18. Denver
Chapter 18
Denver
W hen we land, a car is waiting to take us to Ranger’s home. I hadn’t considered what would happen to the house I shared with Wyatt. His suitcase is probably still packed and waiting in the bedroom. Will I have to unpack it? Is there a point?
My skin cools when I realize Wyatt’s mom has probably been in our house. She’d have needed a suit for the funeral, so maybe she had the suitcase. Maybe she’d sat on the bed and cried for her son.
We sit in silence in the back of the car, and I lose myself to the sights of home.
Home. God, how am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to pick up my life again? Running had been so easy, an obvious solution in a heart-wrenching situation. But I can’t hide anymore.
We stop, and the back of the car suddenly feels too small, too tight. My hands tremble as I press my fingernails into my thighs, my knuckles whitening. Tears tickle my lower lashes.
“What if I can’t do this?”
From the corner of my eye, I see Ranger look at me. I focus on my fingers. My wedding ring.
“I didn’t do this, Deluxe!”
Ranger’s hands pull me from spiraling into a memory, one cupping the back of my neck, the other resting on my cheek as he makes me face him. I take in a small breath as his dark eyes fix on mine, his cologne a reminder that I’m home, and despite fighting it, at least I’m safe again with him close.
A tear falls free, and Ranger wipes it away. “I’ll fix everything.”
“How?” I whisper, my voice cracking.
“It doesn’t matter how. I promised I’d always protect you, little bird, and I will.”
My lips tremble, and I can’t stop myself from moving closer. Ranger is wild, and dangerous, and hateful, and safe . It’s muscle memory to lean into him, to let him take control and take care of me.
“But I’m so terrible to you,” I say quietly. “Why? Why do you?—”
“Because I love you,” he says, his voice soft, his meaning firm. He presses his forehead to mine, and I want to weep for how it makes me feel. “I’m glad you’re home.”
He releases me and gets out of the car. I press my hand to my chest, my heart thumping, the switch between hating him to needing him so violent that my mind hums.
Be strong, Denver.
I climb out of the car. The large, two-story manor house is just outside the city, and Ranger has lived here since Axel was young. The property is stunning, with a long driveway separated from the street by gates with twenty-four-hour protection. The home is quaint, considering the horrors that happen inside. Dangerous men and women have walked the halls of this building, and blood has been spilled in the name of power. This is where the most powerful man in San Francisco lives—but to me, it was my home for four years before I moved out with Wyatt.
“The police are in the library,” Ranger says suddenly.
My heart falls into my stomach. “What? But?—”
“You’ll be fine.”
I walk with him toward the house, gravel crunching under our feet. Before Ranger opens the door, I reach for him. He looks at the fingers I’ve wrapped around his arm.
“What do I say?” I whisper, my chest tight.
He searches my face. “Not the truth.”
I follow Ranger inside, Wesson close at my feet. The dog happily skids up the stairs. I stand in the round marble foyer, looking up at the double staircases that sweep up either side of the room. They meet in the middle, leading to the upper floor.
“I’ll be in my office,” Ranger says before leaving.
Martha, the housekeeper, stalks into the foyer, mumbling under her breath, and stops when she spots me. The older woman places her hands on her hips, her gray hair pulled back into a bun, her similar colored uniform pristine, as always. She narrows her light blue eyes in challenge.
“Did you get shorter?” I ask, and Martha shouts in German before storming out.
I almost smile until someone says my name.
“Mrs. Ledger.”
I look to my left. Through the large archway, a man stands by the unlit fireplace in the sitting room. He has my wedding photo from the mantle in his hand. It’s only here because we had a photo shoot a month before Wyatt died, and it would have looked strange to have no pictures of us in Ranger’s house.
The man smiles warmly at me. “I’m Detective Holden Hayes.”
He’s supposed to be in the library. Being in the library gives me another few minutes to prepare, but I’ve been ambushed. I imagine that’s probably the point.
Tentatively, I enter the living area. Detective Hayes is definitely not on Ranger’s payroll. When Ranger buys cops, he spends a lot, which means they don’t wear forty-dollar suits like this guy. I admire him for holding out, for not taking bribes that would likely help pay his mortgage. He has morals. It’s a shame that means nothing in this world.
Detective Hayes tucks his hands into his pockets as his gaze drops down my outfit. He’s maybe a little older than me, handsome in an exhausted kind of way. And I instantly know that if he becomes a problem, I can sleep with him.
I hate the thought, I really do. I’m not arrogant, but I know men and how weak they can be when it comes to a pair of boobs attached to a damsel in distress. This guy is a white knight, through and through. I know it just from the way he’s smiling at me.
“How was your vacation?” Hayes asks.
I stand on the threshold of the sitting room. “It was more of an escape.”
He nods as if he understands. As if anyone could understand.
“Well, this won’t take long.” He nods at the couch, but I remain standing because the audacity of telling me to sit in my own house pisses me off.
“Feel free to sit,” I say, unable to keep the sharpness out of my tone.
Should I play the meek, mild, grieving wife? No, he won’t buy that. Men like breaking down a guarded woman to see the softness beneath.
“Have you arrested anyone?” I ask.
He sits. “Not yet.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I wanted to double-check some details with you,” he says.
“And you couldn’t do it over the phone?”
“I wanted to see you face to face. No one has since Wyatt’s death,” he says. “We’ve been trying to talk to you for months, Mrs. Ledger.”
“Luxe.”
“Hm?”
“I’m Ms. Luxe. I never changed my name to Ledger.”
He stares at me. “Of course. Mrs. Luxe.”
I twitch at the probably deliberate misuse of the term missus.
Twisting my wedding ring around my finger, I approach the mantle. The wedding photo is out of place. Everything has a place here, and he’s disturbed it. I push it back to where it should be, my gaze lingering on Wyatt’s smiling face.
He was lying even then.
“Did you ever find his wedding ring?” Hayes asks, and I face him.
“They took it off him, didn’t they?”
He looks up at me. “Who?”
“The carjackers. It was an expensive ring,” I say. “The last I heard, the police assumed it had been stolen with everything else.”
“Nothing has shown up in pawn shops, and no one has called the station and reported it as being found. And no one will keep it. It’s a very unique ring.”
It was unique. It was engraved and custom-made. I hated the thing. It was a disgusting show of wealth that wasn’t even Wyatt’s to display.
Wesson wanders into the room, having probably sniffed out everywhere and deciding this is definitely home. He sits by my feet.
“Nice dog.”
I scratch Wesson’s head for a moment. “So, you don’t think they took it?”
“Hm?”
“The ring. You think something else happened to it?”
Hayes taps his thigh thoughtfully. “Possibly. It seems unusual for it to have not been sold by now. They wouldn’t keep it. It’s too well known. I think that ring has been plastered over every magazine and gossip site in America.”
“Maybe they got rid of it.”
“Maybe,” he muses. “But I have a feeling it’ll show up.”
“Cop intuition?”
“Common sense.”
I huff out a laugh. “If you’re handing some of that out, let me know.”
He smiles and leans back, his elbow resting on the back of the couch, his ankle resting on his opposite knee. He has a nice smile. What a shame it’s attached to a cop.
“You don’t think you have common sense?”
“Well…” I finally take a seat on the couch across from him. “My husband was murdered, and I ran. As common sense goes, it wasn’t my smartest move. I look guilty as hell.”
He tilts his head. “Are you guilty?”
“No,” I say. “But it looks like I am, and sometimes, that’s all that matters.”
“Why did you leave?”
I look at him for a beat, then sweep my hair over one shoulder, and his gaze drops to my neck. It’s a fraction of a second, but now I’m gaining control. Now all I have to do is let him see a crack in my armor and reel him in. It’s almost too easy.
Rescue me, Detective Hayes.
“I don’t know why I left. I reacted poorly, and I wish I’d done things differently. But coming from someone who has lost more people than I should have, I know that grief isn’t fixed. It hits differently every time, and this time… my instinct was to run.” I shrug gently. “I can’t explain it better than anyone else could.”
He watches me, eyes moving across my face, and I glance away, feigning grief. I pull my wedding ring to the tip of my finger, then return it to the knuckle, playing it off as a nervous tick when, really, I want him to see the white mark left behind. I want him to know I’m playing cold, but my ring stayed where it should be.
I loved him, Detective Hayes, despite everything he did.
“Will you be staying here?” he asks.
I nod. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Ranger is the closest thing I have to family. Where else would I go?”
“You don’t have anyone else?” His voice is soft when he asks.
I shake my head and fiddle with my necklace.
Yes, look at my cleavage.
“Ms. Luxe,” he says, sitting forward, locking his eyes to mine. “If you are protecting someone, you can tell me.”
Crocodile tears fill my eyes. “I don’t know anything.”
“I can keep you safe,” he says, his voice low.
Oh, you can?
I stand and go to the window. I wrap my arms around myself and look out, chewing my lip. Detective Hayes approaches me, his eyes soft, concern lining his face. Once he’s close, I look up at him with wide, doe-like eyes.
“Let me help you, Denver,” he says. It’s the first time he’s used my first name, which means he’s in my grasp.
I don’t like doing this to people. I don’t like the manipulation, lies, or stringing along a good man. But I have to survive, and if that means a broken heart or bruised ego, it’s better his than mine.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” I whisper. “I don’t know what happened to Wyatt. All I know is… he’s gone, and people are painting me out to be a murderer, and I’m not ,” I insist. “I know my family and who they were. I know who Ranger is, and I know you think I did this, but I didn’t. I don’t know who did, Holden.”
The moment is tense for him, I can tell. My hair is swept over my shoulder, and with the light shining through the window, I’ll look softer, a damsel, a victim.
Please, save me, my white knight. I didn’t do this.
He rests his palm against my neck, his thumb grazing my jaw. He scans my face, and I part my lips just slightly.
“I…” he says, eyes searching mine. “Please?—”
I move close. “Please?”
My gaze drops to his mouth, and I gently tuck my bottom lip between my teeth.
“Please…” His breathing picks up, and his blue eyes fill with desire, concern, and confusion. “Please tell me that people don’t actually fall for this.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
He keeps his voice low, a smile playing on his lips. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
I scowl and push him away.
“What did you think was going to happen?” he asks, laughing. “Jesus, you really are something. They weren’t kidding.”
“‘They’?” I narrow my eyes, annoyance pushing through me at an alarming speed.
“The guys at the station. You have a reputation for fluttering your eyelashes and getting away with a lot,” he says, leaning his hand against the bookcase behind me. “That’s fine for a speeding ticket, but this is a little more serious, don’t you think?”
I flush, and the sudden change in atmosphere throws me off. Who does this guy think he is?
“I’m not trying to get away with anything,” I say. “Just because your dick twitched doesn’t mean that was my goal. In fact, I’d prefer it if you moved away.”
He holds his hands up and backs away, still smirking. “Fine by me. It was good to finally meet you and see what all the fuss is about. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, watching him head for the door.
He puts his hands in his pockets. “Oh yes. I’ll be keeping a very close eye on you, Mrs. Ledger. Gotta do my research if I plan on locking you away.”
I follow him into the foyer. “For something I didn’t do?”
He turns to me, considering me for a moment, his confidence outstandingly annoying.
“We both know you killed Wyatt and went on vacation while Ranger cleaned up your mess. And I’m a little tired of you Luxes getting a free pass. So, see you soon.” He flashes a grin and leaves.
My heart races with fear and frustration. What an arrogant piece of shit. He has nothing on me. Nothing. He can follow me all he likes. He’ll just be wasting his time.
I turn, and Ranger is standing in the hallway, looking amused.
“Losing your touch?”