Ethan sure as hell hadn’t thought the “friend he could trust” had actually killed her. Back then, he’d looked up to Rob and respected his opinion. He’d been grateful for the help.
But the years had taken their toll, and as they’d passed, Ethan had seen that Rob didn’t listen to anyone but himself. It had all come to a head when Kelly and Ben had asked their questions that night at the wedding. In an angry haze, Ethan had retrieved the gun from his car and pulled Rob out of the reception to confront him about that day, wanting to scare him into telling the truth. Even then, he hadn’t expected Rob to confess to being the murderer himself.
"It sounds like your friend wasn't going to let others define her or decide for her," Ava said with a nod in agreement. “She had a wisdom beyond her years. For some of us, it takes much longer to learn that lesson.”
Ben had heard rumblings as a child that Ava’s parents had been difficult, judgmental, and openly discouraged her career and her marriage to Logan.
“She’s taught me something,” Kelly agreed.
Ava glanced across the lawn to where Logan stood talking with Seth. Ben caught the look. It was brief, private, and passionate, the kind of glance that carried years of shared history in a single second.
"You never know about love," Ava said, turning back to them. "It comes when you least expect it, and you have to make that leap of faith."
She looked at Ben. Then at Kelly. Then back at Ben with a small, knowing smile that said she'd been paying attention to more than just the cold case details.
"If you'll excuse me," she said, gently touching Kelly’s arm, "I promised your future mother-in-law I'd help light the candles on the cake. It’s double fudge, and we’re all excited about it.”
Ava disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Kelly standing with her mouth slightly open and a flush rising up her neck.
It was absolutely adorable.
"Future mother-in-law?" Kelly repeated.
Ben took a very deliberate sip of his beer. "She said it. Not me."
"Your family is already planning our wedding, aren't they?"
"I plead the fifth."
Kelly's flush deepened, but she was smiling. Really smiling. The kind that reached her eyes and stayed there and made Ben's chest do that loosening thing again.
I love her, and it’s the greatest thing I could imagine.
Later that night, the party had reached the stage where people stopped standing in clusters and started sitting wherever they could find a flat surface. Lawn chairs, porch steps, and chairs pulled from the kitchen and dining room.
Ben and Kelly had drifted to the edge of the property, where they could still see all the guests but had a moment or two of privacy.
"My whole family already adores you," he said. "I think my mom wants to adopt you since you've fallen out with your own parents. She's already talking about our plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Spoiler alert. They want to come to us in the city for Thanksgiving, but want us here for Christmas. Don’t besurprised if you have your own Christmas stocking with your name printed on it.”
Kelly blew out a breath and shook her head.
"Are you okay if I steal your family from you?"
"I'll happily share," Ben said.
And he meant it. His family was big enough, loud enough, and chaotic enough for one more person. They always had been. The Reillys operated on an open-door policy that had been in effect since before Ben could remember. You showed up, you got fed, you got loved. Simple math.
"How's your family?" he asked.
He'd been waiting for the right moment to bring it up. A party surrounded by people who genuinely liked her seemed like safer ground than most.
Kelly was quiet for a beat. Not the uncomfortable silence of avoidance. The considered pause of someone choosing her words with care.
"Celia apologized," she said. "After she heard the whole story. The real story, not the version she'd constructed in the parking lot where everything was somehow my fault." A dry note entered her voice. "Trevor's parents were apparently very impressed by the whole crime-solving thing. His mother was especially impressed, saying her son married into a family with a real-life detective.”
Ben waited. There was more. He could tell by the way her jaw set before she continued.
"Mom and Dad are hiring Rob a lawyer. A good one, because of course they are. But he's no longer their golden child. That particular pedestal has been permanently vacated." She paused, and when she spoke again, there was an edge of dark humor that Ben recognized as her particular brand of coping. "Mom and Dad are busy blaming each other for how he turned out. Funnilyenough, they are now saying that their two daughters got all the brains in the family."
