“YOU’VE BEEN AWFULLY QUIET this morning.” Ethan reached across the car and gripped Abby’s hand. They were on their way to lunch after the service.

“Just thinking.”

“I saw the headline too.”

She turned to look at him, but he had his eyes on the road.

“What makes you think that’s what’s on my mind?”

He gave a half shrug. “I know you. I think the situation with Governor Rollins still bothers you. It’s unresolved.”

“Of course it still bothers me.” She sighed. No, it wasn’t the main thing right now, but she had no energy to change the subject. Ethan was generally right on about the present, but he never did truly understand her past. They’d more or less grown up together; Abby met him shortly after she’d moved to live with her aunt in Oregon when she was ten. He was in a youth group her aunt oversaw. Ethan never understood what losing her parents at six and spending four years in the custody of social services had done to her. Even years later, after she’d become a cop and he moved to Long Beach to work with a local church and they’d actually kindled a relationship, her past was a door he didn’t want opened. When he’d proposed to her, he’d also asked her to stop looking into her parents’ case. “There are so many unanswered questions. Do you really want a man like Rollins representing the state at a national level?”

Ethan squeezed her hand. “I won’t vote for him. But you know as well as I do that there is no proof connecting him to anything illegal. The only people who’ve claimed to know what happened that day are dead, and what they each had to say could be construed as completely self-serving.”

He turned at the parking lot for River’s End, which was packed. It was a beautiful Sunday, still warm for October. She could see kite surfers soaring in the distance and a line of people waiting to be seated at the restaurant.

For a second she bit her tongue. It was true. Gavin Kent and George Sanders both claimed to know what happened the day her parents were murdered, and after saying so, they both died by their own hands. Self-serving, selfish liars, screamed in Abby’s head and made her want to stomp her feet and chastise Ethan for reminding her. But that would solve nothing, and Ethan was not the enemy. He just didn’t understand her like he thought he did.

“I won’t vote for him either, but that’s not what’s bugging me today. I’m still thinking about Clayton Joiner.” She opened the car door and got out, feeling claustrophobic, closed in. She wrapped her arms around herself as a cool ocean breeze hit. It felt good in spite of the shiver it prompted.

Ethan didn’t say anything after that, and Abby was thankful. She was certain she had to work this out herself.

He held his hand out and she took it. She did love the solid reliability in Ethan right now. No matter what the problems were that had prompted them to postpone the wedding, Abby could never say that Ethan was not there for her when she needed him.

“I wish you would take some more time off,” Ethan said as he settled onto the couch. They’d come back to Abby’s with a DVD to watch —one she picked out, an old movie: The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.

Abby sighed and sat next to him. Bandit joined them a second later, sitting on Abby’s lap. “I’m ready to get back to work. You know I hate hanging around here doing nothing when there are cases on my desk.” She hoped he didn’t hear the indecision in her voice. It’s just butterflies, she thought. I am ready.

“I don’t think anyone would hold it against you if you took a few more days off.” He pressed Play. “I’m set to be in Butte Falls for that church project I told you about. I want to be sure you’re okay before I leave.”

“Ethan, I’ll be fine,” she said more stridently than she meant to. Sitting up, she turned to look at him while the opening credits played on the TV screen. “I’m sorry; that was harsh. I love how you’ve been there for me lately, but I don’t need a keeper. I need to feel useful.”

He smiled, but not before she saw irritation flit across his brow. “I like taking care of you. Sometimes I fear that homicide work will destroy you. I’ve told you that before.” He reached out and put his hand over hers. “Maybe this shooting is highlighting a door marked Exit.”

He moved his hand to her lips, stifling the protest there. “I’ll be leaving in the morning and be out of your hair. All I ask is that after I go, you seriously consider the possibility, okay?”

Abby held his gaze, seeing the warmth and concern there. Before the shooting, what he’d just said would have had her back up and her anger simmering. But right now she was walking a tightrope of emotion about returning to work and she couldn’t spare a thread to lash out at him.

Besides, what if he was right?

She gripped his hand, kissed it, and then said, “Okay, fair enough.” She returned to his side and snuggled close as Eddie’s father filled the screen, and she let herself get lost in a funny, heartwarming window into romance in the 1960s.