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He was growing up. Life moved forward, no matter everything else that unfolded around them. By the time kindergarten rolled around, Bailey wondered if he’d find it easier to walk inside. Eventually, he’d stop holding her hand on the way to school.

“You okay?” Wes asked.

She pulled in a deep breath. “Yeah, surprisingly, I am.”

Bailey spoke with the investigators and planned to follow up with a more formal meeting where she could share everything she’d learned. They gave her little information in return. She was familiar with the process, though, having turned evidence on cold cases over before. She’d just never had it play out where she was part of the expanding story. Her investigation would probably reopen Ryan’s accident and bring in internal affairs to investigate the people who protected Peter during Natalie’s investigation. The condo would answer questions that so many families and loved ones had carried for years.

For now, she was depleted. Talked out and ready to be anywhere but this place she’d always hated.

“Ready to go?” Wes rested his hand on the small of her back as they stepped out of the room law enforcement had commandeered.

“I hope you looked up places to get ice cream.”

He grinned. “It’s a bit of a drive, but I was thinking we still had time to make it to Granite Creek before the ice cream parlor closed.”

“I would love that.”

They found Matt with a stethoscope in his ears, crawling precariously close to a flower bed. Kimbra would have fallen over dead if she’d seen him that close to her flowers. She always had conniptions whenever Matt wandered off the sidewalk into the grass. The first time it’d happened, Bailey promised herself she was raising a child, not a lawn. Now he happily crawled on his knees next to Dr. Asal.

He jumped up when he spotted her and Wes. “Did you know you can hear bugs moving and eating? That you can hear when trees move?”

“I did not,” Wes said, then let Matt pull him to the ground to listen to the daylilies.

After listening to a Japanese maple and a dogwood, they piled in Bailey’s Jeep with Wes driving. She wanted to sleep the entire way to Granite Creek. Matt conked out first.

Wes glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t even think an ice cream truck playing music would rouse him.”

Bailey would find Matt a therapist. He seemed okay, but today had been traumatic. They’d both need to speak with someone. She wasn’t sure how she’d erase what she and Wes found from her memory. She pinched her eyes shut and didn’t want to think about it.

“Are you sure you want to stay with us tonight?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.” He reached for her hand and kissed her knuckles. “I know you said specifics later, but I want you to stay in Granite Creek.” He glanced over, a playful smile dangling on his lips. “That was you, second person, plural.” His gaze refocused on the road again. “But I think you know that.”

“I do.”

“Stay with me. Or we’ll find a place. Whatever we have to figure out, any conflict that comes our way, I want you by my side. Do you get that?”

She nodded. Emotion caught in her throat. “I’m scared something will happen, and this will disappear.”

“I won’t—” He changed lanes and exited, pulling off the road. “I know you’ve lost people,” he said quietly. “And I can’t tell you something won’t happen to me. But I fell in love with you, Bailey, and I know you and Matt are it. You’re my singing lobsters and talking birds. I love you.”

She unbuckled her seatbelt and wrapped her arms around his neck. Their foreheads pressed together. Her heart wanted to explode. “I love you too.”

“Are you guys gonna kiss again?” a sleepy voice asked from the backseat.

She laughed, cheeks warming.

Wes smiled. “You okay if I do, bud?”

Matt groaned. “If you want to.”

They laughed at his tone, then kissed, one of those kisses that said everything and promised more to come.

Epilogue

Summer flew by. Wes considered himself a park expert: which ones had the best swings, which one had the best shade, which ones had a dog park. By next summer, they’d have a dog. He hadn’t found a park to rival the splash park that he visited with Bailey and Matt, but they weren’t far from a family-run amusement park with rides for all ages and a waterpark with an unparalleled lazy river.

With coffees in hand, he stepped inside The Missing Piece’s new office on the second floor of a building Bailey had deemed cute on Main Street. “I have caffeine.”