25. Willa
Chapter 25
Willa
I WAKE UP to birds chirping outside, the morning sun slanting through the gauzy curtains and highlighting Reid’s sleeping form beside me. He’s so beautiful lying there. No worries to crease his brow, nothing to make him scowl thoughtfully as he looks at me or the rest of the world around him. He inhales deeply, and the movement brings my attention to the shiny pink wound on his shoulder.
I know it wasn’t a routine traffic stop. I know he’s hiding something from me. Maybe if he were mine, I’d have more to say about it. But I don’t get all his secrets. There’s always a part of him that stays hidden, something in the background that keeps him from opening up entirely to me.
None of it keeps me from loving him.
I know it’s foolish. I know it’s going to hurt like hell when he leaves, but it’d be even more foolish to let this experience pass me by.
I know I’m sheltered. God knows that it’s been proven time and time again. But I’m okay with that. It’s okay that my first real taste of the world was getting yelled at on a reality cooking show that scarred me so badly I never went back. I’ve forgiven myself for my reaction, but it seems I need to make my parents understand that still.
Reid takes another deep inhale and rolls over, his eyes fluttering open as he smiles at me.
My heart melts. Yeah, I’m positive I’m in love with him. The words bubble up to my throat and nearly pop out of my mouth, but I manage to keep them swallowed.
“Good morning, gorgeous.” His voice is thick with sleep.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“How long have you been awake and staring at me?”
I shrug. “Not long.”
He grins and pulls me to him for a kiss. It’s sweet and gentle, and I sigh happily into it. Reid’s always like this in the mornings: light and unencumbered by whatever dark thoughts consume him throughout the rest of the day. It lasts for all of five minutes, and I cherish every second of it.
His beard rasps across my skin as we kiss, and he hums contentedly. When our make-out session is complete, we haul ourselves out of bed and cook breakfast together. It’s Sunday, and yoga’s in a couple of hours, so we prepare a simple feast of eggs over easy, layered on top of avocado, tomato, and buttery sourdough bread.
After that, we wash up and take quick showers. We’re heading to the car for yoga when Reid’s phone dings. He looks at it, then pales.
“What happened?”
“It’s Jack. He’s in the hospital.”
We head straight there. Reid puts Betty on speaker as he speeds to the hospital.
“He’s been shot at close range. He’s in surgery already.”
Reid curses, flying through an intersection after barely braking. “We’ll be there soon. ”
Grabbing onto the handle above the window, I risk a glance at him. He looks like a ghost, his knuckles bleached white from the grip he has on the steering wheel.
“It’s going to be okay, Reid,” I whisper.
He releases a strangled sound. “You don’t know that.”
Nothing more is said until we get to the hospital, when I tell him to pull into the ER and offer to park the truck.
For once, he takes me up on the offer, throwing the engine into park and sprinting out, the door wide open in his wake.
My heart hurts for him as I send a plea to the universe. Please let Chief be okay.
I park the truck and book it to the ER, where the desk nurse tells me what floor to head up to. By the time I make it there, Reid is already giving Officer Thompson nothing short of an interrogation, judging by the purple tinge to the man’s face.
“Well?” Reid prompts.
Thompson scowls. “I told you, I’m here to get a statement from Chief when he wakes up.”
It’s clear that Reid is as much of a fan of the other cop as the rest of us. He opens his mouth to speak, but seems to think better of it.
“Reid,” I say quietly, hoping to distract him and defuse the situation. “Come sit.”
With a final, scathing look at his fellow officer, Reid joins me in the row of pea-green chairs against the wall. The air is thick with tension as he sits beside me and pulls his phone out, his fingers flying over the keys.
“I need to let my parents know what’s happening,” he mutters. When his phone rings a moment later with ‘Dad’ flashing across the screen, he stands and answers it as he walks away. “Yeah, I haven’t heard anything yet,” he says.
Across the room, Thompson takes a seat.
Two interminable hours later, the doctor emerges from surgery to announce everything went well and that Chief will be okay. Officer Thompson stands, ostensibly ready to head back to get Chief’s statement, when Reid shoots him a look.
“He’s pretty out of it,” the doctor says, casting wary glances at the men. “But one of you can go see him for now.”
Reid doesn’t hesitate. “I’m his nephew.”
It’s another thirty minutes before Reid returns, but when he does, his face is thunderous. I’ve never seen him so angry, and it’s hard not to wilt under his gaze. With a blink, the anger fades as he regards me, and he holds his hand out. When I take it, the grip is soft and reassuring.
“How is he?” I ask, stepping closer.
He shakes his head.
“Do you want to stay?”
With another shake, he leads me out. I follow him to the truck and give him his keys, and we get in. He starts the engine and turns toward the interstate, heading east.
“Where are we going?”
“Is it okay if I say I don’t know?”
I bite my lower lip. “Sure.” Once we’re on the highway, I try again. “Did Chief Mac say what happened?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but closes it, running a hand through his hair and blowing out an agitated breath.
I reach over to touch his arm. “You can talk to me, you know.”
He flinches, and my hand hovers in the air as he shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says, his voice steely. “You can’t help. No one can.”
The change in him isn’t huge, but I’ve learned to read his subtleties: The way he tenses at any hint of sharing what bothers him. The tic of his jaw. The way his grip on the steering wheel bleaches his knuckles. I scoff. “Of course no one can help, Reid—you won’t tell anyone what’s going on. Before now, I probably wouldn’t have said anything. Stayed quiet and let it be. But Chief Mac got shot and you can’t even tell me what happened?”
“Willa— ”
“I’m not finished,” I interrupt him, surprised at myself but embracing it all the same. “You can keep it all bottled up. That’s your right. But I’m tired of your secrets, Reid. I know you have them. Everyone knows you have them. And I guess I thought by now that you’d at least share a little bit with me. Was I wrong?”
He flips the blinker and takes the next exit, one that leads to a beach. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m right. But what are you going to do about it?”
He glances at me, then reaches a hand across the console to cover mine, his palm warm and reassuring. “Give me a chance to explain?”
I hesitate. Be brave. “Will you finally tell me what’s been going on?” I pause. “Including the gunshot wound?”
Pulling into a public lot next to the beach, he turns off the ignition. “Yes. I’ll tell you everything.”
“And you better make it good, Reid MacKinnon. I’m tired of being in the dark.”
His shoulders drop with relief and he shoots me an affectionate glance. “Look at you, standing up for yourself,” he teases, the moment lightening.
I snort softly. “Come on.”
We make our way to the beach, pulling off our shoes and leaving them just off the entrance next to several other pairs. We’ve walked a good half mile before he speaks, the ocean lapping at our feet and keeping us cool in the early September heat. He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I lied to you.”
My heart sinks with his revelation. There’s a difference in suspecting something versus knowing it outright, and it hurts. Still, I stay silent and wait on him to continue.
“I told you I was shot during a routine traffic stop, but that’s not true.” His knuckles graze mine. “I spent the last three years working undercover to infiltrate a drug organization called the Bunnies.”
I gawk at him, puzzled. “The… Bunnies ? You’re kidding, right?”
His face is a mask of grim determination. “No. They sound harmless, but they most definitely aren’t. Not even close. I was doing pretty well, rising through the ranks and gathering evidence as I went. But it all went sideways a couple of months ago. Someone got suspicious. When they called me on it, I had no choice.” He looks out to the water. “I did what I had to do, but it resulted in three people dead. One of whom was the boss’s son.”
I suck air in, trying to wrap my head around the story. It sounds like the plot of a movie. And killing the mob boss’s son? “Oh, no.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Yeah. Oh no. I immediately went underground. Got treated for the gunshot, and my chief told me to lay low. At the same time, Uncle Jack reached out about needing some help in Lucky. It seemed like a win-win. My chief agreed, so after about a month, when we knew the heat had lifted a little, I came here.”
“How did anyone think you working as a small-town cop was a good way to lie low?” I ask, incredulous.
“Such a good question, Willa.” He shakes his head. “And honestly? I don’t know. None of us thought they were operating this far away from Miami.”
Dread snakes across my body. “Are they…here? In Lucky?
“Uncle Jack was shot by the Bunnies,” he says flatly.
My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh my God.”
“It’s so much worse than that.” His voice breaks. “They know where I live. They’ve left two rabbit feet on my fucking doorknob in warning. And when I talked to Jack, he said the man tossed a rabbit’s foot at him before shooting him. If he hadn’t moved the way he did—” He cuts off.
“Hey.” I stop, halting his stride and pulling him to me. The water laps at our feet and I tighten my arms around him. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. We’ll get through it.”
He pulls away and stares at me.
“What?”
“You said we . That we would get through this. ”
I blink, confused. “Well, yeah. Of course. What else would I say?”
He looks at the ocean for a beat, then focuses back on me. “I don’t deserve this.”
“Deserve what? Kindness?” I almost say ‘love,’ but swallow it at the last moment.
“You, Willa,” he murmurs. “I don’t deserve you .”
“Why not? I’m not special.”
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, then cups my face in his hands, his eyes soft and adoring. “Sweetheart, you are absolutely special. You are the best of everything in this world, beautiful and wondrous. But me? I am nothing but trouble for the people I love. Clearly.”
My heart hitches at the word. The word I almost said but kept inside. The word that I’ve not dared to hope would come out of his mouth. The word that I was eventually going to lose him over. And now? What happens? Does he even mean what I think he means? “Reid.” It sounds more like a question than anything.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “I just…said that out loud, didn’t I?”
I almost laugh, still not quite sure what to do here. My heart is galloping. “You did. But, Reid?”
He peeks an eye open and looks down at me, one of his stupid dimples popping as he gives me a bashful look. “Yeah?”
I take a deep breath and exhale. No time like the present to keep taking those steps to be brave, I suppose. “I love you, too.”
A thousand different emotions play over his face, but the one that finally lands is something between relief and disbelief. He picks me up and swirls me around the low tide, and I squeal as he grips me tight.
After he sets me down, he cups my face once more. “Willa Dean Dash, you are everything.” When he kisses me, it’s tender and searching, soft and sweet, and as the surf slowly buries our feet in the sand and water, all I can think is how in love with this man I am.
Underneath it all, though, I’m scared. Scared of this new chapter, but also scared of what he’s told me. All I can do is hold on to the man I love. It’ll all work out.
Somehow.