Page 135 of The Graveyard Girls (Detective Ellie Reeves #11)

ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR

River’s Edge

Cord watched Ellie go with a sinking heart.

He wanted to trust her. He really did.

But fear kept a stranglehold on him.

Deputy Landrum was waiting on him and drove him home in silence. Cord wondered what the deputy thought but it didn’t really matter.

Ellie was the only one who mattered. And he’d royally messed that up.

“Thanks for the ride,” he said as Landrum dropped him off.

“No problem.”

Cord hunched his shoulders in the wind as he let himself inside his cabin. He walked through the living room in the dark, crossed to the bathroom and showered with only a low light burning. He despised looking at his scars in the mirror.

How could he expect Ellie to not be repulsed?

He scrubbed his body then rinsed and dried off. Regret for all his wrongdoings haunted him. Shame for being a victim. He’d tried so hard to overcome that through his work with SAR.

Ellie was the bright spot in his life. The sunshine that lit up the darkness.

But he’d hurt her.

Stop being a coward, man .

Sucking in a deep breath, he flipped on the light and stared at himself in the mirror, counting the scars and remembering how he’d gotten them.