I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to.
But the facts didn’t lie. I wasn’t sure I’d even have a badge after this mess. And right now, I wasn’t sure I deserved one anyway.
“We’ll catch those bastards tomorrow,” he said, “and Bob will see how much he underestimated you.”
“I hope so.”
“We will.” He squeezed our palms together. “But you need sleep.”
I closed my eyes, his hand still wrapped around mine.
And despite the lies, the hurt, and the impossible situation we were in, I wasn’t alone.
Tomorrow didn’t seem so impossible anymore.
Chapter 17
Kayden
* * *
I woke in the dark with Sapphire still beside me.
She was asleep, her breathing slow and even, her face turned slightly away, hair fanned across my pillow. In the faint pre-dawn light, I let myself watch her longer than I should have.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d told me. About her aunt. About the cops who’d walked away. She’d been a seventeen-year-old kid carrying all that around in silence.
I’d always hated cops but had never had a good reason for it. No cop had ever laid a hand on me or done a damn thing to me. Years of Frank’s bullshit had drummed into me that all cops were corrupt. That they hid behind their badges and thought they were better than us. Bob was an asshole like that, and a whole lot worse. So, in a roundabout way, the old bastard had been right, but only about one cop.
Sapphire was nothing like Bob. She was the real deal. Everything a cop should be. Everything Bob wasn’t.
I hated that I’d been so wrapped up in my own bullshit back then that I hadn’t seen what being a cop meant to her. It was everything. And Bob wasn’t taking that from her, too. Not while I was still breathing.
Careful not to wake her, I slipped out of bed.
The wound on my arm stung when I reached down to grab a T-shirt off the floor. I gritted my teeth, pulled it on, and climbed down the ladder, hating every tiny creak the rungs made.
At the bottom, I shoved my feet into my boots and strode through the barn. The air outside was cool and crisp, the sky just beginning to glow along the eastern horizon.
Lights were on in the homestead. That’d be Cassidy, up before the birds, like always. Xavier was probably up, too, crashing around the kitchen hunting for coffee like his life depended on it. That city bloke had a hell of a lot to learn, especially around the farm animals. Silly bastard was always trying to pat them. I was warming up to him, though. It was hard not to like a bloke who was that determined to impress my sister.
I was halfway across the paddock when a woman’s voice cut through the stillness.
“I knew it!”
I spun around.
Sapphire stood outside the barn in her shorts and T-shirt, barefoot, hands on her hips. “I thought I could trust you, Kayden. I can’t believe?—”
“Sapphire, what are you talking about?”
“You snuck out of bed like a thief, and now you’re?—”
“Stop. You’ve got it wrong.”
“Bullshit.” She threw her hands up.
“Will you stop?” I took a few steps toward her. “I’m going to my horse.”
