LANE
January passed without further incident,marking nearly two months without a peep from Addie or another break-in. But this wasn’t my first rodeo, and I knew better than to be lulled into a false sense of security. I wasn’t worried about Addie so much as the person responsible for destroying Sutton’s home. Not that I minded her living with me. In fact, I never wanted her to leave.
One morning toward the end of the month, we’d both gotten up early. While I didn’t have to make an appearance at the department until a few hours after Sutton had to go in for her shift, I liked to get up with her. I cooked breakfast while she showered and got ready, had that and coffee waiting for her.
The whole thing was domestic as fuck, and it made me unspeakably happy.
“Got an update on my house this morning,” she said conversationally, taking a sip from her coffee and staring at me over the brim of her mug, her amber eyes practically glowing.
“Oh?”
“Thanks for making a call to Barney, by the way. I appreciate it.”
Not that I was in any hurry for her to leave, but if she wanted her home repaired in this lifetime, Barney needed to be…incentivized to complete the work on time. I’d just thrown my weight as sheriff around a little.
“Of course,” I said, dishing the omelet I’d made onto a plate and sliding it across the counter for her. “So what’s the update?”
“It’ll be a couple months yet,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind having a guest for a bit longer.”
“Sunny,” I said, sighing. “You’re not a guest. You’remine.”
“But none ofthis”—she twirled her finger in the air to encompass my house—“ismine.”
“It could be,” I pointed out. “Just…stay.”
For several long, tense moments, we stared at each other. I tried like hell to read what she was thinking through her eyes, but her expression, normally so open around me, was shuttered.
“You don’t think we’re moving too fast, talking about living together? Or not even talking and just…doing it?”
“Absolutely not. I’ve been in love with you for nearly half my life, Sutton. I want you with me always.” Then a horrifying thought occurred to me. “Are we not…is that not what you want?”
“No!” she said quickly, getting up to move around the island so she could hug me from behind, her face pressing into the center of my back, hands splayed over my abdomen. “I’m in this with you, Lane. A thousand percent. I just don’t want us getting ahead of ourselves.” I nodded, covering her hands with mine, but didn’t turn around. “Can we just…put a pin in this conversation until my house is ready?”
“Sure,” I rasped.
Logically, I knew Iwasmoving at the speed of light here. But nothing about the way I felt for Sutton was logical. Still, I could give her this. After all, we’d only officially been back together for less than a month. It would benefit us both to take a step backand breathe for a moment, to give ourselves grace to adjust to our new normal.
After breakfast, Sutton left for work. Instead of doing the same myself, I decided to pay my big brother a visit. It had been too long since I’d gotten an update on everything I was having him look into, and without so much as a peep from this nighttime bandit in a couple months, I was getting antsy.
Which was how, thirty minutes later, I was seated next to him in his bat cave, staring at the wall of screens, which showed various pieces of information he’d managed to dig up on Detective Chadwick.
“So…?” I prompted.
“There’s not much here,” Trey admitted. “Once he retired, he kind of…faded from existence. He’s still alive as far as I know because I haven’t been able to track down a death certificate or anything to the contrary, but otherwise, this guy has been a model citizen living a quiet life. From the looks of it, he retired to Florida, bought a beach house, and spends his days fishing or golfing.”
Those things required money—and not the kind he would’ve squirrelled away during his career. The large payout he’d received from Ryan’s family had clearly been put to good use.
I scrubbed my hand down my face and released a long, slow, exasperated breath.
“Then I don’t understand who else could’ve caught even a whiff of what happened to Ryan orhowthey know I’m even connected.”
Trey didn’t immediately respond, which prompted me to look at him.
Only to find him staring at me, wearing an expression like he wanted to say something but had no desire to deal with my reaction.
I rolled my eyes. “Just fucking say it.”
“I know you don’t want to hear it, but have you stopped to consider Addie could be behind this?”
