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“I don’t think I’ll ever change this room.”
“There will be more kids—”
“Stop.” Luke’s words cut off like a switch had been thrown at her quiet tone. “I know you don’t mean it that way, but I don’t want to hear those words. Not from you. Children aren’t interchangeable. It’s not like I lost my favorite sweater, so I can just replace it with a new one from the same store. There will never be anotherher.” She wasn’t yet prepared to speak her daughter’s name out loud. Right now, it was a whisper on her heart. A fragile, luminescent thing that glowed in her chest, and she was afraid speaking it aloud would crumble the fragile and shaky foundation she managed to erect. “I wanna say ‘it’s not like she was a puppy,’ but animals are individuals too.”
“I get that.” His expression was as unguarded as she had ever seen it. “I feel the same. Whenever any of our pets pass, it takes us a good long while before we get another. But the thing is, Andie, we do get another. We heal, and then we look forward.” He choked up again. Andie watched him curse and rub furiously at his eyes. It looked like he thought if he rubbed hard enough, he could rub away the pain that caused them. “Right now, it feels like…. Geez, I don’t know. Like, I wish I could just roll the whole world up and put it away. Like…. Well, that’s enough of that. But we can’t. We have to go on. We have to. And Andie? I can face that. I can face going on. As long as I know I can face it with you.” He came to her then, knelt on the floor next to her chair, and clasped her cool fingers in his big, warm hands. “I already have to face it without our daughter. I don’t think I can make it if I have to face it without you too.”
“You won’t have to.”
Luke surged to his feet at her quiet words, scooped her up, and sat in the chair with her in his lap. Then he just buried his face in her neck and held on. They clung to each other and let the healing come.
* * *
“I’ve never seenyou work on something so small.” Jax stood peering over Kiki’s shoulder as she worked with needle nose plyers. She wove wire that looked as delicate as hair strands together while wearing steampunk micro-goggles on her elfin face.
“I’m full of surprises, I am,” she declared cheekily without showing the slightest surprise to have him looming over her… again.
“That you are, Kiki,” Jax said softly. “That you definitely are.” She was, in fact, a constant surprise to him. Her art left him spellbound. Her passion left him hungry. Her humor delighted him, and her spunky “bring it on, world” attitude inspired. Christ, everything about her drew him. Then why had he been so intent on chasing after a woman clearly in love with another man instead?
“Have you finally come to your senses then?” Kiki took off her goggles as she turned to face him, her lips quirking when he didn’t step back. The sly smile she sent him when she turned her face up to look him eye-to-eye spoke volumes. He didn’t need to ask what she was talking about.
“You could have said something,” he prodded, crowded closer, and leaned until his hands were braced on the work bench behind her. “Would’ve saved a lot of time and trouble.”
“Nope,” she told him primly. “You had to figure things out on your own. If I had done anything to open your eyes sooner, then it would’ve felt too much like I was coming between you guys. There were already three of you in that tangled-up relationship; it didn’t need a fourth.”
“Beautiful, talented, and brains too?” Jax gazed into her pixie face and let the details of her really sink in. The moss-green eyes with their elfin slants and long, silky lashes. The tiny pert nose that wrinkled differently depending on her emotions. Her soft pink lips that framed a slightly crooked smile. “God, I’ve been an idiot.” He dropped his head and swallowed her whispered “Yup” with his kiss.
* * *
“Hey, Sheriff, you just missed Max.”Jessica handed him a menu then flipped his mug and began pouring him a cup of coffee without asking.
“Oh yeah?” Derek answered and opened the plastic-coated list of options, even though he knew he was just going to order whatever she whipped up for the special anyway. “It’s to do with the case. We got some new information that warranted a visit, even though he was just here last week.”
“Yeah, he’s a good one, Sheriff,” she told him with innocent trust. “He’s not going to stop until he finds this guy. In fact, he even asked me a bunch of questions about the raves I go to. Then he ran outta here like a shot.”
There was a lot of information to unpack in that statement. “I didn’t know you were still a rave girl, Jess. I would’ve thought you’d outgrown that by now.”
“How do you outgrow music?” she asked him with righteous disdain on her pretty, youthful face.
“Not the music,” he told her, trying not to smile at her like an indulgent uncle. “The scene. Loud and crowded definitely loses its appeal as time wears on. You’ll see.”
She gave a token chuckle, called him a grandpa, and said, “Why don’t I bring you out a plate of tacos? They’re a hit today; you’ll love ‘em.”
So he put his menu down and reached for the coffee.
He took a sip and wondered aloud, “Jessica? What did you tell Max that got him fired up?”
“He was just as surprised as you that I still go to raves,” she told him smirking. “I mean, c’mon. I’m still in my twenties. I hope I always like raves. Jax does, and he’s way older than me.”
Derek smiled. “Yeah, but that man’s covered in tattoos and had green-and-black hair all through his teens. You expect that from him. You look more like you enjoy a bit of classical lightly strumming in the background of your garden party. Head banging, paint splattered, and bouncing around to a bunch of screaming guitars in a psychedelic club on the other hand? I doubt that would be anyone’s first guess for you.”
She laughed. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But not everyone looks the way their music sounds. Music is the great equalizer, right? It brings everybody together, regardless of how they look or dress. Or even of where they come from. Look at Abe for example. He’s freakin’ Amish, but he’s there all the time. Loving the music and cutting loose. And Miss April? She doesn’t go anymore, but she told me back when she was my age she—”
“Wait.” Derek was surprised. “Abe? You mean Abram? Abram Miller, Logan’s friend?”
“Yeah.” Panic overcame her features, and she placed her hands on her mouth with a small gasp. “Oh shoot! Oh please don’t tell, Sheriff. It’s kinda like an open secret between all us who go. See, he could get in real trouble if it ever got back to his people that he’s a raver. They aren’t allowed music of any kind. Well, you know that as well as I do. But gosh, I’ll feel so bad if he gets in trouble because of my big mouth, Sheriff. Sheriff? Sheriff, where you going? Don’t you want your tacos?”
* * *
