a volley of questions as soon as the men were back and seated. More than anything Cassie wanted to pay attention, to learn more about Henry, a man at times she’d wondered if he was even real. Yet there was a rising feeling of overwhelming vulnerability in her chest. It tightened her stomach and pulled out some of the fear and anger she’d felt at the diner.
She didn’t know if it was because she was pregnant, because the man she’d spent the last several months hoping would call had showed up, or because she just hadn’t had the time to process everything, but suddenly she couldn’t just sit there anymore.
“If y’all hadn’t have been at my party, this wouldn’t have happened,” she said, cutting Matt off midsentence.
He was quick to shake his head.
“Cassie, you know as well as I do that you and your party had nothing to do with this,” Matt said in defense. “That man was angry, probably out for revenge. Location doesn’t deter someone stuck in the mind-set that they’re going to try to take on the law.”
“But it did give the bastard the opportunity, didn’t it?”
She felt the heat that surged through her words seconds before Matt’s eyes widened a fraction. She’d bet Maggie’s were probably wider, too. It wasn’t every day that Cassie Gates had an outburst. She was the sweet one. The Southern girl who always smiled and was agreeable. The one who stayed optimistic when things went badly.
Her cheeks stung now that she’d broken out of her normal character. It didn’t help that Henry was there, staring at her with those eyes of steel. The same eyes that had traced her lips seconds before he’d kissed her for the first time. The same eyes that had traveled across her bare skin sometime later in the night.
Cool, hard steel she hadn’t seen since.
And she hated that she was thinking about that night right now. After the day they’d been through, it didn’t seem so important.
Yet she could feel the tears of being rejected starting to push themselves forward.
“Cassie...” Maggie began, but her tone was what finally broke the dam that Cassie had put up to keep herself sane after the diner.
The chair scraped against the floor as she pushed herself back and stood. With one hand on her stomach, Cassie met no one’s gaze. “Sorry, I’m just tired and hormonal,” she declared. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I think I’d like to go home now.”
Maggie, bless her, must have caught on that Cassie meant what she said.
“Okay,” she said, a reassuring smile lifting her expression. “That’s fine. Let me at least make you a plate before we go, though, all right? Tired or not, you two still need to eat something.”
There was force behind her words. A mother mothering a soon-to-be mother. Practically the lifeblood of the South. But she was right.
Cassie nodded and collected her plate. “I’ll help.”
Without looking at the men, or the one in particular, Cassie fled to the kitchen, a storm of emotions battling it out in her chest.
* * *
THE WOMEN WERE out and gone before Henry could think of a reason to pull Cassie aside, alone. Not that it would have changed anything. Cassie could have medaled at the Olympic sport of avoidance with how she’d skirted him on the way out.
Instead of asking her the million-dollar question, he’d been left watching through the dining room window as she slid into Maggie’s car.
Not that he blamed her.
He’d just burned any normal bridge they could have had, announcing that he’d never met the woman before in front of her coworkers. Her friends.
Henry resisted the urge to slam his fist down on the tabletop.
Seven months give or take.
That give or take could make the difference.
Had she met someone after him?
Or was he the father?
How had he missed that detail at the diner?
Why had he lied?
And why hadn’t Cassie corrected him?
Too many questions and no one to ask them of. At least, not right now.
“I’m sure Billy already told you, but we’ve been through a lot as a department the last few years,” Matt said, breaking the silence they’d fallen into. He moved his food around on his plate before dropping his fork and taking up his beer. “Stuff that scars. But I guess with your last job you know that better than most of us.”
It wasn’t a question. Few had been aware of the finite details that went along with his last job. The detective hadn’t been one of them, but Henry knew he wasn’t stupid. It was public knowledge that his partner, Calvin Fitzgerald, had died during an undercover operation.
Henry took a long pull from his beer as thoughts about Cassie were momentarily replaced by the one part of his past he’d been forced to leave behind.
“Scars are par for the course in this field,” he said. “Everyone seems to get them, no matter which side they’re on. And even if they aren’t on a side at all. A damn shame, if you ask me.”
Matt picked up his beer and tapped it against Henry’s bottle with a clink. “Amen to that.” He paused, his bottle hanging in midair. “But some of us have literal scars. Ones that came from calls that were way too close. Cassie’s one of them. So I’m sure she’s swimming in a sea of bad memories right now. When the dust settles and when Billy heals up, you’ll see us all in a better light.” Matt smirked. “Until then, try not to take any general grumpiness personal.”
“Deal.”
Henry didn’t have the heart to tell the man that any ill feelings he might get from Cassie were more than deserved.
Instead they finished their dinner just as Maggie returned to help clean up. The way she and the detective moved in tandem without even realizing they were doing it was refreshing to see. The only relationships Henry had been around in the last few years had been dangerous, toxic and unpredictable. Ones that were filled with uncertainty and almost always sank his world into trouble.
Which was why he’d come to Riker County in the first place.
He wasn’t looking for redemption and he sure as hell wasn’t looking for a second chance at his old life. He didn’t want to make things better. That was another bridge that had already burned.
All Henry wanted now was a big heap of nothing.
He wanted a clean slate.
But could he do it? Could he start over? Or had his last job rubbed off on him too much?
Henry sat heavily in the driver’s seat of his car after saying ’bye to the couple. He waved at Matt, who retreated into his house, Maggie at his side.
What about Cassie?
And
