by Elise Faber
I love you, Miss. I wish I were home instead of here.
“I don’t understand,” I said when I’d gotten to the top of the list. “I didn’t get any of these.”
Rob was scrolling through my phone, reading the texts I’d sent him over the last few weeks. Texts I hadn’t received responses to.
“I didn’t get any of these either,” he said gruffly.
We glanced at each other. What the hell was going on?
Suddenly, he cursed and came around to sit on my side of the bed, snatching the phone from my fingers.
“What—?”
“I just remembered something.” He tapped several times on his phone screen, cursed, then tapped a few more times. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck me. She did it. She did it to me.”
“Who did what?” I asked softly. My heart was starting to pound, hope an unstoppable bubble in my chest. Could it be a misunderstanding? Was it all just technology gone wrong or—
“Celeste fucked with my phone,” Rob growled. “She put you on the blocked caller’s list and then changed your contact information. Look.”
My eyes flicked down, and I frowned at seeing my cell under the blocked numbers list. It was there, sure as my kids never managed to turn off the lights in their bedrooms. Or bathrooms, or pretty much any room in the house.
But who was to say Rob hadn’t put it there?
He sighed at the expression on my face. “I didn’t block you, Miss.”
“Okay.” I nodded even though I didn’t feel one hundred percent confident. He’d been so distant these last few months, and this was almost too easy an explanation.
“Want proof?”
I shrugged.
He tapped at the screen again, pulling up the contacts section and scrolling down. When he stopped at W my heart caught.
Because there were two listings for wife.
One was “Wife.” The other was “wife.”
“Capital Wife” was the blocked listing. Rob flicked backed to the messages screen and sure enough “lowercase wife” was the number he was texting. It should have been my number, but when he clicked on the little circle near the top of the message chain, I saw that it didn’t match my cell phone.
“I know this number,” he said pointing at the screen, “because it’s Celeste’s work cell.”
“And you just know Celeste’s work number?”
Rob raised a brow. “We’ve worked closely together these last few months.”
I snorted. “Yeah. I know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only that it’s obvious to everyone in this town that you’ve mixed duty with a slice of on-the-job-pleasure and that Celeste was your favorite version of it.”
“That’s bullshit.”
I stopped and glared at him. “Oh, so you haven’t kissed her? Had your hands on her and her hands on you? You haven’t touched or fantasized or fucked her?”
“What?” Rob jumped to his feet. “Of course I haven’t.”
“Rob.” I sighed and stared up at him. “Aside from the lipstick on your collar that you came home to me with, you were seen.”
His shoulders hunched up, protective and defensive at once, and that churning disgust made a comeback, twisting my gut, raising my blood pressure.
“I haven’t slept with her,” he muttered. “And any touching or kissing was strictly for the case.”
“That according to you? How does she feel about it?” He froze and so did my heart. “Yeah,” I murmured. “That’s what I thought.”
“Celeste can be a little persistent, but she knew I was married. That everything had to be on the level. We only pretended to be a couple when it was necessary to further the case.”
The case. The God damned case.
My fingers clenched on the comforter. “Was the case so important that it was worth ruining us?”
Rob sank onto the bed next to me and took my hand. “It didn’t ruin us. We’re in a rough patch is all.”
“My husband has been accusing me of cheating on him with our vet, when he’s been pretending to sleep around with his beautiful coworker. Further, he—you—” I glared fiercely at him. “You deprioritized me and our kids until we had to either stop missing you or learn to live without you. And none of that goes into the lack of clarity you have about what the kids and I have been going through or addresses the jealousy or justifies the fact that you tried to stifle my dream.” I flopped back and stared up at the ceiling. “What am I supposed to say, Rob? Oh, there was a cell phone snafu, everything’s fine now?”
“I—”
“Because none of it is fine.” I plunked my hands over my face. “It all sucks. I’m lonely and hurt and disgusted that I still want you. The kids miss you. They miss their dad who used to come to sporting events and school plays. I miss the man who didn’t freeze me out and shut me down at every turn.”
“I had to,” Rob said. “I couldn’t risk bringing our family into the case.”
I propped my elbows beneath me. “Why not?”
His face closed down, and I knew that I would never get the answer that I might hope for, never get the explanation or understand if it was all truly worth it.
“Never mind,” I said. “I get it. I’ll never be worthy enough to confide in. I understand that I’m not part of”—I made air quotes—“the sheriff club and couldn’t possibly understand all the idiosyncrasies of police work, but I was here, waiting and willing to be by your side.” My voice broke. “If only you hadn’t thrown me away.”
“I didn’t—”
“I don’t understand why you’re still here.” I spread my legs and pointed between them. “Are you that desperate for another lay? Have another itch for me to scratch since Celeste isn’t here?”
“Miss. I haven’t—”
“Fuck off, Rob. Just fuck the hell off.”
I interrupted him because it was easier to do that than allow his slick, charm-filled lies to fill my heart. It was easier to pull back and have distance rather than face the truth.
My family was imploding.
31
He needed to come clean.
About everything.
If Rob wanted to keep his wife, he needed to tell her everything.
The investigation, the drugs, the kisses, and touches. He had to lay it all on the table and not leave out a single detail.
Because if she found out later that he’d glossed something over, any trust he’d earned back would be gone.
“Miss,” he said, talking louder and faster when she would have probably interrupted to tell him to fuck off again—and rightly so, he had to admit. “Three months ago there were a series of robberies in Darlington, do you remember?”
She paused and he held his breath.
“Yes,” she replied after a long moment.
“They were connected to a crime ring that was interwoven throughout the entire Tri-Hills area.” Her brows pulled down and he added, “Darlington is still relatively safe. The burglaries were on the outskirts of town, if you recall?” She nodded. “But things are getting bad in Campbell and Douglasville and that’s spilling over here at home.”
“Has anyone been hurt?”
His heart squeezed. God he loved his wife. “Yes. A nineteen-year-old girl was murdered. She was blond with light brown eyes and a sweet face.”
Her exhale was shaky, and he took a chance.
Careful to keep the blanket wrapped around her, he slid over and pressed his shoulder against hers. “Yes, she reminded me of you. Before Max and Allie. Before this house. A blameless girl who’d been hurt, and I vowed that no more innocents would be caught in the crossfire. But that’s not everything, because she also reminded me of Allie and Callie and loads of others. I just couldn’t get that girl out of my head.” He placed his hand over Melissa’s. “So when Celeste came to me with a plan that bordered on risky, I took it to the chief.”
“Why was it risky?”
“No badge, no weapon, no bac
kup. Chief was convinced that someone on the inside was easing the dealer’s way. So it was just Celeste and me to watch each other’s backs as we tried to infiltrate the gang. Problem was what we initially thought was just a couple of backwoods meth labs turned out to be a huge ring of cocaine dealers.” Her hand twitched. “Yes,” he said softly. “Big money, big crime, and big time over our heads. Which is why I was coming in tonight to tell the chief that we needed to pull out and involve the FBI. But—”
“Celeste wasn’t happy.”
Rob risked linking his fingers with hers. Melissa didn’t pull away. “No, she wasn’t. But the break-in here couldn’t have been a coincidence.” He swallowed hard, his voice gruff. “Now I’m worried I might have brought something huge down onto our heads.”
“The kids—”
“They’re safe at the ranch,” he assured her. “I spoke to Justin before Celeste, and he’s aware of what’s happening. Between the extra patrols from the department and the private security he called in, that place is locked down tighter than Fort Knox.”
“But—”
“They’re fine, and you will be too once I get you there.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything for a long time. And when she did eventually speak it wasn’t what he expected.
“Can you grab me some clothes?”
“I—”
Pale brown eyes flashed up to his, slender fingers scrunched the floral pattern on their bedspread. “I’m aware there is more we need to talk about,” she said, her tone bordering on ice. “But this isn’t exactly a conversation I want to have while I’m naked.”
“I like you naked,” he said.
Her eyes warmed for a second before her face closed down. “Yeah.”
Rob bent to catch her gaze with his own. “Miss?”
She shook her head. “Now isn’t the time for that conversation. There are more important things we need to talk about.”
“Maybe.” He caught her chin when she tried to look away. “But why did that hurt you?”
Tears made her eyes glassy. “It doesn’t matter.” A shrug. “It’s an old hurt anyway.”
“This conversation is going to take all night if I keep having to tear the information out of you.”
That startled her into a laugh. “I guess so, huh?” She sighed. “It’s just that I don’t think you’ve said that you liked my body the way it is in a long, long time. I’m always too thin or I need to eat more, or you won’t let me forget the one time I let anxiety get the best of me, and I stopped eating.”
“What?” He sat back on the bed, genuinely surprised. “I love your body. I say you’re beautiful all the time.”
Melissa bit her lip. “I don’t want to be a jerk here, but think for a second and tell me honestly if you can remember a time when either of us talked about anything other than the kids or their school or getting them to some extracurricular activity.” She gripped the blanket tighter, and Rob got up to grab her a tank top and a pair of pajama pants. He’d been hurting his wife for a very long while. The least he could do was get her some clothes.
“And I’m not innocent either,” she said, her words coming fast as he walked back to the bed, clothes in hand. She always did that when she struck a blow in an argument. Tried to make everything else a little softer, tried to shoulder extra blame so that he would somehow feel less culpable.
But her words were the truth.
When was the last time he’d looked at Melissa as his wife first and not the mother of his kids?
Those two facts were inexorably tied together, and so that made them impossible to separate. Except . . . when was the last time that he’d just thought of her as the woman he loved?
Years.
“We’ve been drifting apart, and I haven’t been good at bringing us together,” she said. “I let the blog and TV show come between us.”
He helped Melissa slip the tank top over her head then carefully guided her pajamas up and over her feet.
“I’m not jealous of the blog.” He guided the pants past her hips. “And I meant it when I said that I want you to do the show. I do. I was worried about the exposure, that someone might connect something, and it would put you and the kids at risk.” He laughed bitterly. “Turned out that I was able to do that all on my own, no media presence necessary.”
He tucked the comforter around her, the weight of all the ways he’d hurt her bearing down on him.
Damn, he’d really fucked this whole thing up.
“Miss?”
She cocked her head to the side, probably because the nickname was so rasped out that it was barely recognizable.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe you should divorce me.”
Good God, he couldn’t even get that out correctly. Couldn’t even man up and say what he was thinking. She should dump his ass and move on with her life, find someone to take care of her—almost any jackass would do a better job of it. Melissa needed to find someone to appreciate the gorgeous, loving, selfless, amazing woman she was.
That someone hadn’t been him, and yet he hoped, hoped that she might forgive him.
So her next words gutted him.
“I probably should.”
32
My feet ached, my stitches burned, and my heart felt as though it had been shattered then pieced agonizingly back together.
Bruised. Tender. And somehow whole again.
“Rob,” I said when he nodded and stood, obviously not understanding my previous words, not hearing the “should” as I had.
I should, but I couldn’t. Not when the whole situation was twisted but unintended, agony without malice.
He froze at the sound of his name on my lips, looking back at me with dark eyes devoid of hope.
And that hurt perhaps more than anything else.
Rob was my husband, but he was also a man who couldn’t abide failure—his, not others.
Other people’s failures he understood.
His? Those were unforgivable.
I knew he’d be much, much slower to forgive himself than I would.
Maybe it was my childhood. Maybe it was the fact that I’d been hurt over and over and over again by my mother. Maybe I was just beyond screwed up and incurably distant.
But . . . I could compartmentalize the hurt away. Tuck it deep down until it wasn’t festering and instead was only a throb and then a pulse. Shove it away until it was nothing and then continue on living my life.
God, I was so screwed up.
“No, you’re not,” Rob said, and I blinked, realizing that I’d spoken aloud.
“Yes, I am.” I put my hands on the bed, ready to push up to standing only to remember . . . my feet. Argh.
“This is so annoying!” I smacked my palms against the mattress, the sharp noise extremely satisfying when nothing else in my life seemed to be. Okay, well not nothing else. Fifteen minutes ago had been pretty freaking satisfying. It’s just that I wanted to stand up. I wanted to move.
Toward Rob.
But I didn’t know exactly how to do that. Could we really put the last couple of months behind us?
Logically, I understood.
Internally, my heart still throbbed.
I couldn’t quite justify or comprehend how exactly we’d allowed ourselves to be pushed apart. What if the whole sick pattern repeated itself during his next case?
“What’s annoying, baby?” he asked.
“I want—”
“Shh.” His hand came up, covering my mouth. Which was pretty damn rude, thank you very much. I started to pull it off when I noticed his body. His jaw was clenched, his shoulders up and taut, and every muscle from his brows down to his toes was locked and loaded, ready to spring.
“Fuck,” he hissed, eyes on the door, on me, on the bedroom. “I’m going to take my hand off, quiet okay?”
I nodded.
The hand was gone in an instant, and he was at the door in the next, closing it, engaging the lock with a click, and flicking off t
he light.
I wanted to ask what the hell was happening, but Rob was in cop mode and I’d promised him quiet.
And I’d never seen him like this, aggressive, catlike, silent but carefully coiled and ready to strike.
“Closet,” he mouthed, scooping me up around the waist and carrying me through the bathroom.
I cursed my feet again even as I felt one hundred percent secure in his arms.
It’s just that I wanted to be helpful. I didn’t want to be one of those idiot fictional women who turned to the male lead and said, “What do we do now?”
Even though I was barely stifling the urge to do so.
At least until I heard the noises. Glass breaking. Footsteps pounding.
“Text dispatch,” Rob said, setting me down in the closet and closing that door. Which didn’t have a lock.
He slid our dresser in front of it, pressed four quick buttons on the safe on the wall—the one that held his service weapon, which I’d insisted on because of the kids—and pulled out his gun.
The click of the safety being removed sent a shiver down my spine.
“Miss.”
I looked up into black eyes. The closet was dark, his face barely visible, but I could picture his eyes in my brain. They’d be kind but intense. Telling me to move my ass . . . but in a nice way, if that was even possible.
“Text them. Now.” He listed a series of numbers and our address, which I dutifully typed into the phone and hit send. “Good,” he said, and hunkered down in front of me, carefully sliding us into the deepest corner of the closet. Back behind our winter parkas and ski pants, behind our summer clothes—many months from rotation again—back until my spine hit the wall.
The smell was slightly musty, and as patently ridiculous as it was, I actually made a mental note to pick up an air freshener for the space.
Bad guys were invading our house, and I was making a shopping list.
That was some kind of screwed up.
But before my mental list got longer, I heard it.
Or rather them. On the stairs.
Rob seemed to get impossibly tenser, his body shielding mine as we heard the footsteps pound closer. They weren’t bothering to be quiet. Instead they clumped through the hall, slamming doors, breaking things.
