The first pingcomes from the camera at the end of the drive. I pull up the feed without thinking much of it. Headlights, and a car I don’t recognize, moving slowly. The kind of slow that means either they are lost or cautious. I watch it roll to a stop, then ease forward onto the gravel. The second camera catches it, along with the two cameras at the house. I stare at the screen longer than I need to. After what I just found out today about my business partner, I don’t know what to expect. Duke lifts his head from the ground, one ear cocked, reading me the way he always does. “Come on,” I say quietly. I push up from the flat rock and start toward the house. Duke barely makes a sound as he stays tight at my heel without being told.
Coming up on the house from my favorite place I like to go to when I think, I slow at the edge of the porch. The light barely reaches where I am standing in the dark. The car is parked off the front, an old Chevelle by the looks of it. Whoever is here doesn’t seem to be a threat. Not yet anyway. I go in through the side door, careful not to make any noise and alert the personinside and remove my gun from my holster. I move through the kitchen without a sound, Duke still tight by my side. When I peek around the doorframe into the living room, I stop, and so does Duke.
She’s on the couch, curled up on her side with a blanket pulled over her, one hand underneath her head. Her blonde hair is spilling down around her face like she barely made it horizontal before sleep took her. Slowly, I lower the gun, walking closer to get a better view of who is lying on my couch. I stumble backward like I’ve been shot the second I recognize her.My forbidden ace.I spent years convincing myself that I made the right call and walked away from the best thing that has ever happened to me. Watching her now, I’m not sure I believed that for a single day.
I think about crawling behind her on the couch, knowing exactly how it would feel to wrap an arm around her, but I don’t move. I made a mess of things when I left. Whatever drove her here, and she had a reason…she wouldn’t just show up way out here without reason. Her on my couch is not an open invitation to pick up where we left off. As much as I wish we could, I know she doesn’t trust me anymore. It’s something I’ll have to earn from her again.
I holster the gun and walk to the chair at the edge of the room. I lean forward, resting my forearms on my knees and allow myself to look at her in a way I haven’t been allowed to in a long time. Duke pads over, circles twice, and drops across my feet with a quiet thud the way he always does. The house settles around us as the time passes and I watch the light shift from black to gray to a light blue that crawls in just before morning. I think about the news I received earlier today. I’m still lost in thought when Duke apparently decides the night is over. He stands, stretches that long dramatic stretch of his, and walks straight to the couch. He puts his nose right up to hercheek, nudging her gently. She stirs and he nudges again. She turns her face away with a soft sound, and Duke’s tail starts wagging uncontrollably. Her eyes open, trying to focus for a second before they find me…across the room…. sitting in the chair where I have been all night.
The sleep falls from her face, and I can watch as she has a whole conversation with herself in her head before either of us speaks a word. I know what she looks like angry, hurt, and happy. I’ve seen it up close, and I have been the reason for each of those emotions, but this is new. An emotion I haven’t seen before. Relief…maybe. Neither of us says anything for a few minutes. There is no doubt she’s pissed, but I welcome her anger like it’s the homecoming I’ve been waiting for. “Morning.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend it to when I finally break the silence. She sits up slowly, Duke still nudging her as she does. Her hair is a mess around her face, and she doesn’t bother fixing it. Just looks at me with a fire burning so hot behind her eyes, she just may burn me alive.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“All night.”
Her jaw tightens. “You couldn’t just wake me up like a normal person?”
“No.”
She pulls the blanket off her lap and stands, looking around the room. When her eyes land on the window on the other side of the room the pale morning light catches the side of her face, and fuckkkk does it take everything in me to stay in the chair. “Whose place is this?”
“Mine.”
She lets out a short breath through her nose. “Of course it is.” She wraps her arms around herself, the same familiar way she used to. “He knew whose house this was,” she whispers quietly, like she’s working through it out loud and doesn’t mean for meto hear it. “He knew, and he didn’t…” she stops, releasing a heavy breath.
“He was trying to…”
“I didn’t ask,” she says, cutting me off. I close my mouth for the time being. “You know what’s funny? I drove for fourteen hours. Fourteen fucking hours, Ledgar, and I had not a clue where I was going. He just gave me an address, and I still pulled down the driveway.” Her words sting a little as she turns to look at me with a look on her face that slaps me in mine.
CHAPTER 41
Ledgar
“You left,”she says.
“I know.”
“No note. No reason as to why. You were just gone.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that,” she snaps. “Stop sitting there sayingI know,like you’ve already had this conversation in your head, and you’ve just been waiting for me to say something.”
“Are you going to let me explain?”
She laughs, humorously, and looks at the ceiling.
“I went over everything a million times for weeks. Replaying every conversation we had, trying to recall what I did.”
“You didn’t do anything.” Her thinking that kills me a little more inside.
“Then why?” She looks me straight in the eyes, tears on the brink of falling. “Why did you leave?” It doesn’t matter what I tell her. She’s not going to believe anything I have to say, so I opt for the truth.
“Because it was the only way to keep you safe.” Or so I thought, and that is the most honest thing I’ve said in months. “It was wrong, and I’m sorry.” She just stares at me for a long moment, a tear escaping before she can catch it. I know what I said doesn’t even come close to fixing this.
She swipes at her face angrily, like she’s mad at herself for showing how hurt and angry she still is at me after all these years. “I need air,” she says, moving past me. Her shoulder catches mine as I stand and knocks me back down into the chair. Ok, I deserve that. She pushes through the front door, gently closing it behind her. That almost makes it worse. The soft click of it says she’s holding on by a thread, and she doesn’t care to give me the satisfaction of watching her snap. Duke whines at the door, pawing at it.
“I know, buddy. I know,” I say quietly. Grabbing two mugs from the cabinet, I make us both a cup of coffee and carry them outside. She’s sitting on the porch steps, knees pulled up, staring out at the trees. She doesn’t look at me when I come through the door. Doesn’t even acknowledge the mug I set down beside her, but she eventually picks it up.
