Dark Burning: Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller Book 6

by Lori Ryan

  They were pulling apart Peter Gamet’s life and going back to make sure that no one on their short suspect list so far had any links to him that had been missed.

  For now, this meant a lot of time at their desks doing research and throwing around ideas.

  This meant watching Jackwagon come and go from Captain Scanlon’s office every time he thought of a new way to bug their boss. Eric was beginning to wonder how much Captain Scanlon was being blamed and targeted for what had happened in their department over the last year.

  Eric opened his bottom drawer where he tried to keep a stash of supplies so he didn’t have to hike it down to the supply closet on the bottom floor.

  He grabbed a new notepad and a folder, then paused before shutting the drawer. He knew what else was in the drawer. At the bottom sat the letter he had received from internal affairs the day they had given him a written warning.

  He reached in and fingered the paper. He kept it there as a reminder, so he wouldn’t forget what it meant to give in and trust someone else. He had trusted Tiffany. Believed her when she said the drugs he stumbled on in her drawer one day were old. Hell, she’d even flushed them down the toilet in front of him. He’d believed no junkie could do that willingly. He was wrong.

  He lifted his head and looked around the bullpen. He had made it to Major Crimes despite her betrayal. It took longer than it might have otherwise, but he made it. And he’d been here for five years. Maybe it was time for him to let this baggage go.

  He let his eyes travel the bullpen. So many of the guys he’d come up with in the ranks were now in a relationship, trusting someone with their lives, their hearts, all of it, every damned day. He looked them over.

  They were still doing the job, still working just as hard. But they were different somehow. He could see it.

  The thing is, he’d once thought that difference would be a weakness. With his mom and dad it had sure as hell been a weakness. His mom had taken the love his dad had for her and twisted it. She’d twisted it and broken him with a million lies, a million affairs.

  It wasn’t something Eric had been able to forgive her for. She was in a nursing home nearby. He made sure her bills were paid and she was taken care of but he didn’t visit. It was shitty of him, but God the woman had only ever caused the people he loved pain. He didn’t know how to describe what he felt for her.

  Love on some level, maybe? But only in the sense of wanting her to be someone she couldn’t ever be. In wanting the love he should have had from his mom.

  But he didn’t respect her and he didn’t like her.

  When he saw his partner and his other friends with their significant others, he saw respect and love. He saw that there was trust and truth between them.

  He looked back down at the copy of the letter.

  With one hand, he slid it out from under the pile and folded it in half before tearing it in two. He paused for the slightest beat before tossing it into the small can for recycling next to his desk.

  He wasn’t ready to jump headlong into a relationship or anything, but he was ready to make that one small step. To begin to let go of the idea that if he opened himself up to trusting and caring for another person again, it had to end in hurt and pain.

  It was a start.

  He looked up to find his partner’s eyes on him.

  Eric glanced around the crowded bullpen and back to John.

  Eric cleared his throat. “Dean’s? I’ll buy.”

  John’s brows went up and Eric wasn’t surprised. Dean’s Subs was more than a place to grab a sandwich. It was the place Eric suggested whenever he was pushing one of the guys on the force to talk about something that was bothering them.

  His partner would know Eric wasn’t checking in on John’s state of mind. This was Eric finally telling John he wanted to talk about his own state of mind.

  John gave a single nod and stood, leading the way out of the bullpen and Eric followed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  They ate first. They had their priorities, after all, and tuna subs were a priority where Eric was concerned.

  John sat back in the booth, rolling up the paper that had been wrapped around his sandwich. “This about the job or Merritt?”

  Eric didn’t answer right away, chewing on the last bite of his sub as he thought about the changes in his partner over the last year. John had once been as close-mouthed as most cops were about his feelings. They all had ways of dealing with the shit they saw on the job and most of the time, that involved shoving their feelings down somewhere in their gut so they wouldn’t have to look at them too carefully.

  Eric had always been the one to check on the other guys but he was rarely willing to talk about himself. He could guess there was some kind of defense mechanism buried in there. Like if he was the one pushing others to talk, maybe he wouldn’t be expected to do any talking about his own feelings.

  John, though, had been happier in the last year than Eric had ever seen him and he knew it was because of Ava, the old college girlfriend John had reunited with recently. Sure, the man still struggled like all of them with the things they sometimes had to deal with on the job, but Eric could see John was happier on a deep-down level lately.

  “Merritt,” he said, answering John’s question.

  John pushed his soda cup from one hand to the other, sliding it in the condensation that had pooled on the table. “She’s more than just a one-night-stand?”

  Eric nodded. “I think maybe a lot more.”

  “It’s worth it.”

  Eric shifted in his seat, not sure what he wanted to ask, but sure he didn’t know enough to move forward with Merritt without fucking shit up if he didn’t get advice.

  “I don’t want to hurt her. She has a kid, you know? So I don’t want to string her along if I’m not ready for this.” He paused for a minute, crumpling up his own wrapper. “I look at you guys, though,” he said, thinking about all the people in their unit who were in committed relationships now and thinking for the first time that maybe they’d all make it. Maybe they wouldn’t crash and burn. “You all seem happy. More than happy.”

  He didn’t have words for it, but judging by the goofy look on John’s face, his partner knew what he meant.

  Eric meant what he’d said about being worried about Collin, though. He’d been thinking a lot about Collin lately. He wanted to be sure the kid never got caught up in Eric’s shit. If Eric turned out to be too fucked up by his own mother’s treatment of him, he wouldn’t want to put anything like that on someone else’s kid.

  “Do you think about her all the time?” John asked.

  “All the time,” Eric answered, a grin pushing its way onto his face.

  “Does she make you happy?”

  Eric nodded. “She does.” As he answered he thought about the way he’d been angry when he found out she was a reporter. If he was honest, that hadn’t lasted long. He’d believed her when she said she didn’t know he was a cop and had no intentions of trying to get information out of him for her job.

  The truth was, she’d scared him from the start. When they walked out of her hotel room, he hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to her the way he had with other women. He hadn’t wanted to stick to his rules about one night only. He’d wanted to ask for her number and when he could see her again. And that had scared the ever-loving shit out of him.

  John was watching him. “Can you make her happy? Because that matters. A lot.”

  Eric looked at his partner. He wasn’t sure.

  His mom had fucked him up.

  Maybe it was screwed up that he didn’t visit his mother in her nursing home, but she had messed with his head and then some as a kid. He needed to protect himself from the damage he knew she could inflict.

  And he was pretty sure he’d been doing that lately. Protecting himself. The thing was, he wasn’t sure if he’d done more than that. He’d thought living his life as a successful, mostly mentally healthy guy had meant he’d moved on. That he hadn’t
let the damage stick. That walling himself off from the lies and the poison she spewed was enough.

  But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he needed to really deal with the shit his mom had done if he wanted to get himself right enough so he wouldn’t hurt Merritt. Maybe it was time for him to do more than just shut off the source of the poison in his life. Maybe he needed to find a way to heal the damage the poison had done.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Merritt shut her door, kicked off her shoes and tossed her purse onto the entranceway table. She had dropped Collin off for school and still had to shower and get dressed for her own day now. She had long ago given up on the idea of getting herself ready for work with her son. He required constant shepherding to get him out the door. Doing her makeup and showering and all that was impossible to do while she tended to him.

  The doorbell rang behind her and Merritt jumped a mile at the sound, heart hammering.

  She moved to the peephole and looked.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, putting her hands to her hair.

  “Nope, just me!” Eric called through the door.

  “Fuck!” She whispered again.

  “Heard that, too! My mom always said my hearing was too damned sharp for my own good. Who knew she was right?”

  Merritt could hear the amusement in his voice but this wasn’t funny. She was in sweats and had no makeup on. Her hair was sticking up all over.

  She made a desperate attempt to run her fingers through it and straighten some of the tangles.

  “I have coffee…” Eric waited, then offered. “and donuts. Sugar and caffeine? That’s not going to get me in the door?”

  Merritt huffed but opened the door. She took the coffee but shunned the donuts. She didn’t know how to stop at just one donut and she wasn’t ready for him to see her put away three yet. That could change a relationship.

  Eric looked showered, dressed, all combed out…the whole nine yards. And damn, he looked good. She couldn’t help but lean into him when he put an arm around her and pulled her to him.

  He felt good, too.

  He laughed at her. “What’s that face about? You’re really not a morning person, are you?” He looked behind her. “Is Collin still here?”

  “No, I dropped him at school already. I’m a morning person. Just not a happy one.”

  He backwalked her, pushing the door shut and tossing the bag of donuts on the table by her purse.

  “Maybe I can change your mood?” His question was accompanied by a nuzzle at her neck and his mouth hovered over her skin, all kinds of promise in the action.

  Merritt didn’t have it in her to stop the moan that came out, but she did manage to lick her lips and then speak somewhat coherently, “I have to take a shower and get to work.”

  “Better and better.”

  Eric had her up the stairs and in the shower, melting at the mercy of his skillful hands and mouth in no time.

  She didn’t even care that she was late when they were dressing half an hour later.

  He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her as she pulled a suit from her closet. “Admit it, you like mornings better with me.”

  Merritt smiled. “I can’t argue with that.”

  Eric stilled and she knew he’d heard the undertone in her answer.

  He turned her and studied her eyes, making her look to his chest instead of his face.

  “Why do I get the feeling you wish you could argue with it?” he asked and Merritt hated the edge in his voice. Hated that she was the one to put it there.

  She looked to her window and back, raising her arms and letting them fall to her sides, unsure of herself. “I just feel like I need to protect my heart a little where you’re concerned, Eric. You said you wanted to see where this goes, but you didn’t really say what that means and it seems like you aren’t really sure yourself. I do want this with you.” She huffed out a laugh. “I’d be an idiot not to, but you need to understand that I’m going to have to keep some barriers up while you decide what you want.”

  She watched as a torrent of emotions crossed his face, but saw him settle on a small smile. He came forward and kissed her again.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “And I’ll keep telling you where I’m at. Sound good?”

  She ran her hands around his waist and up his back. Imagine that. A man who was okay with telling her what he was feeling. She could get used to that.

  He seemed to hesitate, then carefully not looking at her said, “I, uh, I have some trust shit I’m working on, but I made an appointment with our department shrink yesterday. I’m going to start getting right in the head.”

  She felt her heart flip at the hope that presented, but also thought it should give her pause that his trust issues were so bad, he needed to talk to a professional about them. She didn’t know if she should be hopeful or terrified or what. She settled with “good.” She nodded her head. “I think that’s really good.”

  “Should we warm up that coffee” he asked like he needed to change the subject and she let him.

  “Give me five to get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  It took her ten minutes but he didn’t complain. She found him sitting at the kitchen island, donut in one hand and coffee in the other as he read his phone, propped against a tissue box in front of him.

  She took a seat across from him and took the coffee he pushed her way. After a long sip, she decided to bite the bullet and see how open he was willing to be.

  “So, you haven’t done the committed relationship thing before?”

  He looked at her for a long minute and then shrugged, but the motion looked contrived. Still, when he spoke, she got the sense he was telling her the truth. “I did, once.”

  She waited.

  “It didn’t end well. I found out she had lied to me about her drug use, telling me she hadn’t used in almost a year. Unfortunately, I found out she was lying at the same time she was being arrested. I almost lost my job and it took me longer to make detective because of the mark it put on my record.”

  Merritt shook her head. “But why? Just because you were dating her?”

  “My car broke down. I went to get help. When I came back, she was being arrested. Apparently, a uniformed officer came by to help and she dropped her purse. Her stash spilled out.” Again with the shoulder lift, like it hadn’t been a big deal.

  “You trusted her and she lied to you,” Merritt said.

  He gave a single nod. “I already had issues with trust. My mom lied to my dad a lot.” He played with his coffee cup, spinning it on the counter in front of him. “She, uh, she lied to both of us growing up. She liked to manipulate us and got off on seeing how much she could mess with our heads. And then Tiffany lied to me on top of it about something that, to me, was a really big deal. So, yeah, Tiffany really messed with my head a lot.”

  Merritt looked down at her own coffee. Eric had issues that would take a commitment to work through. This wasn’t a guy who just liked his bachelor lifestyle. He was someone who would have to truly learn to trust. Learn to have a healthy relationship with a woman.

  Was she ready for that? She didn’t know, but she did know one thing. She hated to say it, but she was doing a piss-poor job of protecting her heart against this guy.

  Chapter Thirty

  Merritt looked at the phone again, still debating calling her mom. She knew it was past time to call and ask if her parents and sisters wanted to come for a visit and see where she and Collin were living. They had talked since she and Collin had moved, but it was always when Collin was home as a buffer. Talking one-on-one with them was different.

  Things had been awkward between them since she announced she and Collin were moving.

  She looked at the clock on the dashboard of her car. She had twenty minutes free now. She needed to bite the bullet and make the call instead of acting like a child.

  She hit the phone symbol next to her parent’s home number and put the phone to her ear.

&n
bsp; “Hello?” Her mother’s voice came on and Merritt smiled.

  She could picture that thing her mom did when she answered the phone. Her mom still wore clip-on earrings and she’d pull one off as she picked up the phone so it wouldn’t hit the phone. It had always reminded Merritt of the melodramatic people on soap operas. It seemed like a soap opera move, not a normal average person move.

  “Mom? It’s Mer.”

  “Merritt!” Her mom called out, and Merritt could picture the over-the-shoulder move like she was there. “Henry, Merritt’s calling!”

  Merritt stifled a laugh. Her dad had retired a few years back. He spent most days either on the golf course or in his den, reading about ten different newspapers from around the world. Her dad was an engineer but he liked world politics and devoured newspapers like they were romance novels.

  Maybe that was why she’d become a reporter. She frowned as she waited for her dad to come on the line. They always each picked up one of the receivers when she called.

  “Hey Merry, how’s my girl?” Her dad’s greeting was always the same but it made her smile. She missed them. She might have left Denver because they were too involved with raising her son, but she did miss them. She needed them in her life, the same way Collin needed them.

  “I’m good, dad,” Merritt said. “I miss you guys. I thought maybe you might want to come see the new house soon? Collin is dying to introduce you to Kitten.”

  “He told me the dog ate another pair of your shoes,” her mother said.

  There was a time when Merritt would have bristled at the comment, thinking her mother was criticizing her. Her sisters and mother were the type of women to have everything in their world organized down to a T. They wore matching sweater sets and had a handbag to match every shoe they owned. They never slipped up and swore in front of their kids and they certainly wouldn’t have an ugly dog named Kitten.

  Merritt was nothing like them. Sometimes, that fact hurt, but she was starting to feel confident in being her own person. And she had learned to stop and listen to more than her mother’s words. There was laughter in her mother’s tone, but not malice. Her mom was just trying to connect and she was using a funny story about the dog to do it.