Page 13

Twelve

RILEY EASED HER EYES OPEN . Sun streamed through the slit in the curtain. A sliver of the pink-hued mountains, glowing in the sunrise and slated with thick areas of snow, which still fell, peeked through the opening.

She stretched, feeling the warmth of a hand on her arm—a soft, tender touch. She blinked, then her eyes shot wide open as she took in the sight of Greyson lying facedown on the pillow beside her. Shock abating, she studied him. He looked so peaceful. Poor thing must’ve kept watch too long and fallen asleep. Grey was in her bed, and he looked gorgeous—his rugged jawline smattered with more than a five-o’clock shadow, which only added to his handsomeness. She longed to reach out and touch it—curious how it would feel. Coarse? Soft? Her gaze shifted to his arms bent out at his sides and the sinewy muscles of his forearms. She continued up along his upper arms until she reached the edge of his white T-shirt.

She bit her bottom lip. He looked too sweet to wake, but his hand lay on her arm. Could she move without waking him?

He murmured, and she rubbed her arm, then his eyes opened. He looked over, half-asleep, and smiled. Then his eyes widened, and he yanked his hand back. “I’m sorry. I was—”

“You don’t have to apologize. I’m just glad you rested well. We’ve got a busy day ahead.”

He nodded and pulled himself up, resting his back against the headboard. “You take the bathroom first.”

“Will do.” She hopped from the bed and headed for the shower.

The time with Greyson continued to dance through Riley’s mind an hour later as they headed for his Range Rover.

Supporting each other and providing comfort, being married and waking up beside him ... but it was just a pipe dream. Grey didn’t feel that away about her, though she could swear she’d seen passion and longing in his eyes last night. But she was probably just fooling herself. Seeing what she needed rather than what was there.

Her brothers and Andi stood in a row outside by the car, waiting to see them off for the retreat center. They’d done the recon work, so now it was time to head into the field, and the best place to start was the last place Kelly had been seen.

Grey took her bag and placed it in the back of his Rover.

Andi gave her a hug and whispered in her ear, “Have fun.” She was the one person who’d astutely figured out Riley’s feelings for Grey. It was nice having someone else to talk to about it, and she trusted Andi with her secret. She would hold it tight. Just as Riley would hold the key tight.

Deck stepped forward to put his arms around her and pat her back. He smiled. “Can’t say I’m not glad you’re getting away from here for a few days.”

“I know.”

Christian moved in to hug her next. He engulfed her, making her feel the size of Tinker Bell in his big embrace. “I second Deck. Maybe take time to enjoy the spa stuff there while you’re questioning people. But be careful.”

“Yep, though it does sound like Kelly left of her own accord thus far. The question is why,” she said as Christian stepped back to Andi’s side.

“And,” Deck said, slouching his hands in his Wrangler pockets, “most importantly, why she left you that message and key.”

“We should get going,” Grey said, opening the passenger door for her.

He offered his hand, and she took hold as she climbed up and in. One simple touch and she warmed all over again, security and tenderness filling her.

“You guys be safe,” Deck said before Grey could shut her door.

“We will be,” he said.

“Seriously, Ri,” Christian added. “No big risks.”

“Not promising that.”

“Come on, Ri. Please be safe,” Deck said.

She nodded. “I’ll do my best.” That apparently sufficed because her brothers let it drop.

“One more hug,” Andi said, stepping to the car.

Riley leaned out, and Andi wrapped her in a gentle hug. “You’ve got this,” she whispered.

Riley smiled.

Andi straightened and gave her a wink before shutting the door for her.

Greyson climbed into the driver’s seat and clicked on the ignition. “It heats fast.”

“I’m okay.”

“Your hand was shivering.”

Trembling from his touch was more like it, but saying that aloud would be mortifying.

Grey gave her a sideways glance.

“I’m fine,” she said, knowing what was on the tip of his tongue.

He tapped the wheel. “That’s what you always say.”

“Because I am.” Eventually the nightmares would cease. They had to. She couldn’t live the rest of her life exhausted and saturated to the bone with remorse.

“Ri?” he said in that tone that cut right through her defenses.

“I appreciate your concern.”

He shook his head with that sideways smile she loved. “No, you don’t.”

“Okay.” A smile curled on her own lips. “Fair enough. I don’t.” She rifled through her mini-backpack purse for her sunglasses, the sun blinding off the snow.

He glanced over at her while they waited at the one light on Main Street. “Given your nightmares, I worry you’re carrying around false guilt over what happened.”

“False guilt?” She was guilty. She’d had no choice, but she’d ended a man’s life. Even though her head knew it was either her or him, her heart still wrestled with the consequences.

“I understand what you’re going through,” Greyson said as the light turned green and he accelerated.

She shifted. “You do?”

“I went through a time...” He took a sharp inhale, then released it as they drove down the remainder of Main Street and through the heart of town.

The brisk wind and lower-than-normal temperatures kept the streets nearly empty. Odd for their bustling little town. It was like Jeopardy Falls was frozen in time, with icicles hanging from the gutters and awnings of the shops lining the street.

He banked right on Brighton, leaving the town behind. Their adventure had begun. The idea of working with Greyson in the field excited her, but for now she was focused on what he was about to tell her. And despite his long pause, she wasn’t letting him off the hook. “Grey?” she nudged. “You were saying?”

His jaw twitched. “I had a ... difficult situation. It set me back for a long while.” He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white.

“But it eventually went away?” Was that where this story was going?

He glanced over, compassion thick in his stormy gray-green eyes. The color of winter waves. “It eased... some.”

“But didn’t leave?” She frowned. If Greyson, the most logical and rational man she knew, couldn’t fully move past something, how was she—emotionally driven and passionate—supposed to?

“Not fully.”

“That’s not great to hear,” she said with utter honesty.

“True, but there’s a significant difference between our circumstances.”

“Oh?”

He cleared his throat. “I made a mistake,” he exhaled the words. “You didn’t.”

“Wh—” “Brown Eyed Girl” played. Not now. She lifted her cell. “It’s Roni.”

“You’d best pick up.”

She released a stream of air. The man was right, bad as the timing was. “Hey, Roni. What’s going on?”

“You on your way yet? Tate is looking squirrely, as if he could dash any minute.”

“We’re on the way.” She leaned toward Greyson and glanced at the GPS mounted on the dash just to the right of him. “ETA two hours.”

“Okay. Hurry. Oh, and I put your reservation under the names you requested, Noah Hunt and Allie Bennet. You’re all set to check in.”

“Thanks, Roni. We’ll see you soon.”

“Good. I have a bad feeling, and whenever I get vibes like these, I’m almost always right.”

“She sounds like you,” Grey said when Riley hung up the phone.

“True.” She worked by instinct too. So very different from Grey. It’s why they worked well together—at least in the office. Now they’d see how well they worked in the field.

A thought ran through her mind. Had Greyson’s mistake happened before he stopped working in the field? Was it why he stopped working in it? “You were saying...?”

He gave a sad chuckle. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Nope. You know the rules. You started, now you need to finish.” No dropped stories.

“It was before I sold Deck the practice. I was working in the field...” His voice faded off again.

“Gotcha.” She forced herself not to lead with questions. To let him take his time despite the rabid curiosity running through her.

Pain etched on his face.

She bit her bottom lip. What on earth happened?

His shoulders dropped on a sigh. “Therewas a missing woman. Three, actually, before it was over. One of the families hired me when the police ran out of leads. I tracked the perp to the Jicarilla reservation. The tribal police worked the case, but Phillip Longshaw—the lead on the case—kept me on it, which he took flak for, but we worked well together.”

She was afraid to ask based on the deep furrow in his brow, but the words slipped out all the same. “And the women?”

The muscle in his jaw flickered. “We found two bodies shoved into shallow cave dwellings. They’d been raped, and I won’t go into the rest, but his method for killing was beyond cruel.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. That had to be terrible to work.”

“The terrible part,” he said, gripping the wheel, his knuckles white, “is that I could have stopped the third. I could have, should have, saved her life.” He ground his teeth, and Riley winced at the crunching.

“I don’t understand.” She yearned to pull him into her arms, to make the pain so brutally apparent on his face evaporate.

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I made a mistake.”

It took everything in her to remain silent, but she did—giving him time and space.

After a brief pause, he continued, “We had interviewed the guy, and I didn’t think it was him. He didn’t fit the profile. Had a wife and a kid. Was prominent in the community. Very outgoing. I just didn’t see it, and he killed again.”

The agony Grey’s voice held shot through her. “Oh, honey...” The term of affection slipped from her lips unbidden, and she reached for his hand.

He glanced over, pain pooling in his eyes. Without a word, he slipped his hand into hers, intertwining their fingers.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathed, the words whispering past her lips.

He stared straight ahead, his gaze pinned on the road, his jaw stiff. “I’m the sorry one. A woman is dead because of me.”

She caressed his hand with the pad of her thumb. “You didn’t know. And I’m guessing Phillip didn’t know either?”

“No, but I still should have seen it. I mistook his good-guy act for just that. I didn’t see the evil in him.” He shook his head on a deep, guttural sigh. “I don’t understand how I missed it.”

“He must have hidden it well. They often do. Even Satan masquerades as an angel of light.”

“I should have bowed out of the case at that point.” He looked over at her for the briefest of seconds, and she absorbed his pain—the sorrow raw and at the surface. She longed for him to stop the car so she could wrap him in her arms.

“So that’s why you stopped?” He’d ceased doing something he loved—it was so clear seeing him shine working in the field on this investigation.

He hesitated, then released a long exhale. “It’s part of why.”

“Part?”

“That’s a conversation for another day.”

She bit her bottom lip. “Okay, but can I just say I think you’re being far too hard on yourself?”

The muscle in his jaw twitched, his carriage growing taut. “Cassie Williams would be alive today if it weren’t for me.”

She gripped his hand tighter. “Phillip made the same call as you.”

“Yes, but—”

“No but s. You both made the same call. The perp was clearly a master of disguise—the truly evil ones usually are—and in our line of work, we have to make judgment calls all the time.” She’d pulled the trigger. He’d misjudged a man. She looked down, her jaw shifting. “Sometimes we get it wrong.”

He glanced over at her and frowned. “That sounded personal.”

Her muscles tensed and she remained silent. He didn’t need to know how personal, though given how he’d bared his heart, she needed to be open with him. She hesitated, struggling to gather her courage to share the ugly truth.

His gaze held longer on her than it should, given the road ahead. “You didn’t make a mistake,” he said before she’d mustered her courage.

Her head said the same thing, but her heart couldn’t accept that, and she didn’t understand the disconnect.

“Ri?” He jiggled her hand at the silence. “You had no choice.”

She exhaled in a whoosh, the words in her head surging to be released. “Then why does it keep haunting me?” she said, being fully transparent as guilt riddled through her.

“Because it’s never easy to end a life, but sometimes we have no choice. It’s either us or them.”

She furrowed her brow. “That sounded personal.” She used his words back on him rather than shining a mirror on the turbulent feelings eating away at her. “Have you been in that situation?” she asked, longing to know. If he had, then maybe he could help her in her battle between logic and emotion.

“Yes,” his words held an edge, “in the military.” He stared at the road ahead.

She shifted in her seat. “But that’s different. You were in a war.”

“Ending a life”—his free hand tightened on the wheel—“is ending a life.”

They sat in the silence until he broke it several heavy moments later. “He would have killed you.” Raw concern radiated in his flash of a glance before he returned his attention to the road. “You understand that, right?” His hand squeezed tighter. “You would have been killed.” He squeezed tighter still. “We...” he said, voice quavering, “we could have lost you.”

That sounded even more personal.

****

He held way back, letting the tracker do its job. Just the size of a coin and it provided so much information—time and speed in addition to location. He had them, and they didn’t even know it.

He smiled as they fled the little town, curious where they thought it safe to run to. He had followed the MacLeod woman back to her house last night. Zooming in with his binoculars from a thousand meters away, he’d been close enough to see her startled and borderline-frightened expression when she discovered he’d trashed her place. She played it off as mad when her brothers arrived, but he saw through her. He was coming to like her. Watching her had become a pleasure, but he couldn’t get too close. Not after the close call on the road with those idiots swooping in to save her. Now it was down to one, who’d be easy enough to knock off. He needed to get the girl and that blasted key—wherever it led.