Erica transferred her stare to Dominic, her eyes overly bright with tears that wanted to fall. She’d never cry here in the police station. She needed privacy. They both did.
Cole moved forward, his movements a little stiff.
She tucked closer to Dominic, much like a frightened child would. He received her, despite her previous brush-off, and planted a comforting kiss on her forehead in front of her father. If she could transfer some of her anxiety to him, then he had the ability to give her some of his calm with some alpha dominance.As difficult as it was, knowing what kind of conversation was to come, Dominic and his wolf funneled that peace to her soul. That spark of confidence returned, and she nodded in agreement to the offer to talk.
Together, Cole and Erica walked out of the police station. Cole gave one last look to Dominic, a muted question in his eyes.
Dominic understood and nodded. Yes, Erica knew about shifters. Cole was free to talk about shifters, the pack, and all his reasons for leaving his family behind in Decatur.
The heavy oak doors shut behind them, and the finality of the click from the latch upset him more than it should have. Erica was in good hands. Dominic just wished she knew that too.
*
Erica had every intention to march into the police station and scream at Cole Spradley. She wanted to demand explanations and throw out every mean insult she had come up with over the course of her life. She wanted to be furious and sock him one in the nose for all he had done. He had ruined her. Ruined her mother. Ruined their life, and here he was, in Tolstone the whole time. How could he do this to them?
As soon as she saw him and the difference twenty-five years had made to his appearance, she couldn’t make the words come out. They stopped short in her mouth, drying her tongue and choking her until she thought she’d never take a breath again.
Then Dominic was there, by her side. What was he doing there? Why did he seem to understand what was going on? She hadn’t called him, nor heard from him since he left her house. Did Cole have something to do with the pack trouble?
Nothing made sense except for the way Cole looked at her. The way he’d reacted when they first met, how he seemed to turnashen when she said that her mother was dead, the music, the calming, inexplicable fatherly presence. He knew who she was, but it wasn’t until she saw his face in those old photographs that she put all the pieces together. The puzzle was finally complete, except for one last part.
They drove to Jade Lake, not a word spoken in the squad car on the way. Cole even turned off the radio. He parked in a rise that looked out over the lake, and she knew this spot well. It was where her mother had parked all the times they had visited Jade Lake in her childhood.
The lakeside was deserted, but the old picnic table was still there, shaded by the massive oak, whose branches came alive with bright green leaves, just in time for spring. Under Cole’s subtle direction, Erica went to the picnic table and sat on one of the benches that creaked beneath her weight.
Cole followed her, his steps slow and ambling as if weighed down by the inevitable. He may not have been looking forward to this reunion, but she was. She had plenty to say, and he would hear every word, even if she had to keep him there until sunset.
Erica turned her eyes toward the lake and focused on the sparkling surface of the water. After so long, it had never lost its beauty. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
Cole sighed. “How do you even tell a person something like this?”
“Well, you don’t push it under a rug and forget about it for twenty-something years.”
She felt his eyes turn hot on her. “Young lady, you don’t know anything. So, you can save the attitude.”
Erica shook with the need to belt back some smart remark, but gritted her teeth to keep herself from riling him up more. She didn’t know how any of this would turn out, but she knew she didn’t want to be on the cop’s bad side.
“All I know,” she started again calmly, “is that me and Mom struggled for years without you. I never got a birthday card, you never visited, you never called. You must have known where to find us. I found the pictures of our old house in Decatur, and you were in it with Mom. You can’t tell me that you didn’t know where we were.”
The wind rattled the leaves above their heads and cast dancing shadows across the table between them as both looked out over the lake, unable to look at one another.
“You’re right… I knew where you were, and I didn’t do any of those things. I must have started a hundred letters, but I never finished a single one. I knew your mother would never let you see it, even if I could find the right words.”
Erica huffed. “Why wouldn’t she let me see it? If you even tried—”
“I did try,” he snapped. “I may not have come to Decatur or called, but I did try.”
She turned on him, her brown braid whipping over her shoulder. “How did you try? Tell me in what way you tried to be involved in anything having to do with me or my mom.”
Cole’s nostrils flared, and she could see how hard he held control of his own anger. He had no right to be angry with her. She wasn’t in the wrong here. He was. He was the one who’d left them.
“When your mother brought you to Tolstone, I begged her to let me at least talk to you. Just to meet you. I left before you could really carry a conversation, and I wanted to have that, even if you didn’t know who I was.”
Erica’s lips parted. “You knew we came here?”
“I know you saw me at least once… I don’t know if you would have remembered, but I can’t forget. You had to be maybe five years old. Your mom and I arranged to meet every so often when you were little. I told her to drive by the Donaldsons’ place whenyou two arrived so someone would call me and let me know that you were here. Then we met at the park. Your mother didn’t want you to see me, so she let you play by the lake while we stayed in the parking lot. But there was one time you spotted us, and that cut the visit short. Your mother insisted that I leave before you came asking questions.”
A cold knot settled in her stomach. The memory came back as vividly as if it had happened recently. She remembered that cop with the broad shoulders, the one who’d parked behind their Mustang that one time they came to visit. She remembered wondering if her mom was in some sort of trouble, but they never spoke about it again.
