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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE OCEAN WAS flat and gloomy, which mirrored Sierra’s feelings exactly. It was Sunday morning and she sat out on the deck, her leg up on a chair, sipping a cup of steaming coffee. Jon was purring on her knee. Aileen was happily bustling around in the kitchen; Sierra could hear her banging pots and pans. Her mum was like a pig in mud, she hadn’t had an excuse to pamper her daughter in longer than she could remember, and she seemed to be enjoying every second of it. But Sierra’s patience was beginning to stretch. Aileen was driving her quietly and gently insane with all her well-meaning help. She’d decided to leave tomorrow. Sierra would be both sad to see her go, and also perhaps a little relived.
“Morning.” Jen pulled out a chair and sat opposite Sierra, blowing on her own mug of coffee. Her hair was a rumpled mess, and she was still wearing her fluffy pajamas. Sierra smiled at her old friend and her mood lifted. There were definitely a few more lines in the mocha skin around her eyes. But apart from that, Jen hadn’t changed in the slightest. It was lovely to have her friend here. She’d arrived yesterday, and was going to stay on for a few more days and continue to look after Sierra, which meant Aileen was free to go home as she knew Sierra was in good hands. Jon twitched his whiskers at Jen and gave her the cat death-stare, unhappy to have his peaceful interlude with his mistress broken.
“How did you sleep?” Sierra asked.
“That spare bed of yours is so damn comfy.” Jen stretched her hands over her head and gave a loud yawn. “Or maybe it’s all this wonderful fresh sea air.” Jen glanced down at the cast. “How’s the leg this morning?”
“Not too bad. Six weeks on crutches is going to kill me, though.” Sierra grimaced. How was she going to cope with no daily ocean swim, and without her tramps through the coastal scrubland? It would drive her crazy, she already knew that.
“Your mum told me she was going home tomorrow. So, it’ll be just us gals for a while. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. I’m not a bad cook when the need arises.”
“It’s so nice to have your here,” Sierra agreed. “But you don’t need to be looking after me, I’m a big girl, you know.”
“Haven’t you learned not to be so bloody independent all the time? You need a little bit of TLC. Let someone else do the work for a change.” Jen’s words were soft, but struck Sierra to the bone. She got the underlying meaning. She’d been alone for so long now, she didn’t know how to accept help gracefully.
“Yes, well, thank you,” she murmured in reply. “You might give away your TLC for free, but Mum has ways of exacting payment. She wants me to go to Hawaii with her when I’m better. She’s worried about Keira. No one’s heard from her for a while. Which is not unusual.” Sierra sighed as she thought about her older sister, and how unreliable she was when it came to contacting her family. “Mum’s already planning the trip.”
“That’ll be good for you,” Jen concurred. “A holiday is just what you need.”
“I’m not sure you could rightfully call it a holiday,” Sierra grumbled.
“And Hawaii? Woohoo, girl, I hear there’re some hot men over there.” Jen fanned her face and winked at Sierra.
She tried to raise a smile, but the comment about hot men had her thinking about Reed. He was hot. Damn hot.
“And while we’re on the topic, are you going to call that hunk of a policeman soon?”
“That’s not on the topic,” Sierra retorted. How did Jen know what she was thinking? Sierra was beginning to suspect she had supernatural powers. “And I’m not sure if or when I’ll contact him.” She hadn’t seen Reed since she left hospital on Wednesday. And she’d been intentionally trying not to think about him. He’d called three times, leaving a message each time. Sierra liked to listen to his voice. Deep and syrupy. Turning her insides to mush. Making her nerve endings tingle, as she remembered how he’d made her feel that night they’d made love. But she hadn’t replied. Didn’t intend to reply.
“Mmhmm. Well, you know my thoughts on that topic.”
Yes, she knew exactly what Jen thought. Last night, the two of them had sat up chatting in front of the log fire, each sipping a glass of delicious wine Jen had brought with her. Aileen had gone off to bed to read a book, leaving them alone. That’s when Sierra told her the whole story. For once she gave Jen every detail, left nothing out. Starting at the break-in, she talked about the missing girl, the kiss, her dead chickens, the crash. How she spent the night with Reed. Sierra even admitted how close she’d come to falling for him. And then she told her the terrible truth. How he broke her heart with the worst betrayal possible.
The funny thing was, Jen wasn’t as quick to condemn Reed as she hoped. In fact, Jen had almost done the opposite. Certainly, she’d agreed that it was a terrible thing to happen, a horrible twist of fate.
But then she said something surprising. “You’ve painted this picture of an uncaring policeman who rammed into your car in your head.”
Sierra hadn’t answered, but she knew it was true.
“I remember after the accident, how much you hated everyone on the police force, accusing them of protecting one of their own.” Jen continued gently. “And back then, I almost agreed with you. My heart was breaking for you, you’d lost your child.” Jen caught Sierra’s eye and trapped her gaze. “Then they had an internal investigation, Sierra, and they cleared him of any wrongdoing.”
Sierra nodded her head, she remembered it all clearly.
“But you refused to believe them. You kept saying you knew they were hiding something sinister. That the cop had been speeding. He didn’t have his lights and siren on, as they insisted. The chase had been called off, but in his arrogance, he’d continued on anyway, the safety of the public be damned. Thank God they kept his name out of the papers, as they wanted him to stay anonymous so he could eventually return to work, because I was actually afraid you might try and take some kind of revenge on the man if you ever found out his identity. And I let you keep saying and thinking those poisonous thoughts because I knew you were hurting, and I thought it was your way of dealing with it.”
Sierra watched her old friend as they sat on the couch together in front of the fire. As Jen spoke, the truths she’d believed in so implicitly for so long had become blurred and soft around the edges.
“Tell me, Sierra, now you’ve met him, is he that evil brute you devised in your head?”
No, he was anything but a brute. He was wracked with guilt at what’d happened. Had been affected just as badly as she was. She’d discovered Reed was a caring, wonderful man. Insightful and funny. Honest and achingly sensual. She wasn’t about to tell Jen that Reed was constantly on her mind. That her body ached to have him hold her, just once more. That her soul felt somehow empty when she thought about never seeing him again.
Jen hadn’t stopped there, however. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but perhaps no one was to blame, after all. Perhaps it’s time to stop holding a grudge. To let go of the past, and look to the future, instead.”
Sierra went to bed with her head full of contradictions and questions, and hadn’t slept well at all.
“Are you okay?” Jen’s question pulled her back to the present. There was genuine concern in her friend’s voice and Sierra suddenly felt her chest tighten. Nope, she wasn’t going to cry now, she’d done more than enough of that last night.
