Lance took her hand back, holding it firmly between his own palms. “It’s all right if you’re not ready. The man responsible is dead. Cleaning up the loose ends of the investigation can wait.”
“I can try.” She struggled to sit up. “Would you hand me my water?”
“Sure.” Lance raised the head of the bed and lifted the water cup to his mother’s lips. Then he nodded to Morgan, who went out into the hall, returning a minute later with Stella. Brody hung by the doorway, within earshot, but not crowding Lance’s mother.
Morgan introduced her sister.
“Who visited you the day you got sick?” Stella asked.
“Sheriff King came to ask me more questions about Vic’s disappearance,” Jenny said. “He brought pie, but it wasn’t very good. When he went to the bathroom, I scraped most of it into the trash. I didn’t want to insult him, so I left a few bites to finish when he came out.”
The fact that she’d only eaten a few bites had saved her life.
“He used the bathroom twice in thirty minutes. I thought maybe he was having prostate problems. I had no idea . . .” His mother shivered.
He must have gone into the bathroom to steal her medication. Then again to leave the pill vials in the sink and set the stage for her fake suicide attempt.
“None of us did.” Lance still couldn’t wrap his head around the truth.
“Do you have any idea why Sheriff King might have tried to poison you?” Stella asked.
“No.” His mother shook her head. “But I do remember where I’d seen him before. It wasn’t just on TV. Of course, he looked different. He was much younger back then, which is why I didn’t remember him right away when he came into my house the first time. He was on duty the night Vic went missing. I remember driving past a rest stop when I was out looking for Vic. There were two sheriff’s cars in the lot. I stopped to ask them if they’d seen a Buick Century.”
Lance and Morgan shared a glance.
And the very last piece of the puzzle fell into place.
“Mom, did you mention this to Sheriff King when he came alone to question you?” Lance asked.
She nodded. “I did. He said something about it being a small world.”
And he’d tried to kill her before she could give him away.
Stella asked a few more questions, then bowed out. “Is it OK if I contact you again, Mrs. Kruger? You answered our big question, but I’m sure we’ll have details to iron out as we wrap up the investigation.”
His mom nodded. “I supposed that would be all right.”
“Thank you for your help today.” Stella said goodbye and she and Brody left.
His mom released their hands. “You both look terrible. You should go home and get some rest.”
“Would you like to have a video call with Kevin?” Lance asked.
His mother lifted her chin. Her eyes brightened. “I would love that.”
Lance connected her laptop to the hospital’s Wi-Fi network. Morgan rolled the bedside table over to the bed. A few minutes later, Kevin’s face appeared on the screen.
Jenny smiled.
“We’ll leave you two to talk.” Lance kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, Mom.”
“Love you too.” She smiled at Morgan. “Take care of each other.”
“We will.” Lance followed Morgan out of the room.
That’s exactly what they did best.
Lance stood on the sidelines of the ice arena and watched Eric send a hockey puck into the goal. The buzzer rang and the small crowd cheered.
Next to him, Morgan clapped her hands around Sophie, who sat on her mother’s hip. Ava and Mia stood on the bench so they could see over the wall.
“Did we win?” Sophie kicked Morgan’s sides as if she was riding a pony.
“Yes, we won.” Morgan pointed to the score board. “The blinking number four is Lance’s team.”
“Yay!” Sophie squealed.
The team skated by Lance, pulling off their gloves and high-fiving him as they zoomed past. By the time the last member had slapped his hand, Lance was holding his ribs.
“Lance pwomised to take us on the ice after the game.” Sophie squirmed.
“Oh, honey.” Morgan hugged her daughter. “Lance isn’t quite up to that yet.”
“I can manage,” Lance said, looking mildly offended.
Morgan gave him a look. “The doctor said your ribs would take six weeks to heal. It’s been two days. You shouldn’t even be here.”
“I wasn’t missing this game.” Lance had neglected the kids on his hockey team enough.
After finally learning the truth about his dad, Lance was ready to live. Really live.
One selfish man had changed the course of his life. Lance had lost an entire future with his dad. He’d spent twenty-three years mired in the fallout. Two decades of pain, of doubt, of just being happy to get through the day.
But now that it was over, he realized that life was too precious to waste a minute of it. He had a second chance at happiness with Morgan and her girls. He was grabbing it with both hands and holding on. No more being satisfied with the bare minimum life had to offer.
He had a whole future out there, and it was bright and shiny and new.
“I’ll take her.” Eric handed his gloves and helmet over the wall to Lance and held his hands up.
“Pweeeeeese,” Sophie begged.
“All right.” Morgan carried Sophie to the opening that led onto the ice. Ava and Mia hovered close behind her. The rest of the team crowded around the girls. Eric took Sophie’s hands and let her shuffle across the ice in front of him. The only girl on Lance’s team, Jamie, offered Ava and Mia her hands.
“Not too fast,” Morgan called out.
“They’ll be fine.” Lance leaned on the wall next to her. “They’re barely moving.”
“I know.” But she would still worry. “How do you feel?”
“Very happy to be alive.” He kissed her temple. “And very happy to have you.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right by yourself tonight?” she asked. She’d stayed at his house the night before.
“Yes,” he said. “Though I’m tempted to say no, just so you’ll spend the night with me.”
She turned. “The girls would be all right with me staying over to take care of you. They were all worried. You’re lucky Sophie isn’t here playing doctor.”
Lance laughed. Pain encircled his ribs. He put a hand on his side. “Her bedside manner needs work.”
Morgan checked her phone. “We should go soon. The girls will be hungry. Come for dinner?”
“I’d like that.”
“My girls love you.”
“I know.” He turned. “I was worried about that for a while.”
“Worried?”
“A relationship with your kids is a whole different kind of responsibility. I didn’t want to disappoint them if my taking care of my mother got in the way. Your girls deserve better.”
“You would never do that.” Morgan took his face in her hands. She kissed his cheek. “And I would never be with a man who wasn’t good for my girls, but I love that you were worried about them. You are a good man, Lance Kruger. I love you, and my kids love you. I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re stuck with all of us, the whole crazy, chaotic bunch.”
He pulled her mouth to his. “I was an idiot to resist.”
“Resistance is futile,” she said against his mouth.
He kissed her. “In that case, I surrender.”
And he did, heart and soul.
Acknowledgments
As always, credit goes to my agent, Jill Marsal, and to the entire team at Montlake Romance, especially my managing editor, Anh Schluep, my developmental editor, Charlotte Herscher, and author herder/tech goddess Jessica Poore.
Special thanks to writer friends Leanne Sparks, Rayna Vause, Kendra Elliot, Toni Anderson, Selena Laurence, Amy Gamet, and Jill Sanders for much-needed motivation in finishing this boo
k.
About the Author
Photo © 2016 Jared Gruenwald Photography
Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh is a fully recovered banker. A lifelong lover of books, she started writing as a way to preserve her sanity when her youngest child entered first grade. During the next few years, she joined Romance Writers of America, learned a few things about writing a novel, and decided the process was way more fun than analyzing financial statements. Melinda’s debut novel, She Can Run, was nominated for Best First Novel by the International Thriller Writers. She’s also garnered Golden Leaf and Silver Falchion Awards, along with nominations for a RITA and three Daphne du Maurier Awards. Her other novels include She Can Tell, She Can Scream, She Can Hide, She Can Kill, Midnight Exposure, Midnight Sacrifice, Midnight Betrayal, Midnight Obsession, Hour of Need, Minutes to Kill, Seconds to Live, Say You’re Sorry, and Her Last Goodbye. She holds a second-degree black belt in Kenpo karate; teaches women’s self-defense; and lives in a messy house with her husband, two teenagers, a couple of dogs, and two rescue cats.
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