I sucked in a breath, and the air trembled with the force of me trying to keep my temper in check. I glared at Chris. “What’s going on with you and Wren?”
“None of your damn business.”
My nostrils flared. “She will always be my business. And you know that.”
Chris huffed out a breath, his gaze straying to the lake.
It was Jude who spoke. “We’re friends. That’s it.”
Maybe that was true of Jude, but Chris looked at Wren like a man dying of thirst looked at a glass of water.
“Someone had to step in when you bailed,” Chris muttered. “She needed someone. Her parents were checked out, and she was a wreck. She was dying. Not because of some bullet, but because of you.”
Each word was a carefully placed blow designed to inflict maximum damage.
Jude clamped a hand on Chris’s shoulder. “C’mon, man.”
Chris shrugged him off. “It’s true. We might be able to get over the fact that he bailed on us, but Holt destroyed her, and he shouldn’t get the chance to do it again.”
Chris stormed toward his truck as I stared after him. Wren’s words echoed in my ears. “I don’t give a damn about the five minutes you missed that night. I give a damn about the last ten years you threw away.”
I’d thought I was doing the right thing. But all I’d done was inflict more damage on everyone around me.
“Give him some time,” Jude said. “He’s protective of Wren, but it’s more than that. He was hurt when you left.”
Because leaving before I told a soul was the only way I could’ve done it. “I’m sorry. If I’d been stronger, I would’ve kept in touch. I just knew that if I kept hearing about home, about her, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to stay away. And I thought staying away was the right thing.”
Jude nodded. “I get that. It’s still gonna take some time to mend fences.”
Understatement of the century. But if I didn’t try, I would keep living this half-life that was slowly eating me alive as memories tortured me. I had to make things right and heal what I could—as people would let me.
I met Jude’s gaze. “I’m staying. I don’t know for how long, but at least for the foreseeable future. I want to make things right.” More than that, I wanted to atone.
“Good.” Chris’s truck started, and Jude glanced over his shoulder. “I’d better go before he leaves my ass.”
I nodded, pulling my keys from my pocket and starting for my SUV. “Hey, Jude?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for not decking me when I showed up.”
He barked out a laugh. “Don’t think I didn’t consider it.”
I grinned. “If I offer Chris one free shot, do you think it would help?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
I shook my head as I climbed behind the wheel of my SUV. It would be worth it for a clean slate with the friends I’d had all my life. But they weren’t the only ones I needed a fresh start with.
I stared at the cabin. Leaving felt every kind of wrong, but I worried if I pushed too hard now, I’d lose those glimmers of hope I’d found with Wren last night.
I forced myself to start my SUV and hit Lawson’s contact on my phone as I headed toward my parents’ property. He answered on the third ring. “Everything okay?”
“Do you ever answer the phone any other way?”
Lawson grunted. “When you have two teenage hell-raisers, one accident-prone six-year-old, and you’re the chief of police, people tend to call when there’s a problem. Wren doing okay?”
“Happily kicked my ass to the curb this morning.”
Lawson chuckled. “I think it’s a hell of a lot of progress that you lasted almost twelve hours.”
It didn’t feel like progress; it felt like torture. Two steps forward, one step back. Except each inch I gained was a reminder of everything I’d missed these past years. “Any updates?”
“I submitted the shoe print last night because I knew you’d be hounding me. It came back as a common, unisex work boot. Hard to get an exact size because the prints were smudged.”
“Not exactly narrowing things down.”
The boys’ voices rose in the background, and then the sound of a door closing came across the line. “I can’t do much else unless someone shows up again.”
Just the thought of that had rage pulsing through my veins. “I drew up security plans for Wren’s place.”
“And how did she take that?”
“About as well as you can imagine.”
Lawson chuckled. “Holt, you two have a shot to find your way. But you’ll kill that if you come in after being gone for a decade and start trying to boss her around.”
“That’s pretty much what she said. Just without the you-two-have-a-shot part.”
He coughed, and I knew it was to hide outright laughter. “Listen to the woman.”
“I need to know she’s safe.”
“I get that. I’ll have officers stopping by Wren’s place regularly. But you might try just talking to her. Tell her your concerns and ask if it would be okay if you used your contacts to get her a screaming deal on a security system. But you have to listen to her input on it.”
“Why’d you have to go and be all logical?” I grumbled.
“Big brother’s job.”
“Thanks for sticking with me.”
“Always. We’ve all had our struggles, and none of us is perfect. I sure as hell can’t claim to be. I’m just happy you’re back—for however long you can stay.”
I rolled down my window to punch the code Mom had given me into the intercom. “Means more than I can say. And I’m glad I’m back, too.” Even if it was the hardest thing in the world.
“Stop by the station later. We can do a little sparring if I’m not too slammed.”
“I’d love that.” More than that, I needed it. And Law wouldn’t pull his punches. He craved the brutal outlet the same way I did.
“See you later.”
“Later.”
I hung up, pulling through the gates and heading higher up the mountain. There was no large collection of my siblings’ vehicles this morning. I just had to hope Dad was home.
I pulled to a stop in front of the house and turned off the engine. Sliding out of my SUV, I glanced up at the home I’d grown up in. My gaze caught on a figure in one of the rocking chairs.
With a deep breath, I started up the steps. “Morning, Dad.”
He looked up at me but didn’t say a word. He appeared older in that moment. Not sick or frail but tired. As if life had thrown him one too many curveballs.
He patted the rocker next to him. “Take a seat.”
Now was as good a time as any to start my atonement journey. I lowered myself to the chair, the blades of the rocker thumping against the porch in a rhythmic sound. “Dad—”
“Don’t,” he cut me off.
My rocking stilled.
“I have some things I need to say.”
I braced. If I wanted that atonement, I’d have to take whatever the people in my life dished out. “Okay.”
“I’ve been an ass to you since you got home.”
My brows rose at that. Factually, I didn’t disagree, but it was more complicated than that. “I’d say you were justified.”
Dad grunted, staring off at the horizon. The view was breathtaking and the whole reason he’d bought the property to begin with. It had a vantage point that let you look down on Cedar Ridge—the forests, the town, the lake. It was so quiet up here; it was as if the air itself had gone still.
“I didn’t know how to help you,” he said, still not looking at me. “I knew you were twisted up inside, but I didn’t have the tools to make any of it better. When you left, I thought maybe it was what you needed. A fresh start. A purpose.”
“That’s what I thought, too.” I saw now that I had been looking for a way to prove to myself that I could be trusted. That I could protect those who needed it. Some small part of me hoped that if I could do that, then maybe I could find my way back home.
“Your mom always saw it for what it was.”
I glanced over at him in question.
“Running from the demons tormenting you.”
My grip on the rocker’s arms tightened. I hated that she could see that. Hated the worry it must’ve caused her. “I thought it was the right thing at the time.”
Dad turned to face me, his deep blue eyes so much like mine. “And why’s that?”
My jaw clamped tight, not wanting to let the words free. “I didn’t protect her. She’d been let down so many times, and I promised her I would always be there for her. When she needed me the most, I was nowhere to be found.”
He blew out a long breath. “Holt. That shooting wasn’t on you. Those kids were sick. Twisted. If they wanted to find a way to hurt her, they would’ve succeeded. And I’m damn glad they didn’t have to go through you to do it.”
“Dad—”
He held up a hand. “I hate what Wren went through; it kills me. Neither of you should’ve had to face what you did. But you can’t be with someone twenty-four-seven. It’s impossible. Accidents happen. Horrible tragedies. Evil. That’s life. What matters is sticking with the people you love through it all.”
That fire lit, swirling deep and burning everything in its wake. “And I didn’t.”
My dad looked me straight in the eye. “You didn’t. And you need to face that. It won’t be easy. But you have to find a way to take ownership of your actions while having empathy for the boy who was scared out of his mind.”
“Not sure you can have both of those things.” From a very clinical viewpoint, I saw why I’d made the choices I had. But the self-hatred was such a loud drumbeat in the back of my skull.
“You have to let yourself feel both. Don’t run away from it.” He leaned back in his chair. “I haven’t been great with talking to you kids about that kind of thing. It wasn’t what I was taught growing up. But running from it just ends up hurting us all.”
“Like running from the fact that you were pissed as hell at me.”
The corners of his mouth tipped up. “That might’ve been building for some years.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“No. I needed to let myself feel that anger and then tell you about it. Tell you that I was hurt you didn’t find a way to spend more time with us. With me. Instead, I let it build. When I had my heart attack, it scared the hell out of me. All I could think about was all the wasted time. How I had this grown son that I barely knew.”
Guilt gnawed at my insides. The idea of my father battling this guilt while recovering from two major surgeries had self-hatred flaring to life again. “Dad…”
“There are two people in this relationship. We are both responsible for saying what we want. And what I want is a relationship with my son. A real one. One where we’re honest, even if it hurts.”
“I’d say you’ve been honest lately.”
My dad winced. “Okay, we’re honest but we do it with a little more kindness and grace.”
I took him in, reading nothing but honesty in his face. “I’d like that.”
He clamped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Good. Now, tell me what the hell is going on with some creep loitering around Wren’s house.”
