Chapter 10
ten
. . .
LANE
I knew I was, once again, acting like an asshole, being short with her. Logically, I knew she’d be safe with her brother, but it was difficult for me to relinquish control. Especially when I knew she’d be safer with me.
But there was no good reason for her to stay with me, so I had to let it go.
Stepping into my office, I closed the door behind me and dialed my undersheriff.
“Hey, Sheriff,” Johns said when he picked up. “What’s up?”
“Sutton needs to get into her house. Just wondering if that was a possibility.”
“When?”
“This morning? As soon as possible so she gets off my ass about it?” I said with a chuckle.
Johns said, “Sure that’s fine. I’ll meet you over there in about twenty?”
“Great, see you then.”
“When the hell are you coming back to work anyway?” he asked abruptly, stopping me from pressing the red button to end the call.
“I’m not sure,” I said slowly, noncommittally.
I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, least of all mine. The road to recovery hadn’t been easy, and while I thought I was getting stronger every day, that didn’t mean my care team would agree with me.
Aria left for Nashville about a week and a half after I’d been discharged from the hospital.
Since I’d been staying at the ranch, it prevented Mama from being all alone in that big house for the first time probably ever, and it had provided her with someone to fuss over.
I was happy to give her something to focus on, even if it was me.
Cooking, cleaning, making sure my bandages were changed more than I probably would have done myself.
But after only a few weeks, I just needed to be alone. As gently as I could, I told her I was going home, assuring her I would be fine on my own.
I recognized now that it was a lie.
I hadn’t realized how loud the silence of my home was until I had nothing to fill my days with but the relentless raging of my own thoughts.
Over the last two months since getting shot, I’d had far too much time to sit on my ass and think. To confront my demons, to face down my own mortality and come to grips with how close I’d come to dying.
My mind was sound, whole, which made it difficult for me to remember my body was not.
As things stood, I didn’t anticipate going back until after the new year. I wouldn’t let myself anticipate a better outcome.
I’d kill the son of a bitch if he wasn’t already dead.
“Well, hurry up,” Johns said, pulling me from my thoughts. “We need you back.”
“Aww, Johns. You miss me!”
He groaned. “Nah, man, but some of the other guys do.”
“Sure, sure,” I chuckled. “For what it’s worth, I’m working on it, but you know this shit isn’t up to me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he groaned. “Anyway, see you at Sutton’s.”
He disconnected before I could say anything else.
After a brief detour to my room for socks and a hoodie, I headed back out to the kitchen, finding Sutton right where I’d left her.
“We can get in right now,” I told her.
“Thank god,” she muttered, nuzzling her face into Boots’ fur.
I didn’t want to look too closely at the relief in her tone, so I busied myself by scarfing down the rest of my breakfast, adding my dishes to the washer, and turning it on.
“Ready?”
She nodded and trailed after me toward the foyer. I slipped on my jacket and boots, collected my keys off the hook, and led her through the door into the garage.
So lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t notice Sutton making a move until she brushed past me and snatched my keys out of my hand.
“I’m driving,” she said with a grin, sprinting around to the driver’s side.
“Like hell.”
“Lane, you need to be taking it easy. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you wincing when you use your left arm too much.”
I blinked in surprise. How had she clocked me so easily?
“You’re not driving my truck,” I replied.
Normally, I drove my sheriff’s department SUV. My personal vehicle rarely got used, but since I was currently off work, it had seen more daylight the last few months than the rest of the two years I’d owned it combined.
“I know it’s hard for your big, scary, macho ass to admit when you’re in pain, but Lane, it’s obvious.” She gestured to my weak side, in the vague direction of my gunshot wound.
“You’re going to have to drive it home anyway,” she pressed. “Just let me drive us to town. Please.”
I groaned. “Fine.”
Wordlessly, I threw myself into the passenger seat, buckled in, then crossed my arms over my chest and pouted like a child. Sutton got behind the wheel and unceremoniously dumped Boots in my lap. The cat’s wide yellow eyes fixed on mine, and I twisted, dumping him in the back.
Unperturbed, Boots hopped up on the seat, curled into a ball, and instantly fell asleep.
“God, you’re such a drama queen,” Sutton said with an eyeroll while we waited for the garage door behind us to slide open.
“Just fucking drive.”
Sutton chuckled lightly and shook her head, then backed out and took off for town.
On the drive, I marveled at how…easy this all felt. Being near her should have sent me over the edge, and it did in certain ways. But for the most part, her presence was a balm to my frayed soul.
When we’d been together, our relationship had been new.
Fledgling. Before her ordeal, we’d barely gotten our feet wet, only dipped a toe into the waters of the new dynamic we were exploring.
We’d never bothered to tell our families, deciding to keep it between us—and everyone who knew us on campus—until we were sure we could go the distance.
I remembered being so fucking certain if things didn’t work out, we could revert to our close friendship like we’d never crossed the line.
In the end, we hadn’t managed to stay friends, but holding our relationship close to our chests, being fearful it wouldn’t work out, wound up being a good thing.
It saved me the embarrassment of explaining to my family how I, Lane Lawless, had been unable to protect my girl from the evils of this world, and had been unable to hold her together in the aftermath.
I’d loved her back then, sure—a love born on the foundation of a friendship that had slowly morphed into something more.
But it wasn’t the same as it is now. Not after years of repressing it, of watching her from afar with admiration and so much fucking respect for how she picked herself up in the wake of the thing that nearly destroyed her.
The truth was, I’d spent these years feeding into the public opinion of our mutual hatred mostly to protect myself.
Secretly, the hatred I felt most was for myself.
The twenty-year-old version of me who had grown from a scared boy to a man who had seen the darkest parts of humanity hadn’t been able to protect her.
I’d never forgive myself for that, for not fighting for her or finding some way to help her.
I’d wanted to shield her from that, from my own self-loathing. After everything, she deserved that much from me, deserved my distance.
She may have fired the shot that ended us, but I’d certainly been the one to load the fucking gun.
Being near her again, though, being in her proximity like this? It was doing crazy things to my insides, fucking with my head.
Jury was still out on whether or not that was a good or bad thing.
I couldn’t help but be drawn back to my coma dream.
I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Sutton running right to my door when she needed help was the beginning of making that dream a reality.
I couldn’t help but pray to a god I didn’t believe in that it was.
Soon we were pulling up in front of Sutton’s cute little bungalow on the edge of Dusk Valley’s city limits. Johns was already parked out front and exited his vehicle when we did.
Parked behind him was the crime scene van.
Our department was a small outfit, but one of the things I made sure of when I took over all those years ago was to bring a crime scene tech onto my staff.
When there wasn’t anything to investigate, he acted exactly as the rest of my deputies did.
Wallace simply had that extra layer of training that came in handy for situations like this.
“You ready?” Johns asked Sutton.
Her brows raised toward her hairline. “Should I be worried?”
Johns sighed. “It’s…not good.”
“Wonderful,” she said with a grimace, then gestured for him to lead the way. I pulled up the rear behind them.