Lily and I,” she said. “My daughter.” A hot tear stung the corner of one eye. Lily had come too close to being an orphan today. She pushed her focus beyond the passenger window. “And Ducky.”
“Ducky?”
She sighed. “The dog.”
“No Mr. Ellet?” he asked. “Or maybe you have a new last name?”
Tina touched the bare skin where a wedding ring had briefly dared to dream. “We weren’t married long enough for me to get it changed. I hadn’t realized there was a hurry.” She turned her stricken face to his, chin up, jaw tight. “I met him about two years ago, right after I moved back to town. We were married after a few months, and he died four weeks later. I never got to tell him about Lily.” She silently cursed her chattering teeth for betraying her show of strength.
West gave her a long, silent look. “How old is Lily?”
“Four months.” Tina had seen the expression West was giving her before, though never from him. Pity. “It’s fine. We’re okay. He was here and gone like a dream. Sometimes, I think if it wasn’t for Lily, I’d wonder if he was real.” The pain was real. The loss. But it was true: her short time with Thomas had felt more like a movie she’d seen long ago than an adventure she’d truly been part of.
“I’m sorry about your loss. Lily’s, too. Is she home now?”
“No.” She batted stinging eyes. “She’s at Mary’s. That’s the sitter.” Somehow West’s condolences to her daughter meant more to her than anything else he could have said.
“What happened?” West asked. “I’m not trying to pry. I’m just getting caught up. It’s been a long time.”
“I don’t mind.” It was strange being on the other side of a confessional for a change. Her spilling her troubles and someone else nodding patiently as the story unfolded. “Hunting accident.”
“You didn’t know him long before you married.” A hint of agitation edged his voice. “Then he just died?”
“Basically,” she answered. “He went up to the mountains for the weekend and never came home.” He’d asked her to go along on that trip, but she wasn’t feeling well enough to make the hike to the cabin. It wasn’t until after he’d left that a pregnancy test confirmed the reason for her fatigue and nausea. Lily was on her way. Tina had had big plans for springing the news when Thomas returned, but fate had other ones. “Two State Highway Patrol officers came to my door.”
“I’m sorry,” West said again, before she went any further. “I wish you hadn’t had to go through that.”
“Me, too.”
When he glanced her way again there was curiosity on his brow. “How’d you meet him? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “He spoke to me at the garden center a few days after I moved back here. I was buying redbud trees.” A small smile touched her lips. “He helped me plant them in my backyard.”
West grunted. His eyes narrowed, but he kept them focused on the road.
“I asked him once if he knew you,” she said, feeling a little guilty for having asked one man in her life about another.
“And?”
“He laughed. He said he’d never had any reason to run into the sheriff.”
“Lucky guy,” West muttered.
Tina tried not to wonder if there was a dual meaning behind his words.
The pair rode in silence for several long blocks. West turned sharp blue eyes her way from time to time, rubbing the dark shadow of stubble on his cheeks without speaking.
“What?” she asked.
He shot her a small smile. “I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve done so well despite it all. Remember that time you dared me to jump off that old rope into the swimming hole on New Year’s Eve?”
“Like it was yesterday.” She’d goaded West endlessly, daring and challenging him to be reckless, testing his stock. But West wasn’t reckless, not even as a teen. He’d been the first man to show her they didn’t all become monsters when the mood struck. West was as sensible as the day was long and a Garrett through and through. Hell-bent on saving the world. Garretts were soldiers and law enforcement officers. If rumor served, one of West’s brothers was a federal agent and the other was a US marshal.
The cruiser took a slow turn into her neighborhood and stopped at the first crossroads. The rain had stopped, and muted sunlight streamed from behind thick gray clouds. Emerald green lawns stretched before them, lined in newly blooming mums and anchored in elaborate pumpkin arrangements showing off for Halloween. Lily was too small to know, but she was going to be a princess this year. Every year, if Tina had any say in it.
River Park had been an up-and-coming neighborhood when Tina was young. She’d stared through dirty school bus windows for years as classmates poured on and off with clean clothes and new shoes every fall, and she’d dreamed of living there. Now, the homes were older and in her price range as long as she budgeted. Lily would have safe streets to ride her bike on and neighbors who knew her name. Maybe even a few folks who cared where she went and who she was with.
“Here?” West asked at the next intersection.
“Two blocks up, on the left. The white farmhouse.”
West accelerated to the posted speed limit. “I think you should see a doctor before we go to the station.”
“No.” She watched her unsuspecting neighborhood crawl past. Did the neighbors have any idea what had happened today? Was it on the news? Steven was dead. Pointlessly murdered by a coward with a gun. How did a community move on from that?
“I’ll swing by the hospital on our way to the station. Better to be safe.”
“No,” she repeated, a little more forcefully this time. “I wasn’t hurt, just shaken, and every minute counts right now. I want to be helpful.”
West huffed, but didn’t argue.
“Here. This one,” Tina said as her little home came into view, all country with a wraparound porch and a tree in the front. “I won’t be more than five minutes.”
Confusion pinched her brow as Ducky, her golden retriever pup, jogged toward the car, tail flopping.
“You know that guy?” West asked, watching the happy dog outside his window.
“He’s mine,” Tina whispered, “but I left him in his crate when I went to work this morning.” Her heart jammed into her throat, making it impossible to swallow. “Someone let him out.”
* * *
THE CRUISER JERKED to a rocking stop. West was on his feet and striding toward her home a moment later. He notified Dispatch of a possible break-in, then unholstered his sidearm. A break-in and a shooting involving the same woman on the same morning wasn’t a coincidence.
Tina
