“No!” His mother’s face twisted in shock. “Oh, my poor babies. I’m so sorry you suffered and that I was not strong enough to do something to stop that happening. Forgive me, son.”
Cubby looked at the woman who’d raised him and tried to make sense of the emotions chasing through his body. “Yes, you should have,” he said before he could stop himself. “You weren’t the only one who suffered, Mom.” He wasn’t sure why he was saying the words now, but it felt good, letting out what had been locked away inside his head for so long.
She wept again, and then sniffed and blew her nose.
“I lived with your grandparents until I married, Cubby. I’d never had a reason to be strong; my parents made the rules and I followed them. And then I married your father young, and he controlled me from the beginning, and I…” She sighed. “I let him.”
Cubby could see how that had happened. His father had been a domineering man, and for a young woman who’d lived a sheltered life, it would have been hard to stand up to him, but still, her boys had suffered. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how much anger he’d been carrying toward his mother; he’d thought it was all solely focused on his father. Until today, he’d never spoken about how he felt.
“I can’t go back and change things, son, but I can say that you could never be your father, no matter what you believe, Cubby. You’re too kind. You care about people, and people love you. Don’t live a lonely life because of something that is not true. The fault was mine and your father’s, never yours or Leigh’s. You’re a wonderful man, and I could not be prouder of who you have become, especially considering your childhood role model.”
“I had others,” Cubby managed to get out around the lump in his throat.
His mother smiled softly. “Yes you did, and I will never be able to thank them for that.”
“For so long we vowed never to have children, Leigh and I, never to fall in love, because we didn’t want what you and he had, didn’t want to hurt or be hurt.”
“Now you listen to me, Cubby.” Her tone was fierce. “I may regret a lot of my life with your father, but he also gave me you boys, and that I will never regret. You were all that mattered to me, and still are. If you love Katie, then you go out and get her. Don’t you dare hide behind the belief that you could be like your father, when nothing could be further from the truth.”
He stumbled out of his chair. “I need to go, Mom, I’m late.”
“Don’t lose her because you’re scared, son.”
He drove to the office slowly. Was his mother right and he wrong? Could he love Katie? What was love anyway? How did a person know if they loved someone or not?
By lunch, he’d yelled at every member of his staff, scalded his mouth on his coffee, and yelled down the phone at the pathologist. He knew he was doing it, knew this shit with Katie was riding him, and piled on top of that were his mother’s words still ringing in his ears.Don’t lose her because you’re scared, son.
Would he be happy to never have Katie McBride in his arms again? The taste of her lips? He remembered in detail the swim they’d had, with her in that polka-dot bikini. She was smart and sassy and she loved him. Shaking his head, he wondered what the hell was the matter with him.
“You are chickenshit, Hawker,” he said softly.
Word had obviously got out that he was ripping the heads off his staff, because reinforcements came in the form of Ethan and Annabelle. He heard her laugh, then the slow Texan drawl before they arrived in his office.
“If it isn’t the fucking homecoming king and queen,” Cubby snarled before he could stop himself. “Your beauty is blinding me, so take it somewhere else.”
They just stood there looking at him, Annabelle leaning into Ethan, and he hated them at that moment. Hated that he had her and they were so obviously in love that she leaned on him in a public place.
“I have a case to solve, so if this is personal, it’ll have to wait.” He tried to sound normal, but it came out gruff and mean.
Annabelle had been his friend since his first day of school, when she’d punched Bobby Critten in the nose for calling Cubby carrot top, therefore, she knew him better than most. He watched her warily as she gave him a gentle smile, then came around his desk and wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
“I don’t have time for this, Annabelle.” Cubby swallowed down the emotion. “And don’t you have a party to get organized?”
“I do and it’s done, and now we’re taking you flying.”
“I don’t want to go flying; I need to solve this case.”
“That’s where the flying comes in,” Tex joined in the conversation. “I thought we’d head out over the hills, because I’m sure I heard another helicopter buzzing about last night late, and I want to check it out, because no one should be in the skies at that hour.”
“It would be good to do a sweep of the area from above,” Cubby said, getting to his feet after Annabelle had let him go. He needed to get out of town, away from his office, even if only for a brief break. Anything to get his mind off Katie. “If you’re sure you have the time, we’ll reimburse you for the fuel, seeing as this is official police business.”
“Official police business,” Tex drawled. “Well hell, Sheriff, I do believe I’m excited.”
“Dickhead,” Cubby muttered, grabbing his camera and hat. “Get moving, you small-brained imbecile.”
“It’s like foreplay,” Tex said to Annabelle as they headed back out the door. “We do it to get us in the mood.”
“I’m going up to have a look over the area where Jilly and Melanie were found from the air; I’ll be back in about an hour,” Cubby said to his deputies.
