Chapter 2 #3
Her eyes sharpened. “You don’t get to walk back into my life and start issuing rules.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive and help stop a killer.”
He saw the effect pass over her face, saw the anger lose its easiest target. He would rather she yell, throw every deserved accusation at him until the room was cleared of the old ghosts between them. But Holly had always been more dangerous when quiet.
“I’m not here to take over your life,” he told her. “I’m here because someone has brought this to your door. Let me stand between you and them until we know who they are.”
Her gaze held his for a long moment. “You were always good at deciding what was best and leaving other people to live with it.”
The words cut deep. He took a breath before he started defending himself and made things worse. There would be time to discuss their past later. “You’re right. I’m working on that.”
Her lips parted slightly, as if she’d expected an argument. She closed them without saying a word.
The distant kitchen refrigeration hummed through the wall, and rain tapped the window.
Reid wondered if she could hear his pulse, because he could feel it in his throat.
There was an apology waiting there, years late and still inadequate.
He wanted to tell her he’d regretted leaving before his truck reached the county line.
That the further the Navy took him, the more he understood distance didn’t erase the shape of someone from your life.
It only made the empty place harder to fill.
But Holly was standing in front of him with too much emotion to carry already, and he wouldn’t make his guilt another thing she had to manage.
She drew a breath and let it out. “If I agree to this, you do what I say behind my counter.”
“Absolutely.”
“You don’t touch the espresso machine until I say you’re ready.”
This wasn’t about a machine—it was about control. “Understood.”
“You wash your hands when I tell you. You wipe tables if I tell you. You don’t stand around looking like you’re waiting to cross-examine every person who walks in the door.”
“You’re the boss.”
Holly sighed, her eyes snagging on the photograph over her desk. “Roni isn’t going to believe this.”
“If her safety becomes directly involved, I’ll bring her into the loop. Until then, we have to convince her it’s real.”
Holly didn’t like it, but she nodded. “We have to keep her safe.”
“Agreed. Anything else?”
“Yes.” She looked at him then, and the hurt in her eyes was quieter than anger and far more difficult to withstand. “Don’t make me regret this more than I already do.”
He couldn’t promise that. Not honestly. This case might get worse. The shop might become more deeply tangled in violence before they found the person responsible. Holly might regret his presence a dozen different ways before it was over.
So he gave her the truth he could stand on. “I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then Holly walked toward the office door, her spine straight, her face composed. She had a business to run, secrets to keep, and three names now lodged in her day like broken glass.
Sanctuary Coffee still needed her.
Reid stepped aside to let her pass. As she moved by him, close enough for him to catch the faint scent of coffee, vanilla, and her shampoo, he remembered another doorway.
Another morning. Holly asleep in a tangle of sheets while dawn pressed pale light against the windows, and him standing there with his boots in one hand, telling himself leaving was the only decent thing to do because he couldn’t offer her anything more.
His future was the law, and his grandparents couldn’t afford to send him and Roni to college.
The Navy was his best bet, and the only way he could follow in Lincoln Fleming’s footsteps.
His grandfather had always been his hero. He just hoped he could live up to the judge’s legend.
Holly had been Roni’s best friend. He’d been older, restless, duty-bound, and certain that wanting her was unfair when he had nothing steady to offer.
He was already two years into his pre-law degree and a healthy amount of debt.
He’d convinced himself he was sparing her distance, uncertainty, and the slow ache of waiting for a man who belonged to the military first. Holly had had enough of uncertainty and absence in her life. He’d refused to hand her more.
But that one night—oh, that night. He’d given in to his feelings for her, hating himself for it.
Standing in the office of the sanctuary she’d built without him, Reid finally admitted what he should have understood then. Leaving hadn’t protected Holly from him. It had only hurt her.
Now someone had taken the place she’d built for warmth and used it to choose victims.
Reid couldn’t undo the morning he left or make her trust him because he wanted it now. But as Holly walked back toward the quiet café, every instinct he had—lawyer, investigator, protector, man—settled around one certainty.
He’d left Holly Bristol once.
He wouldn’t leave her again.