Page 43 of Shadow Justice

“You left,” she said. “I woke up, and you were gone. No conversation. No note that made anything better. No chance to say I understood or didn’t understand or hated you or wanted to go with you or wanted you to stay. You decided for both of us, and now you’re here making sure I get choices because you finally figured out that choices matter.”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. “I figured it out a long time ago, but it was too late. In my defense, I thought I was being honorable.”

The quiet admission stole some of her momentum, and she hated that, too. “You weren’t.”

“No, I wasn’t.” He stood, but he didn’t move toward her. “I was scared, and I dressed it up as honor because that sounded better.”

Her throat burned. “Scared of what?”

“Wanting you.”

She looked at him because she couldn’t help it. The words filled the space between them, simple and devastating.

Reid’s hands hung loose at his sides, but there was nothing casual about him. “I was leaving. You were Roni’s best friend. You had a life here, and I was heading into one that didn’t belong to me yet. I told myself walking away before morning would keep me from asking anything of you. I told myself it would keep you from waiting on a man who didn’t know where he’d be or what he could promise.”

She balled her fists, the coffee table between them as if he were on the stand and she were on the judge’s bench. “You didn’t let me decide if I wanted to wait, if I wanted one night to mean something, or if I wanted it to mean nothing. You took the decision and left me with the part that hurt.”

His throat moved. “I screwed up.”

Holly had carried the old anger for years, polishing it into something hard enough to survive. She’d told herself he’d been careless, selfish, arrogant in that quiet Reid way where he made a decision and expected the world to understand it. Hearing him admit he’d been wrong, hearing him give her the truth without defense, made the anger lose its clean edges.

But it didn’t disappear. It became messier.

Tears slipped down her face, and she swiped them away, furious with herself for crying over Hoyt and Sanctuary and Reid Fleming all tangled together. “I don’t have room for this tonight. You’re on my couch, in my shop, my apartment, my morning routine.” Blue whined. She motioned at him. “You’ve become my dog’s emotional support system.”

Blue thumped his tail, acknowledging his role in the crisis.

Reid’s lips thinned. “I’m here because you’re in danger.”

“Is that all?”

“No.”

The honesty sparked through her, bright and dangerous. “Then what else?”

He stepped closer, rounding the end of the table. “I’m here because Claire assigned me, but mostly because someone is using your shop to hurt people, and I can help stop him.” His voice lowered. “And I’m here because when I walked into Sanctuary yesterday and saw you behind that counter, I knew leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life.”

Her breath caught.

Reid heard it, stayed put as if awaiting her final judgment. The legal mind, the Navy discipline, the quiet man who noticed sugar canisters and exits—he was standing there, seeing too much, including the way she held herself together with both hands.

He’d noticed her back then, too. She’s been eighteen, fresh out of high school, and ready to take on a world that had been cruel to her. To carve a place for herself and others who needed kindness.

He’d seen enough to want her and left anyway.

“You don’t get to say things like that,” she whispered.

“That’s fair.”

Fair? Nothing about this was fair. “You don’t get to come back and be careful with me and make me feel safer in my own apartment after you were the reason I learned not to need that from anyone.”

“I’m not asking you to need me.”

“But I do.” The words tumbled out before she could stop them, raw and humiliating. She took one step back, but there was nowhere to go. “Right now, tonight, with Hoyt dead and my shop tied to another murder, I need you here. I need you standing between me and whatever this is, and I hate that because it feels too close to needing you the way I did before.”

Reid took another step but stopped an arm’s length away. “Needing help tonight doesn’t make the past smaller.”

“No, it makes it louder.”