| |
What Bert was about to do was damned near insane. He should just leave well enough alone.
Verity Smalls and her attitude had finally gotten under his skin more than Bert could handle. After he and Bailey had taken her home, he’d called a buddy of his with a tow truck. Chad had agreed to tow Veri’s car into town as repayment for a favor Bert had done him a while back.
Bert had gone to get her himself the next morning, but the fool woman had called a taxi. Even though he’d told her he was coming for her.
Verity was the stubbornest woman Bert had ever met. She had always been that way. When he’d first met her, she’d been fresh out of high school with an accounting and typing class under her belt. She’d gotten the job because Lou Moore’s wife had been her best friend in school and had recommended Verity.
Bert hadn’t cared as long as someone competent was there to answer his phones and keep track of where he and his deputies were.
Veri had surprised him at how well she’d done the job.
He’d started to confide in her, until Bert had told her just too damned much.
And he’d had to betray his closest friend to keep her safe. It had cost him that friendship. He’d never stopped regretting that. But Bert had done what he had to do.
It had been fifteen years since he’d been idiot enough to sleep with her and not do anything about it afterward.
He wasn’t certain how that night had even happened. He’d come up on her having car trouble alongside the road.
Bert had taken her home, then before he knew it, he had had her in his arms.
He’d been so damned alone that night, and Veri...holding her had felt so right. Until the morning came.
Now he knew that that had been a mistake. Bert also knew when it was time for him to man up to his mistakes and try to fix them.
He was making amends with his daughter. Now it was time to deal with Verity.
Damned redheaded woman had driven him crazy years ago. That hadn’t changed in the decade and a half since.
He upset her every time she saw him; Verity wasn’t exactly the type for a one-night stand. She was the Sunday-church, pitch-in-dinner, driving-Aunt-Ethel-to-the-pharmacy type.
Not the rolling around in a convict’s bed type.
But enough was enough—it had been fifteen years, after all.
Now that Bailey was in his life, they were going to run into each other more often. Verity was going to have to finally forgive him.
Or things were going to get extremely awkward—for them and for Bailey.
He pulled into the small bungalow Verity had lived in for almost as long as he’d known her.
He remembered the day she’d bought it, how excited she’d been when she’d told everyone at the precinct about it.
Bert had been the one to replace the floor for her two months later, along with three other deputies who had long since disappeared—into the prison system.
Every last one of them had been corrupt.
He hadn’t known it at the time, if he had...he wasn’t certain he’d have done anything differently.
What had happened didn’t weigh on his conscience in the least.
Except for how his decisions back then had affected Jake and Kyra.
And Verity.
She’d changed a few things around the place; no surprise, considering the time that had passed. She had flowers everywhere, hardy flowers designed to survive Texas.
There was a white porch swing to his left.
He could imagine her sitting out there, staring off into the distance. The house faced away from town and showed the true beauty of Barratt County. Off in the distance was the dim glow that was the city of Finley Creek. She was closer to the larger city than she was Value.
The door opened and there she was.
Verity.
With her wild reddish-blond hair only hinting at gray now, and the big green eyes he’d never forgotten. The trim little body that had only just begun to soften with age. So pretty. Verity had that classic appeal that Bert had always been pulled toward.
Her skin still looked as soft as ever.
But the trust that had once permeated every inch of her back then was gone now. And probably had been for a very long time.
He did the math in his head, quickly.
She had to be fifty-three or -four now.
He’d had her in his bed just shy of her fortieth birthday, a night they’d both been feeling a bit too lonely for common sense.
She hadn’t been the last woman he’d slept with, but other than his now deceased ex-wife, she’d been the only one he’d truly remembered.
“What’s happened?”
“Not a damned thing. And I think that may be the problem. Let me in, Verity. We’re going to talk.”