After the rock through Lina’s window and Grave’s arrival to take our statements, I’d lain awake staring at the ceiling for an hour, listening to the steady rhythm of Lina’s breath next to me. But instead of the comfort I usually found from her proximity, I was left with a gnawing anxiety.
Someone had threatened her.
If something happened to her… If I couldn’t protect her…
I’d finally managed to drift off only to dream of dark pavement, the menacing crunch, and the echo of gunshots.
When I jolted awake with a racing heartbeat and thundering headache, I’d given up on the idea of chasing more sleep and slipped out of bed.
It was a dreary gray morning with a slow, icy rain that somehow settled into your bones.
I took my first cup of coffee standing in front of the case board in the dining room and pushed aside the anxiety that threatened to choke me.
Either Tate Dilton had decided not to go so quietly or somehow this Duncan Hugo mess had spilled over onto Lina. Either way, I wasn’t going to wait and see what happened next.
I pulled out my phone and opened my messages.
Me: Meet me at the station. ASAP.
Knox: Jesus don’t you ever sleep? Lucian needs at least an hour to put on his fancy ass suit and commandeer a helicopter to get up here.
Lucian: I’m already dressed and I’ve conducted two teleconferences from the back room of Café Rev so far this morning.
Knox: Kiss ass.
Lucian: Sweatpant-wearing whiner.
I beat them both to the station and nodded a curt greeting to the night shift.
I’d left my place without a goodbye just to prove to myself I didn’t need to start my day with her.
My head felt fuzzy and my gut burned from coffee and nerves. Uneasiness crawled through my veins like a thousand spiders.
To distract myself while I waited for Knox and Lucian, I opened the mail sitting on my desk. I didn’t realize until I’d already opened it and unfolded it that one of the envelopes contained a letter from my father.
Just seeing his signature at the bottom ratcheted up my anxiety.
How many times had I wanted something from him, needed something from him? How many times had he let me down because his addiction was greater than his love for me? Duke Morgan needed pills just to get through the day. To survive. To numb himself before the world and its realities could put him in the ground.
Despite the morning chill, I broke out into a light sweat.
Was that what I was doing?
I swiped a hand over my mouth and stared unseeing at my father’s handwriting.
Even after all this time, it was as recognizable to me as my own. We made our e’s with the same slashing angle. We had the same eyes, the same e’s. What else was the same?
My heart pounded louder in my head. But now it wasn’t fear that threatened to choke me. It was anger.
Anger at myself for following in his footsteps.
I knew better. I knew that leaning on a crutch just to get through the day was the beginning of the end.
And wasn’t that exactly what I was doing with Lina? Using her? Turning to her to help push the pain and fear aside? It didn’t have to be drugs or alcohol or whatever else people used to numb the pain of existence. It could be anything, anyone you needed just to survive, to wake up and start the whole horrible cycle all over again.
“Everything all right?” Lucian strolled inside and I stuffed my father’s letter, unread, into the top desk drawer.
“No, it’s not. But I’d rather wait for Knox to get here before I get into it.”
“He’s fuckin’ here,” Knox said on a snarly yawn.
“Someone threw this through Lina’s window last night.” I tossed the bagged rock and note on to my desk.
“Well, fuck,” my brother said.
“Guess those exterior cams are now a priority,” Knox said to Lucian after I finished filling them in.
“I’m assuming Lina should be outfitted with her own tracker,” our friend suggested.
Knox smirked. “She’ll love that.”
“Good. Then you can deliver it to her,” I said.
“Why can’t you fucking do it? You’re the one sleeping with her. Or, according to Way, ‘making heart eyes’ at her.”
“I’m busy today. Just drop one off for her and yell at her until she agrees to carry it,” I said.
Knox’s eyes narrowed. “Somebody pissed in your wheat bran this morning, sunshine?”
“I don’t have time for this. Just get it done.”
Knox thankfully wasn’t as combative early in the morning, so he left my office swearing under his breath.
Lucian, however, remained seated.
“Aren’t you breaking out in hives by now?” I asked him. He wasn’t a fan of cops or police stations and for good reason.
“You’re exceptionally pissy this morning. What’s wrong?”
“Besides a 3:00 a.m. warning rock through the window?”
Lucian sat and stared blandly at me. I decided to wait him out and turned my attention to my emails. Our standoff lasted three and a half messages.
“Do you think we’re all doomed to repeat the sins of our fathers?” I asked finally.
“Yes.”
I blinked. “You don’t wanna think about that for a minute?”
He crossed his arms irritably. “I’ve thought of little else for the past few decades. It’s impossible to outrun your genes. We were made by flawed men. Those flaws don’t just dissolve out of the bloodline.”
Rain pelted the windows, ensuring I couldn’t forget the misery outside.
“Then what the fuck is the point of anything?” I asked.
“How the hell should I know?” He absentmindedly patted the jacket pocket where he stowed his single daily cigarette. “My only hope is if I keep getting out of bed every morning, someday it will all make sense.”
“You know, I was already feeling pretty shitty before you brought your cloud of doom in here,” I told him.
Lucian grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“You don’t have to move your entire life up here for this, you know.” His parents’ house held ghosts for him.
“I’ll stay where I want to stay and work where I want to work.”
“Someone must have been pissing in wheat bran all over town,” I quipped.
It was right about then that my office door flew open.
“Why the hell am I finding you here instead of at your damn door? I swear to God, Morgan. You’re worse to babysit than that little old church lady in Ala-fucking-bama,” a disheveled Nolan announced, storming into the room and kicking my trash can for emphasis. “It’s two steps forward, thirty-seven thousand backward with you, and they don’t pay me enough to put up with this shit.”
“Why don’t you quit then?” I snapped, feeling too sorry for myself to spread it around to anyone else.
“I quit and you end up full of holes. Then I’m supposed to live with the guilt of it? Great fucking plan.”
“I might have a position for you,” Lucian announced. He had that crafty bastard look about him that should make anyone on the receiving end very, very nervous.
“Oh, really?” Nolan said, still pissed off.
“Really.”
“What’s the catch?”
“Catch is such an ugly word. Let’s call it an addendum.”
Nolan didn’t look impressed.
“Stop seeing Sloane and the job is yours.”
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Nolan said.
“Okay, seriously? You hate her guts but you don’t want her dating anyone else? Even you have to realize how unhealthy that is,” I said.
“I never claimed to be healthy,” Lucian said in his scary voice.
“Then why the hell am I taking advice from you?” I demanded.
“How the hell should I know?”
“Bunch of feral assholes,” Nolan muttered, storming out of my office.
Lina: Hey. Everything OK? I woke up and you were gone. Not that you need to clear all your movements with me. Or whatever.
The rain made for slick roads, and slick roads made for accidents. The first call wasn’t bad. A fender bender with an anxious new mom and her infant on the way to the pediatrician.
Bannerjee calmed both mom and baby while the tow truck was called. Meanwhile I dealt with the traffic and cleanup, forcing myself not to think about the woman I’d left warm in my bed.
We hadn’t even dried off from the first call when we got the second.
There’s a mode of operation first responders learn to shift into so the trauma they witness doesn’t haunt them. It works. For the most part.
But given the mood I couldn’t shake, the circumstances, the cruel coincidence… I knew I was already spiraling before things got worse.
It was dark and I was thoroughly frozen by the time I trudged up the stairs to my apartment. My shoulder and head were battling it out for which could ache more.
I just wanted a hot shower so I could stand under the water until my soul thawed. And then I wanted to go to bed and sink into the blackness until I could forget about the pain that I hadn’t been able to save anyone from.
There was a husband and two little boys holding vigil in the ICU waiting room hoping their wife and mom would wake up.
I’d arrived after the fact. Generally how things worked. Something bad happened and then the cops came. I’d helped the fire crew and paramedics pull her from the mangled prison of twisted metal, held a poncho over her motionless body while they belted her onto the gurney, and felt fucking helpless.
I was supposed to save people, but I hadn’t even been able to save myself. It was dumb luck that I was still here. A lucky coincidence that Xandra had been there at the exact right time.
I unlocked my door with frozen fingers, anxious for the dark, the quiet.
Instead, I was met with light and warmth and the smell of something cooking on the stove.
There was music, an upbeat country classic playing loud. Memories of her pulling me or Knox or my dad into a dance in the kitchen assailed me, making my chest ache.
Jayla Morgan was the light and laughter of our little family.
When she didn’t come home that day, part of me died. Part of all of us died. We were never the same.
Piper trotted up to me growling playfully through a stuffed snake.
“Hey!” Lina called cheerily from the kitchen. “Before you panic, I didn’t actually cook. Mrs. Tweedy made a triple batch of chili and I found a box mix for cornbread in your pantry that I managed not to burn. I figured it was the perfect, miserable day for it.”
She was in leggings and a long-sleeve white top that was cropped at the waist and open with crisscrossed straps at the back. Her skin was dewy and her short, dark hair tousled. The earrings I got her dangled from her ears.
In that moment, I knew a longing so intense I felt my knees buckle.
In that moment, I understood my father.
In that moment, I realized I was my father.
“Do you like Piper’s new toy? The mayor dropped it off. Said you’d get the joke,” she continued.
I wanted to take off my shoes, peel the wet clothes from my body, and stand under the showerhead until I felt human again. But I was frozen to the spot. Because I didn’t deserve to feel warm. Not until I’d let her go.
“Nash? Are you okay?” her voice sounded like it was far away. Like it was floating to me over country music and the smell of fresh cornbread.
Something rose up in me. Something dark and determined. I couldn’t do this.
If I stayed, if I kept her, kept leaning on her, I’d be no better than my father.
And if I loved her too much, I would lose her.
“I think you should go.” My voice sounded thin and shaky, like my father’s when he needed a fix.
The ladle fell from her hand and landed on the floor.
“You think I should do what?” she demanded, meeting my icy numbness with her fire.
Was this why we fought? So I could provoke her and steal her heat? Would it all just be finding new ways to use her?
“This isn’t working,” I insisted. “I think you should go.”
Those whiskey-colored eyes scanned me from head to toe as if looking for injury. But she’d never see it. It was too far beneath the surface. The wound that never healed.
She threw the ladle in the sink and crossed her arms. “What’s wrong?” she asked again.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Just… I need you to go.”
“Did you have another panic attack?” She was coming toward me, and I knew if she touched me, it would be game over. I’d cave. I’d burrow into her body and take what I needed from her.
“I didn’t have a fucking panic attack. Okay?” I exploded.
She flinched but kept coming at me. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“I just don’t want you here anymore. I can’t make it any more clear than that. I’m over it. You were right. This was a really fucking stupid idea. We barely know each other.”
She stopped in her tracks and the look in her eyes nearly leveled me. The shock. The hurt. I’d put them there. But it was better this way. Better than dragging her down with me. Better than her leaving me.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she whispered.
Piper whimpered, dropping the stuffed snake at my feet. I kicked it away. “Not now, Pipe,” I said quietly. “You were always going to leave. Might as well be now,” I said.
She lifted her chin and took a shaky inhale. “Okay.”
“Just okay?”
Why couldn’t I leave it alone? I was getting what I wanted. Lina would go. She’d be safe from the things I couldn’t protect her from. And I could go back to whatever the hell I had before her. Yet I was baiting her, trying to make her share in the responsibility for this spectacular flameout.
She didn’t say a word to me, didn’t rise to the bait. She just walked away.
I followed her into the bedroom and watched as she pulled her suitcase out of my closet.
“I’m sorry this is how it worked out. You’re probably relieved.”
Her jaw was tight, making the hollows under her cheekbones even more pronounced. Still she said nothing as she efficiently unzipped the bag and laid it open on the bed.
Piper hopped onto the bench, then onto the mattress, where she sniffed at Lina’s suitcase.
“You should take her too. I can’t deal with her right now,” I said, gesturing at the dog.
Both sets of female eyes hit me and made me feel like King Asshole of the Planet Asshole.
Lina put her hands on her hips. “Okay. You almost had me. I was buying it until that.”
“Until what?”
She pointed at Piper. “You love her, you idiot.”
“I do not.”
Lina opened the nightstand drawer and withdrew a short stack of papers. “You bought her a bench to help her get on the bed. You have a basket full of toys to entertain her. You dress her in sweaters to keep her warm outside. You love her.”
“That’s not love. That’s taking care and I’m tapped out. I don’t have the capacity to take care of anyone or anything else.” Myself included, I added silently.
“Bullshit.”
“Don’t you get it?” My voice snapped like the crack of a whip. “I can’t take care of her. I can’t protect you. Hell, I couldn’t even protect myself.”
She tossed the papers down on the bed and took a challenging step toward me. “For the record, this is you pushing me away and this is me sticking.”
“I don’t want you to stick.” The words burned like acid in my mouth.
“Who didn’t you protect, Nash?” she said quietly.
Piper curled up in a tight ball in the suitcase and wrapped her tail over her nose.
“Are you forgetting the rock someone threw through your window last night?”
“No one got hurt.”
“Can’t say the same for the woman on a fucking ventilator in the ICU. She’s got a husband and two boys wondering what they’re gonna do if she doesn’t wake up.”
Lina took another step forward. She was too close. I had to fist my hands at my sides to keep myself from grabbing her and holding her to me.
“Does that remind you of your mom?” she asked quietly.
“How the fuck could it not? It happened on the same stretch of road less than two hundred yards away.”
“Baby,” she whispered, inching closer like I was some kind of skittish fucking horse.
“Don’t,” I hissed.
“You can’t get there in time to save everyone,” she said.
“I can’t save anyone. I really need you to go, Lina. Please.”
Her eyes looked glassy, and when she nodded, her earrings shimmered, the golden sunbursts catching the light.
“Okay. You’re exhausted. You’ve had a god-awful day. I’m going to give you some space. I’ll stay next door with Nolan tonight. We’ll talk tomorrow after you’ve had some sleep.”
“Fine,” I rasped. I’d promise her anything just to make her leave before I broke down and touched her.
I stayed where I was, rooted to the spot as she packed a few things into her bag and then wheeled it out around me. I heard her go into the kitchen and turn off the burner. And then I listened for the front door to open and close softly.
She was gone.
And I was alone.
But instead of relief, a wave of panic crashed over me, shoving me under, forcing me down deep.
She was gone.
I’d made the woman I needed, the woman I loved, leave.
I left the bedroom, the sight of the bed we’d shared making me sick. I loved her. I’d known it for a while. Maybe since the moment I found her on my stairs. I’d wanted her. Needed her. And now I’d thrown her away.
But it was the right thing, wasn’t it? She deserved more than to be someone’s crutch, someone’s emotional support fuck. She deserved something real and good. And I couldn’t offer that. Not like this.
Piper sat next to the front door and whimpered pathetically.
I put my hands on my head and headed for the bedroom as the band around my chest tightened to the point of pain. I spotted the papers Lina had left and picked them up. They were from the dog rescue. It was an adoption application. The sticky note on top said in Lina’s bold scrawl, “She’s yours. Make it official.”
It felt like a punch to the gut. I dropped the papers and walked back to the living room. The plant in the window drew my attention. Lina’s plant. It had been nothing but a pot of glossy leaves when she’d moved in, but now it was covered with delicate white bell-shaped blooms.
Lily of the valley, I realized.
My mother’s favorite.
“Fuck.”
