Joel
I was ready to burst the door my dad had disappeared through.
I’d only seen him for a minute, after renting a car and then driving like hell to get back here.
I loved my job, loved playing hockey, but getting that call from Bailey, hearing what had happened and not being here, not being close, not being in a position to get to Rosie quickly had made me hate it with a fucking passion.
Her life was imploding and I was twiddling my thumbs, navigating roads and traffic because it was faster to drive straight home than to an airport and rent a car and then drive another hour to River’s Bend.
But those five hours had killed.
Even knowing my dad had dropped everything to get there first—though not by much, since he’d had to do the fly, drive an hour option.
Bailey, my woman’s niece, wasn’t in town.
She was traveling with her NHLer of a husband, who were in their own playoff matchup.
And Dessie, their other best friend, was on her first vacation in years, having only heard about the arrest through the gossip that flew through the small town of River’s Bend swifter than the snowmelt rushing in early April.
My Rosie.
Alone.
Fucking again.
It made me want to put a fist through the wall.
Especially considering the assholes with their cameras outside were just dying to get a fucking shot of her.
“Joel.”
I glanced away from the wide plate glass windows of the police station, dragging my gaze through the no longer pristine lobby, the space almost entirely brand-new after the huge fire had destroyed the town almost two years before. My Rosie had fought to get this space built, get the community put back together, to make sure River’s Bend was as close as possible to what it had been before.
And she’d made it better.
Until someone had begun to systematically dismantle that.
I had my suspicions who.
I just…didn’t know if those suspicions would help.
My dad waved me over and I followed him through that door and into the back, through the sea of desks, beyond these people that my woman who had fought so hard for and who had turned on her so fucking easily.
“Brace yourself, son,” my dad muttered.
My fury went icy cold, dread joining the party. “For what?” I rasped.
“Just brace, stay calm, and we’ll deal with it all when we’ve gotten her out of here and someplace safe.”
Fury faded. Dread grew, morphed into something akin to panic that clawed at the back of my throat, but I battled it down, nodded firmly. “I’m fine.”
My dad paused, studied me, then squeezed my shoulder. “Good.”
We turned the corner and I saw my woman’s curly blonde hair. It was a mess in a way that I knew she’d never normally allow outside of the bedroom, outside of the soft slice of vulnerable she only gave me. To the outside world she was self-assured, confident, calm, and completely capable in a crisis.
The perfect mayor.
Who’d been arrested.
Her clothes—typical slacks and a button-down—were wrinkled and dirty, and she was wearing a pair of black flat leather shoes I knew she hated, but that she wore anyway because they were professional-looking and comfortable. Her head was down, curls bouncing slightly as she signed a paper an officer was pointing at, nodding in response before passing the pen back, gathering the papers, and looking up—
Rage shot through me, head to toes to fingertips. Red hazed into my vision.
“What the fuck?” I hissed.
“Later, son,” my dad ordered softly, gripping my shoulder tightly enough that a bolt of pain shot through me.
Not trying to hurt me.
But…it banked my anger, that jab of hurt, helped me reign myself back in.
I glanced at my dad who nodded, murmured, “Later.”
A breath, throwing the lock on my emotions, on the absolute rage that was roiling beneath the surface, and moved to my woman.
Who had a fucking black eye and scrape down one cheek.
That lock threatened to give way when I got closer and she turned to face me, when I could see the bleakness in her pretty blue eyes, when I got a better glimpse of that bruise and the cut on her cheek.
I was going to murder someone.
Give these fucking cops a real reason to lock one of us up.
But I was going to do it after I made sure she was safe and secure and—
Tears welled up in her eyes and I realized I’d paused a few feet away from her, probably giving her some sort of terrible silent message.
Quickly, I closed the distance between us, drew her into my arms. “You’re okay, Rosie baby,” I murmured into her ear when she came stiffly. “We’re okay,” I added when she didn’t relax. “It’s all going to be okay, I promise.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispered back.
I didn’t know that.
I just had to trust that it was the truth because she needed to hear it and I needed to say it.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said again, this time more firmly.
“Right,” she replied softly, and I knew she didn’t really believe it, because she didn’t relax against me, she didn’t settle into my embrace like she normally did. She just stood there for a moment, my arms around her, before she stepped back and asked quietly, “Can we go home?”
“Yeah, Rosie baby.” I glanced toward my dad, who nodded. “I’ll move my car around. Wait until I text you, yeah?”
“Right,” I muttered.
He disappeared, and we stood there in our awkward, tense embrace until my phone buzzed with a text from him. “Let’s go home.”
An officer led us to the back door, pushed it open.
I moved us quickly to the rear of my dad’s car, to the passenger’s side door that was already open, tucked us inside. There was a commotion and a flurry of flashes, but by then I’d snagged the handle, tugged the metal panel closed.
My dad took off through the parking lot. “Buckle up.”
I clicked us in just as we turned right onto Main Street.
Leaving a crowd of reporters behind us.
And the truth still very much hidden in the shadows.