He rubbed his chest, pretty sure he had tread marks there.
But even as she spoke, even as he’d watched Layla crawl around the room, the sense of what Casper had—what he’d been trying to protect—settled over him. A family. A future.
The very thing Owen had seen on the raft with Scotty. That thing that made him want to live, the thing he’d held on to when he sat on the sofa, her hand in his.
A future he’d tasted when he’d kissed her in the car. The fact that she’d kissed him back, softened in his arms . . .
He wanted it and understood suddenly what had driven Casper to find him, to pose the audacious idea that Owen surrender his daughter.
Or maybe not his daughter, if he really faced the truth.
Except she could be.
That’s when Layla decided that the fuzzy man sitting on the floor might be fun to climb on. She crawled into his lap, and Owen picked her up. She turned to him, rubbed her fingers in his beard.
His throat thickened.
Selfish. The word jagged through him even as Layla laughed, clapped her hands, made another dive for his beard.
He intercepted her with the bunny. She took it again, shoved it into her mouth.
The future hung there, in Raina’s words. Her handing Layla off like a package at his door. His daughter’s own tiny pink room in his, what—trailer? Apartment? Him trying to figure out what to feed her, how to soothe her when she cried, trying to keep up with her toys, diapers, needs.
Casper had held her like a natural. No awkward fumbling, no hesitation. Like a father might do with his child.
He so wasn’t ready to be a father. Yet. And Casper knew that too.
Yeah, selfish. Because his plans weren’t so much about falling in love with this amazing little girl as they were about holding on to the last decent thing in his life. The one good thing that had come from the mess he’d made of his past.
And worse . . . He glanced at Raina, seeing another wretched truth. He simply didn’t want to lose. Not to Casper.
Not to the brother he’d spent his entire life trying to best.
He sighed, lifting his daughter so he could meet her eyes. “Casper is always trying to tell me what to do. And he gets mad when I don’t do it his way.”
He pressed a kiss to Layla’s cheek before putting her down. “But in this case . . . I don’t know. I will think about it.”
Raina’s expression softened. “Thank you, Owen. We would never want to keep the truth from Layla, but it would be less confusing for her, at least until she’s old enough to understand.”
He tried a half smile. “I know.” He touched his chest again, where his wound had started to ache.
To his surprise, Raina reached out, took his hand. He squeezed hers back.
In the quiet, he heard the front door open, voices in the next room.
“They’re back.” Raina got up and Owen climbed off the floor, reaching for Layla.
He groaned, his wound turning to fire in his chest.
“Are you hurt?” Raina said as she picked up her daughter.
“I’ll be okay,” he said, bracing himself on the sofa. Please let Scotty have returned with them.
His hopes ignited when he came out of the den and spotted Scotty standing by the kitchen counter. Her gaze stopped only briefly on Raina before it landed on Owen, bearing a chill, something dark and pensive. He frowned.
Then his father appeared, walking right up to Ingrid, wrapping her in a hug. Everyone went quiet—his parents in the kitchen; Grace, who sat at the counter helping a little girl he’d never seen before with homework; Darek, who’d emerged from the adjacent Evergreen Resort office.
John released Ingrid, his hand finding hers. “We have a problem,” he said. He glanced at Raina, then at Owen, holding his gaze.
“Casper’s been arrested for the murder of Monte Riggs.”
SCOTTY DIDN’T KNOW how she’d ended up at the Christiansen dinner table, passing the garlic bread to Owen’s sister Grace and embroiled in the family powwow about how to clear Casper’s name.
The family wave had simply washed over her, like a ship at sea, the moment she exited the sheriff’s office.
And now they looked at her as the resident expert in proving Casper’s innocence.
“But what proof do they have?” This from Ingrid, Casper’s mother, who sat at one end of the oval table, chopping her dinner into pieces but not really consuming it.
Next to her, and across from Scotty, Owen also seemed broody, with occasional glances at Raina, next to him, and at Grace’s new daughter—a six-year-old named Yulia with braids and a tentative smile for Scotty when she’d returned home with John.
This seemed to be the family MO . . . adopting the lost. Because just like Yulia, they’d folded Scotty into the mix as if she belonged. Ingrid had roped her into setting the table, Grace had given her garlic bread–slicing duty, and all the while John had recounted the events at the police station, making it sound as though Scotty had been their secret weapon.
“It’s circumstantial, at best,” Scotty said, now passing the tossed salad. “Apparently he and Monte have a past—leading up to the fact that Casper might have been the last person to see Monte before he disappeared.” She looked at Raina, who had turned deathly quiet, almost stunned with the news. She held Layla on her lap, feeding her baby food as she absorbed the conversation. Scotty kept her voice gentle. “Did you know he tracked Monte down after the fight at the VFW?”
Raina shook her head. “I told him to leave it be, that Monte didn’t scare me, but . . .” She glanced at Layla. “I was scared, and he probably knew it.”
Silence. Scotty stifled the urge to reach for her hand, to tell her that no one had the right to scare her. Casper’s words during his interrogation rang in her head. Monte hit her—he was going to rape her.
Not dinner conversation, but definitely a reason for Casper to go after Monte. She glanced at Owen. “Kyle heard about the fight you two had, too, and used it to point out that Casper had the temper—and ability—to hurt someone enough . . .” She didn’t want to continue, not with Yulia sitting right there.
“He does know how to hit,” Owen said, and she hurt for him with that admission. “But he would never kill someone.”
“Of course not. The entire thing is absurd.” Ingrid pushed her plate away, pressed her hands over her eyes, and the table went quiet.
“Like I told John, you need to get a good lawyer to help sort this out. I’m not going to sugarcoat it—plenty of people have gone to jail on circumstantial evidence. The way Kyle painted the scene, along with Casper’s own words, even I would have charged him.”
“What did he say?” Raina asked, looking on the verge of tears.
Scotty didn’t want to repeat it, to explain the venom in Casper’s voice when he’d talked about protecting Raina. So she gentled her tone. “Just that he loves you very much.”
Owen looked up, met Scotty’s eyes.
Since she’d left with Casper, he’d changed and showered, trimmed his beard again to a tantalizing layer of golden-and-copper whiskers along his chin. He still wore his hair long but now held it back with a black headband, the curls drying in the air. He wore a turquoise T-shirt, something he’d probably found in Casper’s clothes because the shirt read, Dive Roatán. The shirt only emphasized the difference between Casper’s leaner but solid treasure-hunting physique and Owen’s work-hardened chest, his biceps stretching the arms of the shirt from so many hours hauling in crab pots. He even smelled good, the scent of freshly showered male, a fragrance she’d caught when he joined her to help set the table.
Yet, for a moment when she saw him sit next to Raina, the image of them together in the past had hit Scotty hard, turning her dinner to acid in her throat.
No, this couldn’t possibly be jealousy. She had made peace with Owen’s escapades.
Or perhaps they’d only been theory until now.
It occurred to her then that she might be making th
ings worse. After all, maybe Owen’s cleanup act had everything to do with his wanting to fit into Raina’s life.
The sooner Scotty escaped with her heart intact, the better.
“Excuse me,” Raina said, pushing back from the table. She picked up Layla and headed upstairs.
Oddly, Owen didn’t even rise when she left, just kept looking at Scotty.
Like she could make this all go away? Hardly.
“I called Max,” Grace said beside her. “He’s calling the lawyer we’re using for Yulia’s adoption, to see if he has a friend in the firm who can recommend a defense attorney.”
“If there was ever a time for Casper to use his millions, it might be now,” Owen said.
“Millions?” Scotty asked.
“Casper found a treasure that gave him a healthy savings account,” John said simply. “But he invested a lot of it into the resort. Got us back on our feet and helped buy the trees around the property, add the Internet, make some improvements to the cabins.”
“He’s part owner of Evergreen Resort now,” Ingrid said, picking up her plate and cup. “He and Darek are working together. Darek’s the managing partner. Are you done, honey?”
Scotty nodded, and Ingrid took her plate too.
The phone rang in the quiet of that news. Ingrid went to answer.
Owen had returned to some attempt at eating but put his fork down when his mother greeted someone named Ivy.
Right, Darek’s wife.
They all listened to the one-sided conversation, the umm-hmms and “Oh no,” which made Owen glance at his father, then push his own plate away. So much for his sister’s welcome-home lasagna.
Finally Ingrid issued a calmer “I understand” and “Thank you, Ivy. Come by soon, if there’s a good time for the kids. I know Owen would like to see baby Joy and Tiger.”
Owen got up from the table as Ingrid hung up. She stood in the kitchen, cradling the phone. “Ivy said that the county prosecutor’s office has decided to file a formal complaint against Casper. He’ll have his initial appearance on Thursday, where they’ll set bail. His evidentiary hearing is on Monday, and they’ll decide whether to indict him for the crime.” She looked at Scotty. “What does that mean?”
They all looked at Scotty, so she answered. “It means that we have until Monday to find evidence that Casper wasn’t involved. If we don’t, he will be held over for trial.” We. Oops. But she couldn’t go back and amend her words.
“Trial.” Ingrid set the phone down. Turned away.
Owen walked over to his mother, putting his arms around her and pulling her to himself. “Mom, Casper is not going to jail. I promise. We’re going to prove that he didn’t do it, and everything’s going to be fine.”
And as if on cue, he added, “Have a little faith.”
Owen’s answer to everything, although it seemed to sink in. John looked at Grace, covering her hand with his. Owen’s mom turned in his arms to pat his cheek, then leaned her head against his chest.
“I can’t believe Ivy is prosecuting her own brother-in-law,” Grace finally said, almost in a whisper.
“She recused herself, Grace,” Ingrid said, untangling herself from Owen’s grip. “And the county attorney opted to hand the case over to a prosecutor from Duluth.”
“That’s why this is happening,” Grace said. “Because they don’t know Casper. They don’t know—”
“Exactly my point,” Scotty said. “There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence against him.”
“Can I talk to you?” Owen had moved beside her, his voice low. Not that the entire table couldn’t hear him, because they all went quiet.
Um, well, when he put it like that . . . Scotty nodded.
He headed toward the entryway, handed her jacket to her, then pulled what looked like an old letter jacket from the closet. Once he’d shrugged it on and buttoned it at the waist, he grabbed a box of matches from a shelf and held the door open for her.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll see,” he said as he followed her outside.
The sun had finally dropped into the horizon, leaving only a deep magenta overhead, backdrop to the finest suggestion of a Milky Way evening. The smell of loam kicked up when the wind shivered the trees, tossing curly leaves over the pathway as Owen led her toward the lake. It glistened under the rising moon, frosting the waves and reminding her of the Bering Sea on a calm—unusually calm—night.
Scotty waited for him to reach for her hand, but he hadn’t touched her since his impulsive proposal. Probably he’d figured out that a guy doesn’t propose to another woman in front of his former fiancée.
Not that she could really call herself that. Still, it stung despite the absurdity of the situation.
Owen stopped at a cleared area, just before the beach. “Wow, they rebuilt the fire pit,” he said.
She could barely make it out in the moonlight but got close enough to see five wooden benches, rough-hewn but polished, circling an inlaid-stone fire pit. She heard thumping as Owen retrieved logs, then watched as he bent to arrange them.
“Need help?”
“Grab some of that kindling from the tinderbox.” He gestured to a tin box attached to the side of the log pile, where a cord or two of split logs lay stacked, ready to be consumed. Inside she found old newspaper, pinecones, and twigs. She retrieved a handful and squatted beside Owen, his assistant as he tucked the accelerant into the nooks and crannies of his Boy Scout tented fire mound.
She couldn’t deny something deeply attractive about a man who knew how to build a perfect fire. He held the lit match to the paper, then leaned low and blew gently. The flame ate at the paper and nipped at a pinecone, which burst to life, igniting the kindling, charring the logs. The fire crackled, spitting sparks into the amaranthine hues of twilight.
Owen got up and scooted back to sit on a log, holding his hands to the fire. In the glow of the firelight, he appeared fierce, his jaw hard-edged.
“Are you okay?” Scotty asked.
He glanced up, and his expression eased. He even managed a small, tight smile. “Now that you’re back? Yeah.”
And right then, she returned to the car earlier today, the sense of being in his arms, that impossibly tender kiss, the way he’d hung on to her—
Oh, Owen. “You know I am only here another day.”
“C’mere.”
She took a step toward him, then hesitated. “Owen . . . we had rules, remember? No trying to charm me into staying.”
His smile dimmed, and he tucked his hands between his knees. “Oh, you’re talking about the kiss.”
“And your proposal to Raina—”
“That was a mistake.”
“But that’s the point. You live by the moment, following your heart, and I . . . I can’t do that. I have to consider all the ramifications, look ahead.”
“Always the captain,” he said, his mouth crooking up.
Well, yeah. She sat beside him, watching the flames.
“We need you, Scotty.” He looked at his folded hands. “I need you. I can’t let my brother go down for this. I know he’s innocent.”
She hesitated a moment. “Are you sure? Owen, you haven’t been here. What if he’s responsible . . . even unintentionally?”
He blew out a long breath as if yes, he’d considered that. “Then it was to protect Raina and Layla.”
“If he did the crime, he needs to be brought to justice.”
“No. See, that’s my point. What justice is there in taking him away from his family when he was only trying to protect them?”
“You can’t justify murdering someone—”
“I know. It’s just . . .” He stared up at the stars. “Did you hear my parents? Casper used his fortune to rescue the resort. He’s always doing that, rescuing people. Solving their problems. He didn’t have to tell me Layla was mine, but he wanted to do what was right. That’s essential Casper—always doing the right thing. That’s why he shouldn’t go to jail for this.�
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He sighed. “And that’s why I’m thinking of giving my consent for him to adopt Layla.”
Silence.
“I don’t know, Scotty, but seeing them this afternoon . . . they’re already a family, right? I feel like an intruder. No, worse. Like I’m repeating the past, about to destroy everything I wanted to fix.” He sank his head into his hands. “I have to get this right.”
This was the man she knew from the boat. Not the angry, impulsive, almost-desperate man she’d seen today, but the man no one else seemed to know. Sacrificial. Responsible. Honorable, even if he had left the litter of bad choices behind him.
Everything she’d felt in the raft and afterward at the hospital—all the images of growing old with this man, waking to his amazing smile every sunrise, building a life with him—suddenly rose inside her, turning her heart tender toward him.
Oh, the effect he had on her.
So what that he was impulsive? Impulsive had kissed her in the car, had talked her into coming to Minnesota. Impulsive had jumped into an ocean to save her life.
He might have read her thoughts because he took her hand, his gaze in hers. “I know that I blew it when I proposed to Raina—”
“It’s no big deal. I get it, Owen.” And please, if he’d stop looking at her like he had on the raft, a sweet hunger for her in his expression . . .
She made to pull her hand away, but he hung on.
“But I promise not to do anything stupid again if you help me figure out how to clear Casper. If he’s free, then we can all figure out how to go on with our lives.”
Oh. So maybe she’d read that wrong.
“I just need . . . I need your brains, Scotty. I’m a guy who does things the hard way. When I played hockey, I wasn’t the player with finesse. I just worked harder than everybody else. I practiced longer, took more shots on goal, mixed it up and fought for every minute of ice time. But that’s not going to cut it here. You’re a detective—please help me figure this out.”
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