Chapter Six
Audra gathered all the blankets upstairs when she should be downstairs cleaning up. When she should be doing anything but proving a stupid, stupid point.
Still, she was upstairs making up Rosalie’s old room so Copeland could allegedly stay there—she wouldn’t bet on it—because she needed to have a bit of a cry, and she’d be damned if she’d do it in front of Copeland Beckett.
Well, she didn’t like to cry in front of anyone, but there was something about Copeland that made that extra important.
Once the room was made up, and she’d let out a sufficient amount of tears, she moved into the bathroom where she’d holed up in terror at someone shooting up her house.
She didn’t want to think about that. She’d rather focus on anger and pride, and never think about the sounds of gunshots and crashing glass again.
She washed her face with cool water even though the house was already getting cold. She blotted away the water and tried to blot the redness from crying along with it. Once she was satisfied there was no trace of tears on her face, she went back downstairs.
He’d made a dent in the amount of glass that had shattered on the inside. A little prick of guilt settled in her gut. It wasn’t his mess to clean up, and no matter how irritated she was at him, that didn’t mean she should have left him to clean up her mess.
Deep down, she knew there was something a little twisted about considering this her mess, since she didn’t ask anyone to shoot her windows out. But she didn’t have time for deep downs right now.
“If you sweep up the rest of this mess, I can get started on boarding up the windows,” he said to her.
He was telling her what to do as just a matter of course without thinking it through at all. Guilt turned over into frustration. “You don’t know where the boards, hammer, or nails are.”
“Alright, then I guess I’ll keep cleaning and you can go get the stuff.” He said this with an easy shrug, dumping another dustpan full of glass into a new paper bag.
“Thank you for taking charge,” she replied dryly. “How would I know what to do without you?”
He stopped what he was doing, glanced over at her. His expression was one of frustration, and she figured that was fair because it matched her own.
“I never said you had to clean up,” she said, before she could help herself.
“What am I supposed to do? Just stand around in the middle of a bunch of shattered glass not doing anything like a jerk?”
She wanted to say something nasty, like: if the shoe fits. But it wasn’t fair. He wasn’t being a jerk at all. Just…bossy. Which was probably natural for him, considering he was a detective. And he’d been a detective at a much bigger and busier police department before he’d landed in Bent County.
She had to stop snapping at him. It wasn’t like her, and it wasn’t nice. She prided herself on being nice. On being the calm, even-keel that Rosalie wasn’t.
But Rosalie wasn’t here, so maybe she was just off balance. When Rosalie came back…
Well, she’d be building her new life as a wife. So Audra had to start getting used to life without trying to be Rosalie’s balance.
She didn’t care for that thought at all, so she turned her attention back to the mess and what needed to be done. Copeland didn’t know where anything was, but she would need help if they were going to get this done before daylight. And she’d have chores to do once the next day broke.
She really, really hated needing help. Not that she needed it exactly. She could get this all done herself. It’d just leave her behind schedule with her daily chores, and then…when would she make up the difference?
“Leave that for now,” she told him. “I’m going to need your help carrying everything in from the stables.
Especially since my truck is a mess.” She surveyed him and came to a startling realization.
“You’re not wearing a coat.” It was absolutely freezing in here now, and he was just in a sweatshirt and some athletic pants that didn’t look to be thick or warm at all.
He looked down at himself, as if he hadn’t even considered that it was freezing outside. “Guess I didn’t think of it.”
Because he’d rushed over here to help. And as mad as she wanted to be at him, what she’d said when he’d left the other night held true. Even when he was making her angry.
He was a good guy. He’d dropped everything in the middle of the night to come out here, to investigate this case, and now he was helping her when he didn’t expressly have to.
And she was most definitely the one being a jerk.
He shrugged. “No big deal. I’m fine. Where’s the stuff we need? Where the horses are or—”
“Hold on,” she muttered, feeling small and guilty. And dreading what she knew she had to do. “I’ll find you something to put on.”
“I really doubt your wardrobe is going to fit me, Audra.”
“Just wait here.”
She trudged back upstairs, no righteous anger to propel her. She could not begin to express how much she didn’t want to go digging through the tub of her dad’s old clothes, but the man needed a coat.
She’d gotten rid of most of her father’s things. He was dead and he was an asshole. Rosalie had kept some more sentimental items, but she hadn’t cared about the clothes. Audra hadn’t wanted to either, but…
She’d loved Tim Young in spite of it all and hadn’t been able to get rid of a few of his ranch things.
No matter how selfish he’d been, no matter how much of a liar he’d been, he hadn’t always been a terrible father.
He’d taught her how to ranch with a patience and reverence that stuck with her still.
She went into her room, opened the closet, pulled out her little step stool and got on it, so she could reach the back of the top shelf. She pulled down the tub and opened it up. The smells of tobacco and soap and horses hit her like another blow.
For a moment, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed the tears away.
She’d already cried. No time for another one.
She jerked the work coat out of the bin, some gloves, a stocking cap.
She didn’t have anything for Copeland to put on over the pants, not that pants would fit.
Dad had been a lanky beanpole. Copeland was probably just as tall if not taller, but he was sturdy.
So she went to her drawers, and did not let herself think about how sturdy Copeland’s body was.
She’d kept a bunch of Dad’s wool socks to wear herself on winter mornings, even though they were too big.
She pulled out a pair and then headed back downstairs, doing everything she could not to let the old smells transport her back to a time when everything hadn’t fallen on her shoulders.
Except, even then, she’d taken on more than her fair share for a kid. She’d wanted to give Rosalie the image of a perfect family. Find a way to make Rosalie feel loved by their parents, when Audra had never been sure they even knew how to love. Not their kids, and certainly not each other.
Hadn’t stopped Dad from starting a secret second family, of course. She’d tried reaching out to her half siblings when she’d discovered they existed after he died. She’d wondered, did they feel the same? Or…was she just that hard to love?
And with that awful and not at all helpful thought, she arrived back downstairs and shoved the pile of clothes at Copeland. “You’ll still be cold, but this’ll help.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Keep a lot of menswear around?”
She could say yes and leave it at that, but she didn’t want him making any more comments about it. “They were my father’s. He’s dead, so he’s not using them.”
Copeland opened his mouth, but nothing came out. It was a little bit of a win for the day, to make Copeland Beckett speechless even if it was over something she wanted to stop thinking about.
“Put it on, Copeland. We’ve got work to do.”
IT TOOK ALL NIGHT. The sun was creeping up over the horizon by the time the glass was cleaned up, inside and out, and the broken windows boarded up.
Copeland had insisted on cleaning out her truck while she swept the porch. He was just about done, just needed to tape up some plastic over the windows so no precipitation got in before she had a chance to get the windows fixed.
He was tired if he stopped to think about it, and very hungry, but it wasn’t like he’d have gotten any sleep if he’d gone home. Plus, she’d still be working on this.
He’d have thought the porch sweeping could wait, but she was worried about wild animals, of all damn things. Once she’d finished bagging up the glass from the porch, she came over to help him.
But he figured she’d done enough. “Don’t worry about this, I’ll finish. Why don’t you go on up to bed? I’ve got my computer in my car. I’m going to grab it and see if Morris sent me the report. I can work from out here for a bit.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Even though the automatic dismissal grated, he saw it for what it was.
Knee-jerk. Not about him most of the time.
Maybe it was incomprehensible to him that she lived out here all on her own—or with her sister or cousins, though he saw no evidence they were big parts of the ranch life Audra had going on.
But it was her life, and she was simply used to handling things on her own.
“How about this? We make an agreement. You stop telling me I don’t have to do things, and I won’t have to waste my breath telling you not to waste yours. I’m not going anywhere if you’re not. Not until we find the shooter.”
She didn’t say anything for a few humming moments. He knew she waged some kind of war with temper, and he didn’t think temper was a usual part of her life, but what did he know?
Not a damn thing about her, and that was just fine.
You know she can bake bread, hasn’t dated in four years, holds too much on her shoulders, smells like lilacs at the strangest times. Dead dad, annoying sister. Expressive blue eyes a shade you can’t quite match to anything.
“I’ll make some breakfast,” she finally said, saving him from the ridiculous turn of his thoughts.