All this time, he’d told himself he was protecting her but he had come to accept that he was really trying to protect himself.
She wanted to know and he had to figure out a way to tell her without shattering every single ideal she held sacred.
He did his best to focus on necessary paperwork for another hour. Just when he was feeling restless and ready to climb out of his skin, he heard a familiar voice then Carrie Anne’s response.
“Don’t you look nice, all dressed up,” Carrie Anne exclaimed.
A man who knew what was good for him would just keep on working—would maybe even be smart enough to close the blinds in his office so he couldn’t see her.
Apparently he didn’t have the first idea what was good for him.
He looked up and saw Wynona smiling at Carrie Anne and showing off a pair of sandals that made her legs look long and luscious.
She had on one of those soft, feminine dresses she wore in her off-hours, this one a pale lavender with an abundance of lace. Over it, she wore a light short-sleeve sweater in a darker shade of purple. Her hair looked different, soft and pretty, curled into waves that she held away from her face with a jeweled clip.
Longing was a hard, sharp ache in his gut.
“I had to go with a friend to see Judge Jenkins,” he heard her say.
“That old lech.” Even from here, twenty feet away, he could see Carrie Anne roll her eyes.
“Right? Yes, I know it’s a huge step back for the movement but I figured, use what you’ve got. He’s a chauvinistic pig but we needed his help and I guessed correctly that a little primping would only work in our favor.”
What friend of hers needed a judge? And why? More important, why hadn’t she told him what was going on?
He was her boss, he reminded himself, not her confidant. He didn’t have the right to know every single thing going on in her personal life.
“Nice strategy. Did it work?” Carrie Anne asked.
“Perfectly.” Wyn smiled. “We got just what we asked for. How have things been here? Has it been busy?”
“Not at all. Moose Porter was in about an hour ago, asking Chief Emmett about you.”
“Was he?” Wyn glanced briefly toward his office and, caught, he couldn’t look away quickly enough. Their gazes met and color rose on her cheeks. Was it because of Moose Porter or because she caught him staring at her like they really were back in junior high?
“He’s so cute, like a big old cuddly teddy bear,” Carrie Anne said, a wistful tone in her voice. “And he’s always so sweet with my kids whenever we see him. He’ll be a great dad someday. I don’t get why you don’t go out with him.”
Yeah, Wyn. Why not?
“Moose is a great guy. He’s just not...” She hesitated and though he was now pretending to concentrate fiercely on the papers spread out on his desk, he was almost certain she looked into his office.
“He’s not what I need right now,” Wyn went on, her voice firm. “But you should totally go for it, Carrie Anne. He really is terrific.”
What did she need right now?
It certainly wasn’t him.
“Anyway, I only have a minute, then I’m out of here again,” Wyn said. “During one of my breaks last week, I bookmarked a couple of ideas for the games we’re playing tonight and I didn’t pin them or email them to myself. For some reason, I can’t find the links again so I just need to go through my browser history and email them to myself.”
“Don’t you hate that? I can’t wait for tonight. This shower is going to be epic! My mom is babysitting for the kids and I told her to just plan on sleeping over, since I didn’t know how late we would be.”
“I really hope it lives up to everyone’s expectations,” Wyn said.
Cade was aware of her heading in his direction and he held his breath until she took a detour to her own desk. He did his best to ignore her. Really, how were they going to keep working together when he had all the concentration of a flea with ADHD when she was around?
After a few moments, he risked a glance up again, just in time to see her heading for his office with a stack of files in her hand.
“Yesterday when I was going through some files in my desk, I found some that still need your signature.”
“Thanks. You can add them to the pile.”
She set the papers down and turned to go but he wasn’t ready to lose this brief connection. She looked so lovely and he ached to have the freedom to tell her so. To wrap her in his arms and press kisses to the back of that soft, sweet-smelling neck and listen to her breathy sighs...
“I heard you tell Carrie Anne you had to go before Judge Jenkins this morning,” he said.
She turned around, releasing the delicious scent of citrus and vanilla. A cop wasn’t supposed to smell so good, damn it.
“Yes. Thanks for giving me the personal leave.”
“It’s your leave. And things have been miraculously slow again today. That will all change tomorrow when Lake Haven Days start, but we’re good for now. George is following up on a property-line dispute and Jesse’s out on patrol.”
“He’s coming along, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. He was a good hire.” He didn’t want to talk about his newest officer. Finally, he decided to come right out and ask the question he had told himself all morning was none of his business. “So what’s the story? Why did you need to see the judge today?”
She paused and for a long moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer, but she finally sighed. “I guess you probably should know what’s going on since she’s your neighbor and since you’re chief of police. The truth is, I was helping Andie Montgomery petition for a protective order against someone.”
“Oh?”
“Her husband’s former partner, actually, in Portland.”
The pieces clicked into place. “Let me guess. The detective who called the station yesterday? Warren, wasn’t it?”
Her mouth twisted into a sour look. “Right. That’s him.”
Apparently she had been keeping a few things from him. “And why did Andrea feel she needs a protective order against him?”
“It’s a long story and some of it is...private and personal in nature. She has decided not to press charges over some of the things he’s done because she has no physical evidence to prove it. I don’t feel right about sharing details without her permission. But I believe everything she says and so does Judge Jenkins. Suffice it to say, the man abused his position in the worst possible way and then he became obsessed with her to the point of stalking her. That’s the reason she moved to Haven Point.”
“And why she was so jumpy and afraid of the police when she first moved in,” he guessed.
“Exactly. She’s had a rough time of it. She thought Detective Warren would lose interest if she moved away but when he tracked her here yesterday, she knew he was both obsessed and determined.”
Wyn had been right. Something had been off about their new neighbor. Her instincts, as usual, had been stellar. Stalking. An obsessed police detective who abused his position and tormented the widow of a fallen fellow officer.
He hated thinking that someone who had sworn to uphold the law would twist it to suit his own purposes but it wasn’t the first time.
“She kept some threatening text messages she had received from him. That and some other evidence she had might have been inadmissible in a criminal trial but, combined with her testimony, it was enough to convince Judge Jenkins the order was warranted.”
“That’s great.”
“And then I gave Andie moral support while she called Detective Warren to inform him of the order and to tell him in no uncertain terms to stay away from her. Just in case he wasn’t convinced, I took the phone and told the son of a bitch that if he ever came to Haven Point, he would be arres
ted and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
The sheer satisfaction in her voice—and her rare profanity—made him smile, despite his own emotional upheaval.
“You love sticking it to the bad guys, don’t you?”
“When they have it coming, absolutely,” she said. “Anyone who thinks he has impunity to attack or torment someone smaller and more vulnerable deserves every possible punishment and I’m happy to be on hand to help deliver it.”
“It’s what makes you a good cop, a dogged investigator, especially in cases where there is child abuse and neglect or sexual abuse of any sort.”
She blinked. “I... Thanks.”
Something he had wondered about for a long time made its way to the surface of his brain. For a brief second, he considered ignoring the impulse to ask her, but somehow the moment seemed right. His instincts were sometimes spot-on, too, and he decided not to question them in this case.
“Tell me something. Did you become a cop because of Wyatt’s death or because of what happened to you in college?”
She stared at him for several long seconds then she sank into a chair as color flooded her features in a hot tide. “You...know about that?”
“I’ve known since before I hired you. I did a complete search, Wyn. You think I wouldn’t find out you were one of the key witnesses in the trial of an accused serial rapist who preyed on college students in Boise?”
She drew in a deep breath and then another and he was in awe all over again of her strength and her courage. She refused to be a victim. Instead she was tough and smart and completely dedicated to helping others.
“You’ve known, all this time, and you never said anything?” Her voice was a mix of shock and disbelief.
“You just said it, when you were talking about Andrea,” he murmured. “Some things are private and personal. If you had wanted to talk about it, I figured you would have.”
Why he had asked her now, after avoiding the question all this time, he wasn’t sure but he still wouldn’t regret it. This was all part of the package that made her the strong, courageous, amazing woman he loved.
“Does my...family know?”
His throat ached at her question and what it implied. He had read the transcript of her testimony. Like her, he hated when anyone vulnerable was hurt or abused in any way but it was so much worse when that person was someone important to him.
“Not from me,” he answered gruffly. “You mean you never told them? You carried this burden alone? Didn’t you think you needed their love and support?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice low. “But I also know it would have killed Dad to know how stupid I was, how I foolishly ignored all the things he told me about protecting myself. I went to a party by myself at the home of people I didn’t know, I didn’t watch my drink closely, I let a strange guy drive me home. Stupid, from beginning to end.”
“You do know it wasn’t your fault, right? You were drugged and sexually assaulted without your consent.”
“I know that now. I had an excellent rape counselor and that made all the difference. But right afterward, all I could see were my own stupid mistakes. I was afraid to tell my parents at first. After Brock Michaels was arrested and charged, I was getting up my nerve to tell them I would be testifying at his trial and then Wyatt died and...it didn’t seem important. They were already grieving so much for him. I didn’t want to add more hurt to their hearts.”
She had chosen instead to walk the difficult road on her own. He couldn’t imagine what that would have been like. Testifying without the support network of friends and family, being forced to relive the ordeal again and again.
How had she found the strength to get through it, at the same time she would have been lost and grieving for her beloved twin as well?
Her dad used to tell him that some people had grit and other people had grace. Wyn had both and contrary to what she thought, John Bailey never would have thought her stupid or weak. He would have been nothing but proud of her.
Was it any wonder Cade was so deeply in love with her that it seemed to fill every single empty space inside him?
* * *
HE KNEW. All this time.
As the police station faded in her rearview mirror after her stunning conversation with Cade, Wynona shook her head, still reeling. Cade knew about her attack, about her testimony in the trial, about the events of one stupid night that had changed her life.
She didn’t know what to think.
Why hadn’t he said anything over the years?
He had spoken about it so matter-of-factly, as if it was one of those things that just was. She could only believe her past had never mattered to him. She had worked for him for more than two years and he had never treated her like a victim, someone fragile or damaged.
She drove toward Riverbend Road with her thoughts as twisty and wild as the Hell’s Fury.
Ahead of her, a couple of kids were riding long boards. They turned into Sulfur Hollow, shoulder-length hair flying in the wind behind them. She lifted her foot off the gas and on impulse clicked her turn signal on and followed after the kids.
She waved at the boys but they just glared at her. She wasn’t in uniform and she wasn’t driving her department vehicle but people here knew who she was.
Sulfur Hollow always seemed...different from the rest of town. If she combed through the police department’s statistics, she would suspect they had almost twice as many calls to this particular neighborhood as any other area of town, far out of proportion to the number of residents who lived in the cluster of twenty or so small, run-down homes.
She passed the house where Cade had lived as a boy, a small, boxy ranch-style house that had once been covered in peeling gray paint but now was tidy with new siding and fresh-painted shutters.
Another family had moved in since Walter Emmett died in prison. She had never met anyone in the family—probably a good thing, if they were staying under the police radar—but she knew the father worked as a laborer in Shelter Springs and the mother was a teacher’s aide at the elementary school. She saw a couple of bikes on the lawn and had a fervent wish that those children were enjoying a much happier childhood than Cade had in that house.
A wave of tenderness washed through her, huge and deep.
Cade was a good man. He had been a tough, emotionally starved boy who had grown into a tough, hard police officer.
It would have been so easy for him to take a different route—his father’s way, always thinking life owed him something and if it didn’t deliver, he could go out and take it.
Cade could have followed his father’s footsteps into a life of crime. In her experience, these things often ran in families. If members of one generation were convinced they were above the law, they usually taught that philosophy to their offspring.
What made Cade take a different path?
John Bailey.
Her father had reached out a hand and lifted a struggling boy out of the squalor and hopelessness and showed him something better.
She wanted to do the same. That was the reason she was finishing her degree. Police officers certainly could make a real and permanent difference in the lives of those they encountered. She had known many dedicated, passionate people in the law-enforcement community who tried diligently to impact their communities for good, starting with her father right on to Elliot and Marshall and Cade and on to Wyatt and Andrea’s husband, Jason, who had both given their lives trying to help someone else.
Too often, though, people’s brushes with the law were punitive and came too late, when ingrained habits made it too difficult to divert them from their troubled road.
It might be idealistic, but she wanted to help stop problems before they began.
How would talking with Ronnie Herrera help her with that new plan for her life? I
t wouldn’t. But she knew something else had happened that night, something Cade wouldn’t talk about. He knew all her secrets, apparently. Why wouldn’t he tell her the truth about the night her own father was shot?
She wanted to snip the dangling thread before starting the new phase of her life.
She would try one time to talk to him. If he wasn’t home, she would forget the whole darn thing and she wouldn’t come back again.
When she pulled up to the house where he lived with Elena and their three children, though, Ronnie was outside with the hood up on his old wood-side Jeep Wagoneer.
Hoping she wasn’t making a huge mistake, she turned off her SUV and climbed out. A dog barked in a dyspeptic sort of way and she heard a radio somewhere nearby playing some ’80s hair band. Ronnie sang along in a surprisingly good baritone.
“Hey, Ron,” she called out loudly. She had learned early that it was best not to sneak up on people in this neighborhood. Most of them had some kind of weapon at the ready, even if it was just a makeshift rock sap.
He knew who she was—and though she was dressed in civilian clothes, he managed to look both resigned and suspicious.
“What do you want? Did that bony-assed witch next door call and complain about the noise? That’s a classic, man. Nobody can belt it out like Axl Rose.”
He reached down to the boom box on the ground next to him and turned up the volume. “How do you like that, bitch?” he yelled in the general direction of the house next door. A curtain twitched and Wyn wondered if she would have to go apologize to Dolores Hammond, who likely had no idea what was going on.
“I’m not here about the noise, Ronnie,” she said.
“No?” He turned down the tunes. “Then what? I ain’t doing nothing wrong. It’s my own damn yard. I’m not breaking no laws.”
She decided not to mention the senseless murder of the English language going on here, since that wasn’t important. “I’m actually not here in any official capacity. See how I’m not wearing a uniform?”
He narrowed his gaze and seemed to accept that. “Then what do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy? I got to change the clutch in this stupid thing again, third time in two years. I can’t seem to make my kid understand she needs to take her foot off it sometimes, that she will only burn it up when she rides it constantly.”
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