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The sheriff looked Colton straight in the eye over her shoulder. “Do you want a lawyer?”
He stiffened at the man’s grave tone. “Are you arresting me?”
“No.”
“Then I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Robert was still alive when the cougar attacked him,” Kendra insisted.
Colton laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’ll be fine.”
Joel gently pulled her aside. “Let the man do his job.”
After a brief reassuring squeeze of his fingers for Kendra, Colton dropped his hand and accompanied the sheriff across the yard to the guest house
Over the next couple hours, Colton sat at the kitchen table and told his side of the story to the sheriff, a voice recorder, and two other officers. He didn’t leave out a single detail, with the exception of finding Kendra’s wedding ring. He was also careful to casually keep his left hand covered, or both hands in his lap. As far as he knew, Kendra hadn’t said a word about their marriage, so he wasn’t about to open himself up to more scrutiny, be it from the law, or Joel.
Finally, the officers exhausted their supply of questions and he was left alone. First order of business was a change of clothes.
He stuffed the once-white dress shirt in the trash on his way to take a long, hot shower. The needle-like spray didn’t do its job and, though the last thing he needed was more caffeine, he pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and headed for the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.
Britt and Kendra’s voices carried into the hall from the living room. “What time is your flight tomorrow?” Britt asked.
Colton hesitated just out of sight.
“I have to be to the airport by nine,” Kendra replied. “God, there’s so much to do—and even more now that I have to arrange for his funeral.”
“You
can stay, you know. Take care of things from here. It’s not like you have to give the guy a heartfelt send off.”
Hope flared in his chest and he held his breath as he waited there in the hall.
“Noah’s thrilled to have a couple extra weeks with you guys, but I need to go.”
She laughed softly, though it sounded oddly forced to him. Yet when next she spoke, her voice carried a sobering note of resolution.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way—I appreciate all you and Joel have done for us, and it is beautiful here, but the sooner I get back to the life I left behind, the better. Not to mention, Noah has school, and his friends back home…”
She trailed off and Britt’s voice filled the void. “I understand.”
“It doesn’t mean we won’t visit—I promise we’ll visit—but…really, I—we—belong in New York…”
Colton didn’t wait to hear more and skipped the coffee. Her leaving was for the best. Facing her every day, wanting what he knew he couldn’t have, would be pure torture. Not only that, but he easily read between the lines of her list of excuses. She didn’t need to go anywhere, she wanted to leave. Colorado could never compete with New York for someone like her.
Better to receive her inevitable request for an annulment by mail than face to face anyway.
****
She hadn’t thanked Colton for saving her life. Everything happened so fast. Then the sheriff whisked him away for his statement, and she’d had to give hers. She’d hoped to speak with him, but no more had she and Britt finished their conversation and her sister-in-law left through the front door when she’d heard the back door slam shut and watched Colton’s car drive away.
An overwhelming sense of loss had her blinking back tears. After he’d pulled her off the cliff, he’d kissed her as if she meant something to him. Had she imagined that? Had it in fact been nothing more than a heat of the moment reaction to a terrifying situation?
The answer stabbed into her heart. If he had felt anything for her, he wouldn’t have just left.
The pain was worse than when she’d stood alone on the courthouse steps. What more was there to say? It didn’t take a genius to figure out that though he may have come for her, he was still angry about the way she’d handled everything since last night.
But it wasn’t as if she could just blurt out her feelings. He was a casual guy; love didn’t exist in his vocabulary—not in that way. She didn’t need to hear him claim she was just having a post-traumatic episode, or worse, that she was practicing hero-worship and laugh in her face.
