CAISEY REACHED THE kitchen and saw Jenna and Nic in passionate lip lock. “Whoa, sorry.”
She pulled up short and Gabe slammed into her back.
“What is it…? Oh.”
She looked back at him. “Guess we know what they’ve been doing.”
Gabe smiled. “Seems like they’ve come to terms with some things.”
Jenna’s face was red. Nic didn’t look sorry at all.
Caisey grinned. “We’ll leave you two to it.”
She strode down the hall and slumped onto Grams’ couch. Gabe sat down beside her, his body angled so he could look at her. She glanced at him. “What?”
“You okay?”
Caisey wanted to roll her eyes. “I am happy for them.” She paused. “What are your plans? Nic and Jenna look like they know what they want. What about you, Gabe?”
She wasn’t sure she even wanted to know. Was she ready to jump into something? It felt natural to be here with him, if she ignored the fact that the walls in here echoed with memories of Grams. Part of her wanted to run outside, just to get away from it. The rest of her wanted to build a life in this room and never leave. Everything was different. How did she go on from here? Back to a job she didn’t particularly enjoy and living in a house that sucked her under every time she walked in the door.
“I should be getting back to Buckshot here pretty soon. I have to open my bookstore or I’ll lose all my business for good. If I haven’t already. I also have a deadline approaching.”
“So you’re going back to your life?” Caisey kept still, not wanting to cry all over him and beg him to stay. Why couldn’t she be one of those women who did that stuff? She might dislike being all weepy and over-emotional, but it had its advantages.
He nodded, studying her. Was he waiting for her to ask where she fit into that? Because that was a good question.
“Case—” he stopped himself and got up. “Never mind. You have your job. And that’s an important thing, being an FBI agent. I should have realized that before. You’re not going to want to leave Denver and I can’t see myself living in the city after years of boondock neighbors who know your name and ask how you are. And wide open vistas.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t ask you to give everything up when you would be completely miserable in my life. Buckshot probably isn’t the kind of place you want to live. And you’ll be leaving Jenna and Jake…no, I can’t ask that of you.”
Caisey squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe she wanted that more than anything. Change. A fresh start in a new place that she might not have liked in the first place, but it could grow on her. She could see how friendly neighbors and great views would be a nice life. She would need a job that wasn’t pointless or totally boring. That was the one condition. What she spent her days doing was important to her. It had to have value, not like penning her memoirs or something lame like that. Introspection wasn’t her thing. She needed to be active.
Like police work.
So long as a town full of people who’d had one sheriff for a decade would swear in the former-FBI agent who was the one who tried to kill their murdering psycho former-sheriff. It made her head spin just thinking about it. But something about it sat right. In her heart. Could she really do it? Quit the FBI and be a small town sheriff.
Days of paperwork interspersed with dishing out speeding tickets and breaking up domestic disturbances. The symptoms were the same, humans being selfish and not caring enough for the people around them. It wasn’t different from Denver, just a fresh start somewhere the darkness wouldn’t cloud in on her. She would still be able to smell the fresh air.
Where she’d come home to Gabe—if he’d have her.
Build a family of her own.
It was a powerful dream. But one that meant leaving behind everything she had here. Could she do that? Would Jenna and Nic and Jake, especially, be okay with her taking off and having her own life? It wasn’t too unexpected. Okay, maybe it was. But she wasn’t too old she couldn’t make a change. Make life what she wanted it to be.
She could have her dream after all.
Caisey opened her eyes stopped short of speaking to an empty room. Gabe was gone.
She shot up and ran for the front door. She flew outside, leaving the door wide. He was on the street, by his car. His eyes were dark, his shoulders slumped. And Caisey knew then that she would use every bit of what she had inside her so that he never looked that way again. Not if she could help it.
“Gabe!”
His head whipped around. “Case—”
She ran, full speed and saw him brace the last second before she slammed into him. He lifted her and then they were kissing. Caisey wrapped her arms around his neck, her feet off the ground as she was held up by his arms around her waist.
Breathing hard, she pulled back an inch. She wanted to be looking into his eyes when she said this. “I’m coming too.”
“What?”
“Not right away. I have stuff to take care of. But I’ll be there.”
“You can’t give up your life.”
Caisey shook her head. “I’m not giving it up, just changing it. Hopefully for the better. I don’t want to lose this, what we have. What we’ve always had.”
“Neither do I, but—”
“No buts. I’m doing this and you can’t stop me.”
Gabe chuckled and set her on her feet. “I believe you. But this can’t be what you want. What about the FBI, Case?”
“What about it? Liam said it. This job isn’t me. I was trying to prove I was better than my dad by taking care of my family. But I’m not the one who holds that job. I don’t have to stress, I can let God take care of them and then I just do my part instead of killing myself trying to fix everything.”
“That’s good, Case. But—”
“Stop saying ‘but’!” She laughed. “Are you trying to talk me out of coming with you?”
“No, but—” She smacked his shoulder and he laughed too. “I need to know this is what you want.”
“Okay, that’s fair.” She sucked in a breath and blew it out, trying to collect her thoughts when it felt like the whole world was rushing through her brain. “I’m doing this for you. For us. Not just because I want a change or because I want to be the Buckshot sheriff so bad. It’s all of it. I get to have that life and I get to have it with you. And that is what I want. All of it. Not some of what I want. I’m being offered everything I ever dreamed. There’s no way I’m walking away from that.”
“Well…okay.”
Caisey laughed. “That’s it?”
“I guess I’ll see you in Buckshot, then. We can make a plan. How do you feel about tearing down the cabin and building a house?”
“I’d be okay with that.” Caisey smiled wide, thinking that might be a lot of fun. “Is this really happening?”
Gabe smiled. “Seems like it. I’m wondering when I’m going to wake up and find out I’m still living in the cabin and I never ran into you, and this whole thing was a dream.”
“I really hope not.”
“So you’re really coming? Giving up your life for Buckshot?”
“No, for you.”
“For real?”
Caisey sucked in a breath. “There’s a lot to sort out here. That might take a while, making sure Jake is steady and Jenna and Nic will be fine. But as soon as I can I’ll be there.” She grinned. “I kind of can’t wait.”
“Me neither.”
Gabe gathered her up in his arms. His lips touched hers and he said, “See you soon.”
The movement of his mouth tickled her lips. Caisey smiled and kissed him.
**
“This is really what you want?”
Caisey stared out the window from inside Burkot’s office, but all she could see was Gabe. He was why she was doing this, and she couldn’t help but smile at the prospect of what that life would hold. Connection. Marriage—if they could work it out. Being the sheriff of a small town. It was a lot of change all at once, but if she didn’t make that move it would be too easy to let what could be slip away.
Now that she’d decided to leave, it was weird being here at the office. Turning in her badge and gun and saying goodbye to everyone. She’d served out her time and now she was ready for a new era. So long as she could smooth the path with her family.
She smiled to the window. “I’m not going to assume you’ll understand, but this job just doesn’t feel like me anymore.”
“Did it ever?”
Caisey turned back, eyes wide.
Burkot gave her a gentle smile. “I won’t say I’m happy about this, or that you shouldn’t just suck it up and carry on. But it’s your choice. I can’t force you to stay just because you’re one of my best people.”
“I am?”
He snorted. “Always fishing for complements. Yes, one of the best, because you have heart, Caisey Lyons. Although it usually takes an act of congress for you to show it.”
Caisey laughed. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Your father was the same way.” Burkot swallowed. “He was a great agent. Decisive, steady…just like you. He buried that heart the way I’ve seen you do, too, and thought he shouldn’t feel anything, or didn’t want to. It’s hard in this business to feel too much. It takes its toll. It gets to you and I saw it get to him, regardless of how he pushed it away. I saw the light go out in him.” He paused. “I’m glad you’re not going to let that happen to you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He smiled. “At this point you can probably call me Richard.”
Caisey smiled, although there was no way on earth she was going to call him by his given name. Talk about super freaky. Burkot was Burkot, and until three seconds ago, she hadn’t even known what his first name was.
Caisey released the clip on her gun holster and laid it on the table. “Why does it feel like I’m not strong enough?”
“Now you want me to talk you into this? You’ve made this decision already. Are you going to change your mind now?”
Caisey frowned. “No. I just don’t want anyone to think I’ve given up.”
“What does it matter what they think?”
“I guess not much.”
“You’ll be sunning yourself in Tahiti and they’ll only be bad-mouthing you because they didn’t have the guts to do it.”
Caisey laughed. “I’m going to Buckshot.”
“Seriously? No one is even going to believe that. I’ll just tell them the Tahiti story.”
Caisey took out her badge, sucked in a breath and laid it on the desk between them. “I want to say thank you for everything you’ve done. You were a great boss. The best.”
Burkot pointed at her. “Don’t get all weepy on me now, woman. You’ll ruin the moment.”
Caisey stopped herself before she rolled her eyes. “I’ll see you around?”
“That won’t do.” Burkot rounded the desk, shaking his head and pulled her in to a bone-crushing hug. He slapped her back. “Take care of yourself, Lyons.”
“You too, sir.”
Caisey walked back to her desk, wincing. Liam smirked, but it fell away quickly. “Everything go okay?”
She stopped before her desk, the last time she would be here. “I guess.” Something flickered at the edge of her vision and she looked up. Liam held up a slice of cake on a paper plate, a single lit candle perched on top. “It’s not my birthday.”
He smiled. “This is ‘goodbye’ cake. So they got the good kind because, just like every other office in corporate America, we celebrate milestones with a sugar rush from mounds of frosting.”
She came around and reached for it. “I could do mounds of frosting.”
An hour later, Liam drove her home.
Caisey turned to him, remembering the last time he dropped her here after she’d been abducted. Liam must have read her face, because he said, “Don’t get all weepy on me now.”
She laughed. “That’s funny. Burkot said something similar.”
“That’s because we are both men. We don’t do tears, unless it’s our wives.”
“You’re not married.”
“That means I don’t have to deal with teary-eyed women at all, until that special day.” He smiled. “You’ll be back for the wedding?”
“Who else is going to make a spectacle of themselves in front of your Ivy-League family?”
He laughed. “Like I said, it’ll be a special day.”
“What are you going to do without me?”
“I know. They’re going to stick me with the next new guy, fresh of the plane from Quantico and he’ll do nothing but complain about how he wanted to be sent to Miami.”
Caisey patted his shoulder with zero sympathy. “You can do it. It’s all about shaping young minds and hearts into sharp agents for the F-Bee-Eye.”
He laughed. “Right.”
Liam walked her to her front door and gave her a hug for the first time since they’d known each other. His frame was bigger than Gabe’s and he smelled like that fancy Ivy- League cologne he wore. He grinned. “Later.”
She leaned back. “Later.”