“You’re on my doorstep, Coert,” I pointed out quietly and not entirely accurately, though he was just in from it.
“Not anymore,” he retorted, turned and walked right out.
I stared at the space where he’d been, the open door, hearing the wind whistling against the jamb and seeing Coert again gone.
And then I ran out.
Coert was at the door to a Ford Explorer with sheriff stuff emblazoned all over it when I shouted, “You don’t know me!”
Hand on the handle, wind whipping his dark hair, he scowled at me.
“You never knew me!” I yelled.
“I knew you,” he bit back.
I stopped well away from him and shared, “No, you didn’t. You absolutely did not. And the worst part about it for me was, you never even tried.”
“You’re so full of shit,” he clipped.
“All that, in there,” I jabbed a finger back toward the lighthouse, “proves it. And you don’t have a clue. You don’t have that first clue, Coert. And you know what? All these years I wished I’d had the opportunity to explain. But now I’m glad. I’m glad I never had the chance. Because now I know you never deserved it.”
With that, I stormed right back to my house, slammed the door, threw the bolt home and stood glaring at it, breathing heavy and fighting back the urge to scream.
Instead, I ran up the stairs and the next set and the next until I was in my observation deck.
And from there I watched a sheriff Explorer drive away.
Holding Her Hand
Coert
Present day . . .
“DADDY!”
Coert bent low to sweep his baby girl up in his arms.
He barely got her steady when she had her little arms wrapped around his neck and planted a kiss on his jaw.
When she caught his eyes, he asked, “How you doin’, cupcake?”
“Good, Daddy,” she replied.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
“Yup,” she answered with a firm nod of her head.
He lifted his brows. “You sure about that?”
She looked confused.
“Shnookie, sweetheart,” he whispered, knowing she could sometimes forget the worn-out, bedraggled teddy bear she had to sleep with at night, but he couldn’t because when she got in bed and remembered she didn’t have him, he’d have to strap her in his truck and take her back to her mother’s to pick it up.
His Janie’s only vice.
A bear called Shnookie.
“Oh,” she mumbled.
“Oh.” He grinned and set her down. “Go get him then we’ll go.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she agreed and dashed off, tossing a bright smile to her mother along the way.
Kim, his ex, Janie’s mom, stood looking after her until she disappeared then she turned her head to Coert.
“I really appreciate you doing this,” she said.
“Said it before.” And he had, about ten thousand times, not that he had to, he’d jump at the chance to have his daughter every day if that was a chance offered to him. “Not a problem.”
“It’s a bachelorette party, I can’t miss it. If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t switch days.”
He’d been living with Kim kissing his ass and acting apprehensive since he’d dragged her to court after she tried to move herself and their daughter to Portland.
Half of it, he knew, was him sending the unmistakable message she shouldn’t pull that kind of shit again in order to yank his chain and bring him to heel, something she’d tried to master the art of while they were together. This the reason why she never got his ring on her finger, regardless of the fact that most other times she was sweet and could be outrageously funny.
She hadn’t ever brought him to heel and he got tired of attempting to break her of the habit of trying.
The other half of it, he knew, was Kim finally cottoning on to the fact that she’d redirected both their lives with her play to “win him back.” It turned out beautifully in the end because they got Janie, but it had been a seriously whacked play and brought her diapers and bottles, and attorney’s fees when he pulled her into court to share he wasn’t messing around with his daughter’s life and he was taking his responsibilities as her father deadly serious.
“Again, it’s fine,” he said impatiently. “I’ll take her to preschool tomorrow then you got her back tomorrow night.”
“Okay,” she mumbled, studying him trying not to look like she was before she asked, “You okay?”
No, he was not.
Preliminary reports from the fire inspector stated that the fire on the jetty was arson and that was absolutely not good.
And Cady Moreland lived in his town, in the damned lighthouse, something he couldn’t avoid because he saw it fifty times a day, which meant he was reminded of her the hundred times a day his mind decided to do that plus the fifty he saw the lighthouse.
You’re on my doorstep, Coert, she’d said.
And that’s where he’d been.
In fact, except for when he caught her sitting in her rental outside the sheriff station, it had not been Cady who had approached him. Not once. And she didn’t even do it when she was sitting outside the station. He’d gone to her.
Every time, he’d gone to her.
Those tears, that breakdown on the sidewalk, that had not been planned. She’d been blindsided running into Janie and Coert.
Blindsided and gutted.
So bad, he couldn’t even think about it because he felt her pain straight down to his soul.
But the fact she had not approached once made her being there at all an even bigger mystery than it already was.
And Christ, it had been Coert’s job for years to solve mysteries. He got off on that but he wasn’t much on having that shit a part of his life.
However, the fact remained she wouldn’t move there, buy property there, especially the property she’d bought which anchored her there, if she did not have reconciliation on her mind. But it was Coert finding every excuse he could to haul his ass out to her, not the other way around.
The Cady he knew had been confused, struggling with learning how to be an adult because she had no firm foundation to keep her steady or help guide her, and trying to teach herself not to act out by doing stupid shit when she was frustrated or felt trapped by life.
What the Cady he knew had not been was a woman who’d played head games.
And for the life of him, all the times he thought of it, and he thought about it too damned much, he couldn’t see where she was playing head games now.
So the prevailing question on his mind when he didn’t have to think about his job or his daughter or her mother or the fact they might have arsonists in their town was . . . what was the woman doing?
And he had to admit, outside his daughter, that prevailing question was prevailing.
So he was not okay because Cady and her lighthouse and her proximity and her green eyes and thick hair and round ass were practically all he could think about.
“I’m fine,” he answered Kim.
“You sure?” she pressed.
He leveled his gaze at her. “I’m sure.”
“Coert, if you . . .” she trailed off, looking like she was considering the wisdom of her next, and then she shared that she didn’t consider it long enough by saying, “Everyone’s heard about the fire, and I know you get wrapped up when bad stuff goes down so if you ever need to talk, I just want you to know, I’m here.”
“I got folks I can talk to, Kim, but thanks,” he dismissed.
She looked hesitant again before she said softly, “We could try to be friends, you know.”
“Think when you stuck a pin through all my condoms that option was taken off the table.”
She blanched even as she winced because during one of their many unhappy discussions after she’d told him she was pregnant with his kid, she’d also admitted to doing that, sharing at the same time that was “just how much I love you, Coert.”
He’d had his fill of women making drastic decisions that altered the course of his life. He wasn’t a big fan of it seventeen years ago, he wasn’t a big fan of it five years ago, he’d never be a big fan of it.