Holding the Truth

by Calle J. Brookes

  She should have taken the offer to work at the Finley Creek TSP post when it had been offered to her last week.

  Elliot Marshall, chief of that post, had offered her the job personally. It had been extremely difficult to turn him down.

  She'd gotten to know his wife very well—they shared the same therapist at W4HAV. He'd remembered her from the few occasions their paths had crossed.

  Chief Marshall wasn't the least bit sexist or misogynistic, like another TSP man she knew.

  Far from it.

  She should just march in there and tell Clay exactly that. That she was gone as soon as he was able to find her replacement.

  If they even needed one.

  No one had filled in for her when she had been gone. Apparently, there hadn’t been a need. That told her exactly how valuable she was.

  Then she should just let it out and tell him exactly what kind of an asshole he really was.

  But that wasn't who she was. Bailey wasn't like that.

  Until everything that had happened four months ago, anyway.

  Maybe that was it? Maybe she needed to do this so that she could prove she was healing from that. From the pain, the fear, the trauma...the betrayal.

  Bailey relived that almost every single night.

  Her father hadn't been the one to pull the trigger; his crime was more one of complicity. And he had let her go, eventually. When it was almost too late to help her—or her friend Kyra.

  She and Kyra had been inches away from death when they'd arrived at Finley Creek General. Thankfully, the physicians there had put her and Kyra back together again.

  Mostly.

  Sometimes it felt as if they'd used mismatched parts on her. Bailey didn't feel whole any longer. She probably wouldn't for a very long time. But she was making progress. At least, according to her therapist at W4HAV.

  She wasn't about to let Clay Addy shatter the pieces of her that remained.

  Bailey put her personal belongings away and made an executive decision he was just going to have to deal with.

  Her desk belonged right there, next to Jeremy’s and Jeff's. If Sheriff Clay Addy didn't like it, he could shove it up his nose. One wooden inch at a time.

  Bailey leaned down and scooted the heavy desk back to where it belonged.

  Hard hands covered hers before she could move it more than two inches. Bailey knew exactly who they belonged to. She could almost sense the man the instant he got within range of her. The heat of his body scorched her.

  "What in the hell are you trying to do? Hurt yourself already?"

  She turned toward the man next to her. And for the first time in four months and one week looked into the eyes of the Sheriff of Barratt County.

  Chapter 3

  There was a lot more pain in her blue eyes than he wanted to think about. Bailey had lost weight, too. Big circles were beneath those eyes of hers. Everything combined to tell the story he didn't want to read.

  She wasn't ready to be here. Not yet. "Why are you here? You should be at your apartment. Resting." He wanted to bundle her up and carry her right back there now. The idea of her out on the roads in a damned patrol car infuriated him.

  Bailey wasn’t ready to be out there yet—and he wasn’t ready for her to be.

  "It's been eighteen weeks. And two days. My medical leave was up six weeks ago. I can't afford not to work any longer, Sheriff. I’m broke."

  She spoke more quietly than he was used to. She used to go ninety miles an hour, especially first thing in the morning. It would drive him crazy. He'd go to the coffee pot to get him a cup—she did make the best coffee—and she'd be there. Like she was waiting for him. Chattering at him. About the Mayburns, or the Clemmons, or the kitten she'd rescued when she was fourteen. Bailey loved to just talk. At him. At Jeremy. At anyone close enough to listen. It used to irritate the hell out of him—until she wasn’t there anymore.

  And use her hands to talk. Those hands had driven him crazy on almost a daily basis. Wondering what it would take to get them to stay still for just a moment. Wondering what they felt like when a man had them trapped, while he did things to her.

  Clay had spent far too many nights wondering what those hands felt like on a man.

  He hadn't realized how much he'd miss that little habit of hers until he had to face a void of months without her. "I know Marshall offered you a position in his forensics department. I thought you'd take it. Put this place behind you."

  Elliot Marshall had made a point of telling Clay point-blank that Bailey had learned quickly during her time in their forensics department. Said she’d be a real asset to the much larger TSP post. He’d hinted she was being wasted in Value.

  Clay couldn’t disagree with that.

  Finley Creek wasn't that far away. Easily within commuting distance. She could have kept that little apartment she loved so much. He’d driven by there every evening after he’d left the post. Just to make certain all was quiet there for her. Or so he’d told himself.

  After that first week in the hospital, when he'd spent every waking moment at her bedside, he'd done whatever he could to stay as far away from her as possible. He’d known she’d moved. Veri, the dispatcher, had told him that in passing.

  "Why did you give up your apartment? When did you do it?"

  "Six weeks ago. I couldn't afford to keep it, Sheriff. Especially since I hadn't been back since...my father." Blue eyes met his. "He's still out there somewhere. For all I know he was watching that apartment. Waiting for me. Cam...Cam and Kyra came down and moved my things out for me. And their friend Shannon."

  He winced at the names she mentioned. The thought of Kyra Dillon would always bring guilt and pain. His own damned fault. "I'm glad."

  She nodded. "They're getting married next month. I'm going to be in the wedding. And...Kyra's pregnant. Six weeks. Cam's over the moon."

  He winced again. He was happy for Kyra, of course. But his closest friend, Micah, had been in love with her for almost two decades now. "I see."

  "Yeah. I'm sure you do. What's my first assignment? I want to get back to work."

  The light, lively tone he was used to from her was just...gone. Wiped away as if it had never existed.

  The woman before him was a complete stranger. A ghost of the woman she used to be.

  Just how much of that was his fault, Clay was never going to forget.

  ***

  That had gone better than she'd expected. Bailey parked her little green Ford in her now-customary parking spot in front of the closest barn and walked the short distance between it and the house slowly.

  Home.

  She loved living there. The Dillons had made her feel as though she actually belonged somewhere—for the first time in her adult life. There wasn't anything she wouldn't do for Kyra's father, brother, and baby nephew. Liam was six months old now, and the first thing she did every night was look for that little man.

  He was beautiful. She'd almost lost the ability to ever have children, after what her father and his friends had done to her. Some of the internal damage they'd done had come dangerously close to destroying one of her ovaries. It had had to be removed; but doctors had assured her she'd still have a fair shot at having children someday.

  Fair. Bailey didn’t believe fair had ever existed.

  Bailey was used to it. Used to just barreling through. She was going to find her balance again. She always had before.

  It was just a matter of time.

  That was what her therapist at W4HAV had promised her, anyway. The first step was building a support system to help her heal. To surround herself with those who cared about her. The second was to establish a new routine.

  Well, she was doing that.

  Chapter 4

  Jake Dillon rolled his wheelchair down the hallway of the home that had been in his family’s possession since 1893. He’d heard a familiar engine in the drive, and he needed to check on Bailey for himself.

  The trauma she’d experienced had left its
mark on his entire family, and Jake knew he tended to keep a closer eye on her than he really needed to. She wasn’t a stand-in for his own younger sister, but it was pretty damned hard not to want to be too overprotective with her.

  He resisted glancing out the window toward the old abandoned mines were Bailey and his sister Kyra had been held for far too many hours four months ago. They were on the corner of land his family owned, and sometimes it taunted him with what he could have lost.

  Jake made a mental note to have one of the ranch hands they employed plant a line of trees between the house and that direction soon. Block the area from sight—for Bailey.

  He’d seen crime-scene photos for himself. His future brother-in-law had very helpfully snuck those photos to him when Jake had asked. Jake had needed to see what Bailey and Kyra had experienced. Cam, with the FBI, had come through.

  But now Jake had those nightmares, too.

  Blood had been what stood out in those photos the most.

  Bailey’s joining their family had been the only good thing—other than Cam and Kyra getting together—to come out of that horror.

  He had suspected her first day back on the job would be more traumatic than she wanted to admit. Everything that had happened had been because of her connection to the TSP.

  Bailey had been so nervous he’d heard her getting sick in the bathroom before she’d left. Because of that idiot, Clay.

  Jake wasn't stupid; he suspected what it was about Bailey that got under Clay’s skin. Clay had a definite type. One that he avoided at all costs.

  Bailey was that type personified. She was enough to send Clay screaming for the hills with just one sweet smile. Jake wished he’d found a woman like that. But he hadn’t. Yet.

  He’d loved his son’s mother, but they’d actually ended their relationship two months before she’d realized she was pregnant. They’d considered trying again, but both had been happy with the end resolution. They’d decided to co-parent, but a rare complication had led to her death—before she could even see their son.

  Bailey loved Liam as if he were her own, and Jake had no doubt about. For a moment, he wished that he felt that way about Bailey and she felt that way about him; it would make things so much simpler.

  He loved her and enjoyed her company. He also knew himself well enough to know that there were no real romantic feelings between him and this woman.

  She was his buddy's girl, and Jake knew it. He had known it from the first moment they’d realized Bailey was missing, too.

  He would never forget the terror on Clay’s face. Or how he had had to bully the other man into leaving her side long enough to eat that first week she’d been in the ICU.

  Too bad the two of them didn't seem to understand that.

  Clay had avoided visiting Jake since what had happened. No doubt, pride had kept him away. Clay had always acted like an ass whenever he’d been vulnerable in front of the other guys, like Jake and Micah. And with Bailey here, it was no wonder Clay had stayed away. Or maybe it was because the spot Bailey had been found was right there on Dillon property.

  Jake's suspected that it was a combination of all of it.

  But now...Clay had to deal with Bailey face-to-face.

  "Hey. Didn't you have physical therapy today?" Bailey shot him a look. Jake grinned at her. He liked giving her reasons to nag at him. He suspected she hadn’t had many people to care about enough to nag at.

  "I called and rescheduled for later in the week. I wanted to be here when you got back. So how was it?"

  "Don't put it off too long, Jake."

  He'd razzed her about the exact same thing not even two months ago. For her, it had been psychological counseling. They’d both agreed she’d needed the extra help dealing with the fact that one of the men who had nearly killed her had been her own father. That would haunt her forever.

  Jake maneuvered the wheelchair that had been his constant companion since he was seventeen around. His whole life had changed in the instant that bullets had shattered their living room window—retaliation for actions his father had taken.

  It had taken Jake a while to forgive his father for that. But he had.

  There would be no forgiving Bailey's father. Not for what Lou Moore had done.

  "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be,” Bailey admitted quietly. Jake felt a rush of tenderness for her. Bailey wasn’t any bigger than a kid, and in that moment, she looked like one. Sweet, soft, and vulnerable.

  No wonder she terrified a man like Clay.

  If Jake loved her like that, she would terrify him, too.

  "So there is hope after all."

  Chapter 5

  Bailey smiled, feeling some of the acid in her stomach settle down. Finally. Jake had that way about him. And he'd genuinely made room for her in his life after everything that had happened to her and his younger sister four months ago. Jake Dillon was probably the closest friend she had in the world now, his sister Kyra a close second.

  Liam gurgled.

  Bailey scooped the tiny love of her life up and snuggled him. Liam was the closest she'd probably ever have to a nephew of her own. Him and the baby Kyra was going to have.

  That baby represented so much to Cam and Kyra. And Bailey.

  Those dark hours in the abandoned mine had made hope seem impossible. Bailey fought off a chill and the bad memories.

  "What did you honestly expect? Clay's not the type to eat an innocent woman for lunch. At least, not while on the clock." Jake grinned at her, looking far too good for a sane woman's mind. Not that Bailey noticed much.

  She was used to working with Clay Addy, after all.

  Clay was gorgeous down to his toes—much like Jake—but all that pretty man exterior did was hide a man who despised her.

  "He was surly. When I saw him. He's got me reviewing all the files that have come through in the last four months. It's going to take me a day or two."

  "Is that all that unexpected?"

  "No. But he needed me in the field. He just—" She'd spilled everything she'd ever felt about Clay to Jake in the last four months. Jake understood her. Or at least he'd listened.

  The baby fussed in her arms, and Bailey tightened her hold on him. If Jake and his father, Bert, had made her feel at home here with them after she and Kyra had nearly died, Liam had made her feel like she belonged.

  Like there was still hope out there.

  Everything she'd ever known had been turned sideways during those dark hours in that old mine. Every nightmare had resurfaced, every fear.

  She still slept with the light on. She probably always would.

  Sometimes her nightmares woke them all. No matter how much she tried to keep it all in. "I went back, Jake. I wasn't sure that I could."

  "I know, sweetheart. But you did. You're one of the two bravest women I have ever known." He smiled, the expression reaching his green eyes. He had thick, dark hair, green eyes, and the most beautiful smile she had ever seen.

  Jake Dillon had always been beautiful. Despite being mostly confined to his wheelchair—he took regular physical therapy to help regain strength in his legs, which was a slow process—he was well-built. Strong and handsome. And extremely smart.

  Jake liked to say that his brain was his superpower. His body was just a shell that housed it.

  He was the town librarian part-time, but when he wasn't working there, he spent hours in his home office writing research articles—or working toward his doctorate in history. Smart, kind, beautiful, a wonderful father—if she was ever going to love a man easily, it would be Jake.

  She wished she loved Jake like that.

  But Bailey wasn't ready for that. She didn't know if she ever would be.

  Jake's father came in. Bert bussed a kiss over her cheek. She took in the familiar smell of outdoors and spices from the kitchen. "Hi, sweetie. Dinner will be ready in about half an hour."

  She nodded, almost overwhelmed by how these three Dillon men made her feel. "I'm going to go change out of t
his uniform."

  It was the characteristic green of the Texas State Police. It had once fit perfectly. Now it hung on her frame, as if she wasn't quite big enough yet to fill it out properly. Like she was a kid in a costume.

  She got the symbolism, but the rational part of her brain knew that was stupid. She'd lost almost fifteen pounds after her captivity. Was it any wonder it showed in her uniform?

  It showed everywhere else.

  The room she occupied was right next to the one that had been Kyra's as a teen. It was still Kyra's, though the teenage artifacts had mostly been removed. The Dillons lived in a nice ranch house that had originally been built in the late 1800s. It had been added onto over the years. There were four bedrooms off the back of the kitchen. And two more upstairs, including Bert's master suite.

  Jake's and Liam's were across the hall from Bailey. When she'd first come to the Dillons after being released from the hospital the week after Kyra, she'd been overwhelmed and had just let them put her exactly where they wanted her.

  She had no idea that it was going to become permanent.

  Jake and the baby had rooms across the hall. Kyra and Cam stayed in Kyra’s whenever they visited.

  Bert had insisted that there was a reason the room had been empty—and never turned into a guest room. It had been painted her favorite color less than three days before she'd been moved in. He said it was because she was a part of his family. Because Kyra said so. Kyra wanted it that way.

  And so did Bert and Jake.

  It had been that simple.

  When the first notice had come about her rent and she'd realized she didn't have the money to keep paying it any longer, especially if she wasn’t going to be there, Bert had fixed everything.

  Told her not to worry about it. He wasn't ready to let his new daughter go. That she was right where she belonged—with three men who loved her. Who needed her to be their heart.

  Boloney, but she'd cried anyway.

  And vowed to earn her keep. She helped Jake with his research when he needed it, watched Liam when it was needed, cooked dinner at least twice a week, depending on the schedule, and did whatever she could to pull her own weight.