Always the One: (Meadowview Heroes # 2) (The Meadowview Series Book 6) (Meadowview Heat)

by Rochelle French

  She shifted, about to crawl out of bed, when Remy gripped her arm. She settled back down and turned her head on her pillow to see him staring at her with intensity in his dark brown eyes.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked.

  Puzzled, she gave him a look. “Um…sleep with you?”

  He shook his head. “No. The confession, Coraleen. Why’d you do it?”

  Shock hit her and knocked her down—a sonic boom. That wasn’t anywhere near where she’d thought the conversation had been headed.

  “Stop,” she said, almost choking on the words. She tugged her arm from his grip. “I confessed to a crime. I served the time. Isn’t that enough for you? Or are you interrogating me? Is your next question going to be, ‘where’s the money, Coraleen?’ Huh?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?” She slid back under the sheet and turned her back to Remy.

  “I meant, why did you confess?”

  She jolted up to a seated position and desperately scrambled for the sheet to cover her breasts but god, the two of them had done a number on the sheets, which were tangled around her legs and Remy’s and she wasn’t ready to walk around naked right now. She couldn’t be that exposed.

  “Can you give me some privacy?” she ground out. “I’d like to get dressed. Alone.”

  “It was either you or your grandfather who stole that money, and I know, goddamn it, that it wasn’t you! You were innocent, all along.” He shoved a hand through his hair, spiking it in all directions. “You flat-out lied to me. Lied to the goddamned court. Went to prison for five fucking years—”

  “I know how long I was gone, okay? I lived it. I survived it. You don’t need to remind me. And you don’t need to swear at me!” Her whole body shook.

  “Why, though? Help me understand. I mean, I know you loved Macer—we all did—but why would you take the rap for him? He hated that you’d confessed. After he got out of the ICU and came home and discovered you were gone, off to AZ/PC behind his back, he freaked.”

  “I know! He was my grandfather!”

  Remy kept going, blindly. “He wouldn’t stop telling everyone he was the one who stole the money. That you were just trying to protect him. Judge Reinhardt even came and talked to me about your confession. At the time we all figured Macer was willing to throw himself on his own petard and take the punishment for your crime because he felt a responsibility to you.”

  “That’s not what happened,” she choked out.

  Remy ignored her statement and plunged on. “It took over a year for me, Reinhardt, and a bunch of appellate lawyers Macer hired to convince him that there was no way to prove your innocence, that a signed confession trumped all. But still, he never let it go. Jesus, Coraleen, why would you go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit when he didn’t even want your sacrifice?”

  “Because Pop didn’t steal the money,” she said, dully. “And neither did I. But your precious law had been broken and no one believed Pop. He was going to go to jail. And I couldn’t let that happen.”

  It took Remy a moment. A very long, drawn-out moment. Coraleen hadn’t been trying to save her grandfather from something Macer had done. She’d taken the blame for someone else entirely.

  When he spoke, he fought to keep from exploding. “When both you and your grandpop claimed to have stolen the money, I did think maybe someone else was responsible. For the life of me, though, I couldn’t figure out who either of you would have been protecting. I suggested it to Reinhardt, asked him to investigate. He said that line of inquiry had been exhausted before Macer’s trial, but I wasn’t convinced. So I investigated on my own—”

  “You did?” Her voice came out small and fragile.

  “Of course I did.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  He swiped a hand over his face. “I tried to tell you when I came to see you in AZ/PC, but you just sat there, like a lump on a log, barely talking to me until you laid that pipe-bomb at my feet about hating cops.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll always be sorry.” She bit her lip, casting her lashes down, then glanced back up.

  “I tried, Coraleen. I dug as much as my position would allow me. But the investigation never led anywhere. Never identified any one else who could have possibly known how to get into the accounts. No one else could have stolen that money. No one.”

  “So in the end, even you, having as much faith in Pop and me as you did, even you couldn’t believe anyone else had been involved. Which is exactly why I had no other choice than to do what I did, Remy.”

  He didn’t respond. He was too devastated to say anything. All along he’d been right. Coraleen hadn’t committed any crime, but she’d paid the price anyway.

  “Pop was the only one with access to the accounts,” she continued. “Not even Lydell had the right combo of codes. I knew how to get into the accounts because I worked as Pop’s assistant during high school. But there was someone else who knew the codes. Someone who’d hidden their tracks well. No matter how hard Pop and I tried, and no matter how much money he threw at the computer forensic scientists his defense team hired, we couldn’t figure out who else had access to those codes. The IP address—”

  “I know about the IP address. And the billing software.”

  “Both showed Pop’s office computer was used, and that he was working at the office, on that computer, at the time the money was transferred out to a bank in the Caymans. All the evidence pointed to Pop, even though he was innocent.”

  “It’s the same thing I came up with when I investigated. It all seemed to point to Macer. Then, when you said in your confession that you sneaked into your grandfather’s office when Macer left his desk to get a cup of coffee, it all added up. At least…it seemed to.”

  “Pop had followed the rules his whole life—he was the trusted accountant for most of Meadowview’s businesses and wealthiest families—and look what his dedication was about to give him: a prison term and the label of felon. People started hating him. I couldn’t let him live with the knowledge that his town thought he was a thief. I couldn’t let him die in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “So you made the choice to sacrifice yourself for him, knowing no one else would ever be prosecuted for the crime. And after you confessed, he tried to do the same for you.” He blew out a breath. “Jesus, that’s real love, right there.”

  “Pop and Visada were all I had.”

  “What about Juliet? What about me?” Yeah, sure, he was coming off as rather petulant, but god, they’d lost so much time together. Why hadn’t she trusted him?

  She shrugged. “I had friends, sure, but all of you had your own families and your own lives. And you and I? Remy, I was just a girl with a mad crush and you were a young man with stars in his eyes.”

  “We could have been something, though.”

  Coraleen heaved a big sigh. “We never had a chance.”

  “Back then, no. Not with the way things went down. But we do now.” He gestured around the room, his arm sweeping across the mussed-up bed, the sun streaming through the window, the kitten sleeping on the floor in a puddle of light. “We have our second chance, Coraleen. Not everyone gets that.” He reached for her, aiming for a kiss, but she wormed away.

  “Wait, Remy. I need to think.” She squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around her middle.

  He frowned. “What is there to think about? Call your friend Janice and let her know you’re staying here. In Meadowview. With me. You’re moving in here.”

  “I-I-I…oh god, Remy, I can’t make my brain work,” she said, through a clenched jaw. “This is all too fast. We went from one kiss to you suddenly telling me I’m moving in, in less than twenty-four hours?”

  “It makes sense to me,” he said practically.

  “But the election…your reputation…what I am and how this town sees me…”

  “You know, Coraleen, we all have something in our past that people can judge. We just have t
o live with it. Look at my father, for example.”

  “Your father? I never even knew the man.” She brought her brows together. “That’s odd, I never even thought about you as having parents.”

  “I grew up here, right in Meadowview.”

  “How come I never knew that?”

  “My mom died when I was a kid. And my dad…well, he ended up moving away. I haven’t talked to him in years.”

  “Why not? Did you have a falling out?”

  He hesitated. “He did something bad. Wrong. And it left a stain on his reputation. On our family.”

  He told her then. About how his father had met and started dating Karen Passer. How he suspected she might be into drugs but he’d wanted desperately not to believe, until the day when she’d been pulled over by another officer for a traffic violation. She told Remy’s father she’d panicked and driven off, but the deputy who’d pulled her over said she’d been evading arrest. She’d zoomed away, and according to the arresting officer, had thrown something out the window. Her ex-husband Harry had been with her in the car, and had gone back the next day and found the baggie of meth. He’d brought it to Richard, Remy’s father, and had given an eyewitness statement.

  Which Richard had suppressed, believing Karen when she said Harry had been trying to set her up.

  “It was only after a couple other eyewitnesses came forward and gave the same account that my dad realized he’d done something very wrong,” Remy said. “He took Harry’s eyewitness statement and the evidence bag of meth in to the department, but by then, it was too late. He was fired. Left town in disgrace. And left behind a huge dark stain on Meadowview’s law enforcement.”

  “How come I never knew this?”

  He shrugged. “It happened when you were young, so maybe you never heard about it. People still remember, though.”

  She sat up. “Wait—after I crashed into the diner, you picked me up to carry me to your Jeep. Reinhardt said something about your father. Was that what Reinhardt’s cryptic message was all about? He was warning you away from me because of your dad?”

  He nodded. “Didn’t work, though. I’m here, you’re here, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. We’re a couple now.”

  For a long while, Coraleen didn’t respond. Instead, she tightened the sheet around her breasts and stared at a loose thread with intensity. Finally, she looked up, but wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  “Remy, you’re mistaken,” she said hollowly. “You and I are not a ‘we.’ There is no second chance. This was a one-night thing only.”

  Her words hit him in the chest. He pulled back. “Hold on. We had sex last night. Multiple times. And again this morning. You’re in my bed. I’ve told you I need you. I’ve invited you to move in. This is it—we’re a ‘we.’ No doubt about it.”

  “I’m bad for you, Remy. You have an election you need to focus on. Being in a relationship with a convict—”

  “Former convict.”

  “—could cost you this election. You saw how Ned and Albert followed Reinhardt’s lead yesterday at the Goldpan Pub. And Ned used what happened with your father to basically threaten you. God, Remy, now that I know about your father—”

  “My father has nothing to do with us.”

  “That’s not true. Your father was involved with someone who broke the law. He made a terrible decision and it cost him everything. People will see you with me and will assume you’ll make bad decisions, too. People will stop trusting you.”

  “I have faith in this community.”

  “I don’t!” she cried out. “You, me? It could cost Meadowview, and Deloro County.” She barked out a harsh laugh. “Could you really imagine Lydell Wallaby as sheriff?”

  “No, but that’s not the point.”

  “That’s the only point, Remy. I’m no good for you. Not with the label of felon hanging around my neck.”

  “But Coraleen,” he argued, striving to maintain reason, “you’re innocent. I don’t give a flying fuck what other people think, but if the ‘felon’ label bothers you, all we have to do is tell people you didn’t do the crime. That you gave a false confession to save Macer. Then people won’t think of you as a former convict—not that it’s their business, anyway. Any threat to my campaign that might worry you would be eliminated.”

  “I could never do that.”

  He frowned. “Of course you can. I just don’t understand why you haven’t already. What’s the issue?”

  “The issue is that if I say I’m innocent—and there’s still no way to prove Pop was innocent, too, remember—people will think Pop stole the money.” She bit her lip, furrowed her brow. “Either that, or they’ll think I’m lower than low and trying to throw my dead grandpop under the bus to take the blame for something I did. Although, in truth, I could care less about what they think of me. I just don’t want them to think bad of Pop.”

  “So I’ll open up the investigation again. Unofficially, of course, but I’ll figure out who stole that money.”

  “No!” she exclaimed. When he stared at her, baffled by her response, she added, “That’s been tried before—didn’t work then, won’t work now. There’s no hope. And I won’t live my life with people judging me while I wait for some kind of vindication I don’t even know will pan out. Finally, I am not putting your job on the line by having you associate with a known felon.”

  “Jesus, Coraleen,” he exploded. “Former felon, and you were innocent. Are you telling me you’re walking out of my life because you don’t have faith that I’ll find out who the real thief is? This is what I do.”

  “‘You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.’”

  “Did you seriously just quote Nietzsche at me? When we’re in bed?”

  Hot Tub pounced onto the bed and nestled in between the two of them, the little motor in her chest going full-blast. Remy reached out to pet the kitten at the same time as Coraleen, and for a brief moment, their fingers touched.

  Then she pulled her hand back.

  “The truth is,” she said quietly, “my presence in your life—and in your bed—isn’t good for you.”

  “You don’t get to decide what’s good for me.”

  “True. But I do get to decide what’s good for me. Remy, for the first time in five years, I have absolute control over my life. Don’t take that away.”

  About to respond, he held back and thought on that for a moment. How tough it had to have been to relinquish absolute control of her life the way she had—not because she’d deserved to have her freedom taken away but because she’d chosen to protect someone who loved her. She was right—he had no right to determine her future.

  “So that leaves us…where?” he asked, his voice sounding hollow in his throat.

  She slipped from the bed. Wrapped the sheet tight around her and padded toward the hall. In the doorway, she paused, glancing at him over her shoulder. “That leaves us done. Over. Finished. As soon as the Impala is ready, I’m leaving town. And this time, I’m gone for good.”

  He knew he should have kept fighting. But his body shook with suppressed rage and he knew if he so much as opened his mouth he’d blow up. He’d scare Coraleen. Scare the kitten.

  So he kept his mouth shut and watched the woman he loved walk out of the room.

  After an awkward and very silent morning made only fractionally less awkward by the frantic antics of Hot Tub attacking one of Remy’s rolled-up socks she’d dug up from under his couch (good god, did the man never tidy up?), Remy dropped Coraleen off in front of Dillard’s Grocery (apparently the man saw no need for organic bananas). She’d stiffly informed him she’d be staying with Juliet the remainder of her time in Meadowview.

  Her heart had just about ripped itself out of her chest when he simply nodded.

  She walked down to Dave’s Auto-Body. There, Dave had a little good news for her—her car would be ready by the end of the day. He also said the bill would be $948.

&
nbsp; She argued, thinking it should be higher, but he explained that working on an Impala took a lot less time than working on a newer car and that the bill was fair. She unrolled her stack of twenties, peeled off the correct amount, and took the change he gave her. The remaining money should be enough to pay for gas to get her to Janice’s place as well as a couple cups of coffee.

  Before she left, Dave told her she could borrow his bike—a black Cannondale in the rack by the library—if she didn’t want to hoof it through town. As she thanked him, she realized the ache in her chest had softened by his generous offer…by his trust.

  Headed to Cuppa Joe, she was stopped on the street by Jacob, who waved her down, a big smile on his face.

  “Hey, Coraleen, I saw your horse yesterday. Why didn’t you tell me he was still around? The way you were talking made it sound like he’d died or something.”

  Shock sucked the air out of her chest. “You saw Visada?”

  She took a step forward, and suddenly realized she’d gripped the front of Jacob’s zippered hoodie in her hands and was almost shaking the boy. She released her grip and straightened the front of his sweatshirt.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone ballistic like that,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve been looking for him the last couple of days and he seemed to have disappeared. Where is he?”

  She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. The thread of hope she’d banished to the dark recesses of her mind uncoiled and stretched out, traveling and shimmering into the forefront of her thoughts. She may not be able to have Remy, but at least she’d get her horse back. And that had to count for something.

  Jacob frowned, but his expression was more of puzzlement rather than anger. “He’s in the back pasture at that new boarding facility your friend Juliet took me to.”

  But wait, what if the horse wasn’t Visada? The negative thought slammed itself into the front of her mind.

  “Did Juliet see him, too?” Because if she had, Coraleen knew there was no way the horse Jacob had seen could be Visada. If it was, Juliet would have immediately called Remy and let Coraleen know. Her friend knew how much Visada meant to Coraleen.