Everleigh stood up. “Gram, would you mind if I call a cab?” She couldn’t wait for her parents. Couldn’t deal with them at the moment. Their time would come. Because love was love, even when the people holding it failed. Her parents loved her. Fritz hadn’t. He’d loved what she did for him. He’d loved that he could always count on her to be there when he needed her. But he hadn’t loved her.
Maybe no man ever would.
What mattered was that she was going to let her heart soar. That was the only way to reach joy.
Or to find a dream again.
Fritz wasn’t going to win.
Her heart was.
Chapter 21
Clarke Colton was not a crying man. Didn’t happen. Wasn’t going to. But he came closer than he was ever going to permit again as he quit procrastinating and turned down his street an hour after he’d left the prison. He’d taken the long way home. Via a town in the opposite direction and then the backroads. Eagerly taking on unplowed country stretches, sliding on the ice and pulling out of the slide like he’d done in the school parking lot when he’d been sixteen.
The first time, he’d been in his father’s fancy car.
He’d made it home without anyone the wiser. And grinning from ear to ear.
Most of his life had been that way. Taking the road less followed.
Doing what felt right, not what he’d been told was right.
And now, apparently, he had to grow up. Forty years old and he had to do what didn’t feel right, but what he knew was right. He had to go home, get Everleigh’s bag, take it to her place and never see her again.
Or he could propose to her, bring her home, have the best few months of his life until the newness wore off, and real life set in, and he’d make a case a priority, miss her birthday dinner, forget to buy a Christmas gift or take out the trash, and things would slowly erode and she’d end up getting hurt.
They’d split. He’d go off and find some other woman. She’d run into them downtown and he’d have to live the rest of his life with the image of hurt in those honest and expressive hazel eyes.
He pulled into the drive of the condo garage. Pulled out the card he had to use to get through the electronic security. The one he normally carried on his windshield was in the garage with the rest of his vehicle while it was having a bullet hole removed from it.
Card in hand, he pulled up to the eye of the device, the bar rose and his phone rang. It was Melissa, telling him that everyone was getting together at police headquarters and asking him to join them.
There would be pizza.
And no parents.
Pulling into the garage, he squealed his tires on the smooth cement and pulled right back out again. Anything was better than getting Everleigh’s suitcase out of his life forever. Even a Sunday afternoon gathering of his siblings and cousins.
They’d congregated in the largest conference room. A place where DAs and lawyers met. Where the chief of police sometimes had discussions with politicians. Even in their not-so-huge city.
And it wasn’t all of the Coltons in the GGPD. Just the ones involved with the Emerson and Bowe cases. Bryce, the FBI agent; Jillian, a crime-scene investigator; Troy and his sister Desiree, the part-time sketch artist, as well as their half sisters Annalise, a K-9 trainer, and cousin Grace; Melissa, of course; and Travis, their younger brother. As the CEO of a plastics company, Travis had nothing whatsoever to do with the GGPD, but had probably seen all of their cars and stopped in anyway.
Everyone was talking at once, as they did, standing around eating pizza, one or two leaning against the long table. For the first time in a while, the mood was a little less somber. “Granny” had been freed. Hopefully that would quiet some of the town’s complaints against the GGPD—at least for the moment. It wouldn’t last. Clarke knew it and was certain the rest of his family did, too. They had a killer on the loose. And a rogue forensic scientist missing.
But they were Coltons. They hung together. And took the good when it came.
“Hey, everyone,” Travis called out. “I have an announcement to make!” Younger than Clarke by six years, Travis was as tall and muscular as his older brother. The kid was a bit of a maverick, making his own path rather than following their father in his business or the rest of the family into the justice and protection fields. Which made Clarke a bit fonder of him than some of the others.
He loved them all, of course. But hanging with Travis was more fun. “I’m happy to announce that Colton Plastics has hired a new co-CEO...” Travis paused, looking around as though making sure he had everyone’s attention. “Her name is Tatiana Davison and...”
“What?” Melissa stepped forward, pushing past her family to get face-to-face with their little brother.
“What the hell?” Clarke said at the same time, adv
ancing with equal tenacity.
“Are you nuts?” someone called out. Bryce, Clarke thought. He couldn’t be sure. Nor did he pay much attention to the rest of the voices chiming in behind him.