Chapter 44
RIGGS
I’ve been laying here, ping ponging between staring at the turbulent night sky above me and closing my eyes.
Every time I do, I see her face. The humiliation and shame of what she admitted to me.
The gnawing revelation that while the rest of us were free to run off to either chase our dreams, or run from them, Gemma was left behind to pick up the pieces.
I laid here and called for her for hours.
I shouted myself hoarse, my voice carrying through the house.
I yelled so loud and so long, I was sure someone would call Colt and he’d hurry over here to investigate.
I wanted him to come busting through the front door unannounced because then she’d have no choice but to come downstairs and face me, but it never happened.
The storm worked against me, the steady drum of rain and loud cracks of lightning, creating an impenetrable bubble that held in my crazy and shielded the outside world from my growing temper.
I considered calling out to her that I’d fallen in the bathroom and needed her help.
Even as hurt and humiliated as she is, Gemma would race downstairs to help me.
I’m not ashamed to admit that the only reason I didn’t wasn’t because it would’ve been a sneaky, underhanded thing to do.
I don’t do it because as soon as she saw that I was fine, she’d just run again, even more ashamed than she already is.
I texted her. So many times I start to feel crazy.
Me: please come back downstairs
Me: Gem, please come back
Me: We need to talk
Me: Answer me at least. Let me know you’re okay
Me: Gem, I’m going fucking crazy down here.
Me: Please don’t do this. Don’t ignore me
Every time I hit send, I held my breath while becoming increasingly aware of the irony of the situation and the fact that I’m getting exactly what I deserve.
Finally dozing off around dawn, I’m woken up by something—a pair of somethings—pressing heavily into the sidewall of my bare chest, a moment before they start to move, the weight of them alternating rhythmically against my ribcage.
The sensation is accompanied by the sound of a semi-truck rumbling in the bed next to me.
Cracking an eyelid, I find Gemma’s giant cat hunkered down beside me, topaz yellow eyes half shut and aimed at my face while she kneads me into submission.
“Are you trying to seduce me, Janet?” I rasp out, my throat sore and dry from shouting all night.
Giving me a slow blink, Janet continues her work, purring loudly while she kneads my chest, each pass sinking the tips her claws into my skin.
“Call Gemma down here,” I say quietly. “She’ll listen to you.”
Unmoved by my plea, Janet continues her mission.
“Come on,” I say, reaching over to push her paws off my chest. “Just?—”
Before I try to rope Gemma’s asshole cat into my obvious insanity, the front door opens and closes.
Stopping, mid-knead, Janet raises herself to leap over me, landing on the floor hard enough to shake it.
Turning my head, I’m just in time to watch Janet squeeze herself through a crack in the pocket door Gemma closed last night.
A second later, she makes her announcement.
Colt
Colt
Colt
Even though he’s the last person I want to see right now, I throw the covers back and make hasty work of getting my legs into position before I snap my pants up off the floor and jerk them on.
Standing, I pivot myself into my chair and use my hands to position my bare feet onto the foot rests, rather than waste the time making my legs do it for me.
Spine humming, legs twitching while they try to catch up, I don’t bother with a shirt before I’m unlocking my wheels and rolling myself to the door.
Throwing it open, I charge through it to take a quick look around the room.
No Gem.
She’s still upstairs, hiding.
Fuck.
“Mornin’,” Colt says, eyebrows slightly raised while he studies me over the rim of his coffee mug from his usual position at the kitchen sink, a jam slathered biscuit sitting on a paper towel on the counter next to him. “Rough night?”
Janet, precariously balanced on his shoulders while she tries to pick the lock on her treat cabinet, lets out a plaintive meow in response—you should’ve heard him, screaming like a big, colicky baby all night.
It was awful. Holding his shoulder steady while she works, Colt lets his gaze drift over me and takes a swig from his cup.
There’s fresh coffee. Gemma didn’t have time to prep it last night which means she’s already been downstairs—probably while I was sleeping.
Knowing that she snuck down here while I was sleeping pisses me off even more for some reason.
“Rain kept me up.” I grumble on my way to the coffee pot.
Behind me, Janet lets out another meow, this one sounding a hell of a lot like liar.
“Has Gem been down?” She hasn’t. I know she hasn’t—at least not recently.
“Haven’t seen her.” Colt gives me an evasive head shake while he watches me check my coffee mug for dead mice. “I think she’s still upstairs.”
Something about his tone tells me he knows why.
He didn’t come here for his morning coffee and a check-in with his neighbor.
He came here to take my measure. To decide just how much of a threat I pose to Gemma.
“Colt fucking Montgomery to the rescue,” I mutter bitterly, tossing my empty mug onto the counter without filling it. “Same as always, right?”
He doesn’t answer me. He just stands there, drinking his fucking coffee.
“Just so we’re clear—” I wheel myself around to glare at him, stripping away any pretense of civility. “You don’t know the first goddamned thing about me and you sure as hell don’t know the first goddamned thing about us.”
“I know you made it impossible for her to move on from you by systematically removing anyone that might have had even the slightest chance of making her happy… and then you left her,” he says, using the same calm, rational tone you’d use to explain long division to a third grader.
“I know you broke her heart. I know you broke her—and I know you’re not the only one…
just like I know that you’re the only one who did, that really mattered.
I also know you’re going to do it again. ”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Even as I say it, guilt eats at me because everything he said it the truth.
Hooking his arm around Janet’s considerable frame, Colt lifts her from his shoulder to set her on the floor between us.
She saunters past me, tail swishing against my leg, before she disappears through the dog door, leaving us to kill each other in her mistress’s kitchen.
As soon as she’s gone, Colt sets his cup on the counter next to his breakfast and crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re still active duty,” he says it quietly, accusation in his tone.
I stare at him for a moment, stunned, trying to figure out how he knows about my military status—but then I know. “You ran a background check on me?”
Leaning into the space between us, Colt cuts me a cold, humorless grin.
“The fucking second Reese told me you were coming home.” Leaning back, the grin blinks out.
“Which means I know that technically, you’re still government property and that this is all temporary.
You’re using her. You have no intention of staying here. ”
When he says it, my head snaps back like he punched me in the mouth. “In case you fucking missed it, Sherlock—” Lifting my hands I give them a sarcastic ta da wave around the wheelchair I’m stuck in. “I can’t walk. The Marines have no use for a fucking cripple.”
“Then why haven’t they medically discharged you yet?” he asks in that long division tone of his.
Because when my CO brought them to me, the day before I was transferred here for my surgery, I refused to sign the papers.
Give me six months. Give me time to get right before you decide to cut me loose.
He left it up to me. While I’ll never deploy again, I can apply for a desk position if I want. One that will take me far away from here—and that was all I wanted. All I needed because that’s all the military really was.
A reason to leave.
A way to stay gone.
“Isn’t that abuse of power or some shit?” Instead of answering his question, I ask one of my own.
“I was in law school when Cade was released from prison—second semester of my third year,” he tells me, his tone held even despite the temper I can see, simmering just below the surface.
“Home stretch. Finish line, right there… a few more months, I’d be graduated.
I’d pass the bar and not long after that, I’d be pulling eighty hour weeks in a big Dallas firm, clawing my way to junior partner.
” Glaring at me, arms stacked on his chest, Colt shakes his head.
“My dad called me and told me Cade’s parole was approved.
He was coming home, so I quit. Came home too and ran for sheriff instead.
” Like he thinks I might be incapable of reading between the lines, Colt leans in and spells it out for me.
“I care about this town. I care about the people in it. Same as my father, I will always follow the letter of the law—but that letter stops with the people I consider family and I will abuse every ounce of power my office provides, to keep them safe.”
“I bet the county council would love to hear you say that.” I’m talking out of my ass and we both know it.
I’ve only been back for a few months and I have no intention of staying but it doesn’t matter.
I’d rather burn Barrett to the ground than have a hand in letting it slip further under Clearwater control.
“Oh… I bet they would.” He gives me an agreeable nod.
“I barely won my election—the only reason I did is because it’s the council that votes, not county residents.
I’m sure as it sits right now, the council would love a reason to toss me on my ass.
” Pushing himself away from the counter, Colt uncrosses his arms from his chest. Gaze aimed at the cuffs of his starched uniform shirt, he tugs them into place.
“Gemma’s been through enough,” he says, his tone suddenly flat and dangerous.
“You’ve put her through enough, don’t you think?
” Dropping his arms at his sides, he looks up, giving me that cold, humorless smile again.
“When that bed opens up in Houston, you should probably take it.”
It’s not a suggestion.
It’s not even a warning.
It’s a threat.
I laugh. I can’t help it.
“Not even twenty-four hours ago, that murdering brother of yours was here, saying just about the same fucking thing, only he was telling me I owe it to her to stay,” I tell him, recalling the conversation I had with Cade yesterday.
“That’s because he doesn’t know how much damage you’ve actually done to her,” Colt tells me calmly. “If he did, I’d more than likely be using a backhoe, right about now to dig a hole big enough to bury your Sasquatch lookin’ ass.” He gives me a smirk. “My murdering brother is funny that way.”
“After what he did to Emily Ackerman, I’m surprised he’d even care,” I say, dragging up old ghosts. “You want to talk about fucking someone up—you should probably start with him.”
Colt bobs his head, making a sound of agreement in the back of his throat.
“Cade’s made a lot of mistakes—no one knows that better than me,” he tells me honestly.
“I do what I can to curb his impulsive nature—and what I can’t curb, I bury.
” Turning away from me, he dumps the rest of his coffee into the sink and rinses out his cup.
Setting in the sink, he heads for the door.
“See you around, Wheeler,” he says, right before he disappears.