“Aspen and Trey.”
A growl emanated from my chest. My goddamn meddling family.
“So you know her husband was killed in the line of duty, and she also suffered a gunshot wound?” She nodded, and I continued, skipping over the whole backstory. “We got pretty close on that case. We all logged some incredibly long hours, but Addie was relentless.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” Sutton mused. “I mean, if Finn hadn’t killed that asshole after he shot you and he got away, I wouldn’t have rested until he was dead or brought to justice.”
“Even then? When we were nothing?”
“We’ve always beensomething, Lane,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We both just wasted a long time acting like we weren’t.”
Fair enough.
“I’d do the same for you.”
She chuckled lightly. “Baby, you already have.”
I couldn’t help grinning, some of the anxiety loosening from my chest. “True. My point is, when she was laid up in the hospital, I went to see her. And when she was released, I visited her at home. I felt this weird compulsion to check in on her, you know?”
“But…why?”
“When you were assaulted, I couldn’t protect you, and I’d never felt more fucking useless in my entire life. I’d vowed then and there to never allow that to happen again, and it’s been like a knife to the heart every time since when a woman has died or been harmed on my watch. I hadn’t protected Addie from that bullet, but I could be a friend. A constant presence to remind her she wasn’t alone. Besides, she was…in a really bad place mentally. I wanted to make sure she didn’t harm herself.” I dropped onto the couch and mirrored Sutton’s body language, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Maybe a year after everything had gone down, we…slept together.” I watched Sutton carefully, gauging her reaction. She didn’t appear upset or shocked. Merely…resigned. Accepting. As though she’d anticipated this being the case. “But it only happened once. Afterward, I told her we could only be friends. We both agreed our professional relationship wasn’t worth messing up.”
“She might have verbally agreed, but clearly she didn’t feel the same way.”
“Maybe not. For a while, though, things were good. We started consulting with each other on cases. Nothing major, just running ideas by each other, talking things through when thedetails got all twisted up in our minds. I can admit, it was nice to have that—someone who understood. Someone who was in a similar position. And I didn’t feel any pressure with her to beonall the time like I did with my own deputies.”
“So it became more than a friendship.”
“No. Yes? I don’t fucking know, sunny, I really don’t. But we never crossed that physical line again, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then why’d you ask her to be your date to Crew’s wedding?”
“Because I knew you’d be there. And, okay, I guess Ididlike her, but…it didn’t hold a candle to how much Iloveyou.”
I’dneveradmitted that out loud, had never planned to. As far as everyone else was concerned, I’d done it because I’d been trying to move on from Sutton, not get her back.
For years, I’d assumed our story had ended, that the thread of fate that bound us together had been cut and was therefore irreparable. I couldn’t imagine where we’d be if I’d never been shot. Me almost dying reminded us both that the connection between us was still very real and very much alive.
She shook her head, though her lips twitched with a barely restrained smile, like she liked that I’d wanted to make her jealous. “I wanted to fucking kill you both when I saw you together.”
“Exactly the kind of reaction I was hoping for. Well, not the death part. But god, sunny, at that point, I’d spentyearsshoving down my feelings for you. And Addiewasa good friend. I knew we’d have fun together, and if it pissed you off enough to finallytalkto me, all the better. But maybe I also hoped that if I tried, I’d be able to get over you.”
“Did you ever get any inkling she was, like, madly in love with you?”
I shook my head. “That’s not what’s happening here, Sutton.”
But it was, wasn’t it? I was denying it because I was terrified of being the reason Sutton was in this position.
“Then what do youthinkis happening here, Lane?” Sutton pressed. “Because there’s all this shit swirling around us. Someone sending us creepy notes, the lingerie, framing me for these break-ins? Someone was watching me at work. All of this shit is personal, and it’s all designed to drive a wedge between us. We’ve done a damn good job of not letting it, but if you continue to bury your head in the sand, refusing to even consider that she’s behind this, I don’t know how much longer I can stay here.”
“So you’re going to leave me,” I said flatly.
“I don’twantto, Lane. But if you can’t at least entertain the idea, if you can’t let Trey and Aspen lay out what they’ve found, or let Trey do some digging…I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep living my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“There’s no way she’s in love with me, sunny.”
“Then you’re even more delusional than I thought.”
