Page 153 of Weight of Guilt

Her mother stayed on the porch another moment before slipping back inside.

Wren let out a breath. “Maybe today changed things more than we thought.”

Nash looked at her.

She turned toward him.

Moonlight caught one side of his face.

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

And this time, the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.

Nash held Wren’s gaze.

For a second, he forgot about the investigation. Jacob. All the questions still hanging over them.

He only saw Wren.

Somehow, in the middle of everything that had gone wrong since he’d come to Fog Lake, Wren had become one of the things that felt right.

Wren leaned toward him and rested her hand on his forearm. “You have to let some of this go, Nash.”

He looked away.

She didn’t move her hand. “We all do. I’m starting to realize that about myself too. I’ve carried so much guilt for so long that I think I convinced myself it was doing something useful.”

Nash looked back at her.

“It wasn’t.” She shook her head. “It didn’t fix my family. It didn’t bring Christian home. It didn’t make me a better mother. It just kept me looking backward.”

He understood that better than he wanted to.

Wren rubbed her thumb once against his sleeve. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. Maybe guilt is supposed to teach us something. But once we’ve learned what we can from it, carrying it around forever doesn’t honor what happened. It just keeps us from living.”

Nash swallowed. He wasn’t sure he was ready to let all of it go. But for the first time, he wondered if maybe he could.

Eventually, at least.

“I never expected to meet someone like you when I moved here.” His voice came out rougher than he intended.

Wren smiled.

“I came to Fog Lake because I wanted to be alone and have some peace,” he continued. “Then that lunatic dog of yours bounded into my yard and ruined everything.”

Wren laughed. “You leave Bo out of this.”

“He started it.”

“He was being friendly.”

“He was trespassing.”

“That’s such a harsh word.” She cast him a playful look.

Tank gave a low huff beside them.

Nash pointed at him. “See? Tank agrees with me.”