she demanded.
For a split second, she could feel it between them again—that heat, the chemistry she had tried to deny for so long. It was like they were back in his cruiser, the two of them bantering over some case, just like they had back in the old days.
He took a deep breath and looked at the sky. “You.”
Chapter Eight
Bailey just stared at him for a moment. Disbelief crossed her face. She drew in a sharp breath, just like she used to do when he took a corner a little too fast in the cruiser when they were on the move. He could still remember the way she shifted in her seat, how her hand would reach for the dashboard to balance herself. She was normally so composed, but those flashes of what was underneath always intrigued him.
And the times she had reached over to grab his arm to steady herself. He could still remember that feeling, her fingertips digging into his skin, how it made him feel like he belonged there. How he never wanted to be anywhere but by her side.
“You can’t say that,” she replied finally, her voice a little shaky. “It’s not fair—”
“It’s the truth,” he replied. “What else do you want me to say? I wanted you, Bailey. And I wanted you to be safe above all else. I could never have forgiven myself if something had happened to you. That’s why I did what I did.”
He spoke fervently, meaning every word—every word he wished he could have said to her all those years ago, before he’d had to turn his back on her the way he had. He had lost so much because of Ziegler and his cronies, but worse, so had Bailey, and she hadn’t had a choice in the matter.
“I know it feels like I betrayed you. I don’t blame you for feeling that way,” he continued. “But I… I couldn’t have lived with myself if something had happened, and I knew I could have stopped it. Coming here, sending you away, they were last-minute decisions and the only things I could think of right then. I didn’t exactly have a lot of space to put together a plan.”
Bailey pushed her fingers through Wheatie’s mane again, not looking at him, but clearly listening. She grimaced and began massaging her thigh around her wound, clearly still in quite a bit of pain.
“Here, let me help,” he said, stepping forward and holding out an arm to lean on.
“I don’t need your help,” she muttered.
“I would do the same for anyone,” he replied, and she reluctantly put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she waited for the pain to subside again. Her proximity was bringing up more feelings than he knew what to do with, so he swiftly shifted the conversation to something a little less loaded.
“How have the last few years been for you, anyway?” he asked. “I mean, besides hating my guts.”
