Page 12 of Weight of Guilt

Maybe this family had more going on beneath the surface than he’d realized.

Chapter

Five

Whatever was happening inside that house wasn’t Nash’s business. That was what he told himself as he stared at his pretty neighbor right now.

He just needed to drop this and move on.

Before coming to this town, he’d told himself that Fog Lake was just a place to let his gunshot wound finish healing. He needed to keep his distance from anyone and everyone.

Besides, after everything that happened with Allison, he really did need to keep his distance.

What had happened back in Nashville had been the perfect storm of heartaches. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be the same person again—and he wasn’t just talking about his physical well-being either.

He had a lot of healing to do.

Which was why he should stay away from his neighbors. He sensed their secrets ran deep, and deep secrets meant trouble. Trouble was the last thing he needed.

Despite that, he was already cataloguing details from his brief visit. The tremor in Bo’s owner’s hands. The way she kept glancing behind her as if she expected someone to disappear or something.

She was holding herself together for him to see. Whatever falling apart looked like, she’d save it for when she was alone.

He could probably pull a file on her and find out information about her past.

But that would be a bad idea.

Especially since he was on leave from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

It’s not your town, he told himself. Not your family.

“Well, I’ll see you around,” he finally said.

“I’ll see you around,” she repeated.

As he walked away, he couldn’t help but feel like he was making a mistake.

Wren closed the door and stood there a moment.

She’d been tempted to open up to her neighbor. But she hadn’t—and that had been a good call.

Though she understood the temptation. He was a big man, tall and built like someone who’d done a lot of physical work at some point. He had dark hair that needed cutting and about four days of beard. Early thirties maybe, with one of those faces that had settled into a permanent slight frown.

None of that was the problem. The problem was his eyes. They were brown, steady, and unhurried, and when he’d asked if she was okay, he’d waited for the answer like he had all day.

The thought unnerved her.

She didn’t know the man. But she did know that he used to be a detective and that his name was Nash. She’d known it a couple of weeks, ever since one of her regulars at the salon had told her during a shampoo: You know the new guy renting the Pruitt place? Used to be some hotshot detective for the state. Nashville, I think. Got shot on the job.

Wren had filed the information away and mostly forgotten it, because knowing Nash used to carry a badge hadn’t changed the fact that he was, in every interaction she’d actually had with him, grumpy and entirely too obsessed with keeping an oversized but adorable dog from wandering onto his side of the property line.

Was it her fault Bo was friendly? No. But she knew it was more than that. Her dog was overbearing. A goblin. That was what Nora called him—on good days.

However, what was she supposed to do? A fence was entirely too expensive, and she wasn’t going to tie her dog up to a tree.

The last thing she wanted was another complication in her life—and Nash was just that.

She turned back to her family.