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She hopped up and placed Churro back on the ground. “Awesome. I’ve been dying to try whatever smells so damn good.”
She put the plates and flatware on the table while I brought the food over. To go with the pasta, I made homemade garlic bread and mixed a salad. The moment Lyric’s plate was filled she dove in. I waited as she swirled the pasta around the tines of her fork and speared a shrimp. The moment the bite crossed her lips, her eyes slide closed and she let out a moan that made my cock swell.
“Oh my god,” she garbled around her food. “Holt, honey, this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” She pointed at the plate with her fork. “Is that homemade pasta?”
“It is, but not made by me,” I confessed. “My mother makes her own pasta and freezes it, gives some to me and Alexis whenever she needs to make room. My skills in the kitchen only extend so far, and making my own pasta is just past that cutoff.”
She giggled around another bite, taking time to chew and swallow before speaking again. “Well, this would have tasted incredible with that dried stuff from a box. But what’s the special occasion? I mean, something had to warrant homemade pasta.” She dragged her finger through the garlic butter sauce on the plate and popped it into her mouth, licking it clean as she watched me expectantly.
I used my fork to shift things around on my plate, my stomach too twisted up to even consider eating at that moment.
“There’s something I’ve been holding back. Something I’ve been keeping from you, and I’m tired of secrets.”
She set her fork down, shifting in her chair to give me her full attention as she wiped her mouth with her napkin.
“Okay,” she dragged out, her eyes suddenly full of jittery nerves. “What is it you want to tell me?”
“The reason I walked out on you that morning months back.”
ChapterTwenty-Five
LYRIC
I wasn’tsure I’d ever seen Holton look so nervous before. His complexion actually looked like it was turning green. He hadn’t touched his food, and he couldn’t stop rubbing his hands together in his lap.
I shook my head. “Holt, baby, there’s no reason to get into that. It’s in the past. I already told you I forgave you.”
His jaw worked as he ground his back molars together. “I know, but I still want to tell you. Truth is, it’s something that still messes with my head, and I don’t think I’ll be able to let it go until I talk to you about it.”
I hated seeing him so out of sorts, so if he needed to unload something that was bothering him, I’d sit there and listen until he got it off his chest for good.
“Okay, then. If that’s what you need. Tell me.”
He inhaled deeply, his eyes getting this faraway look in them. “This all started before you got to town. We were called to the hospital, because the head nurse in the ER suspected there was a case of domestic abuse. A woman by the name of Carla Sanford had been brought in by ambulance, just beat to hell. X-rays showed fresh breaks to several ribs, her left wrist and ankle, but there were also signs of past breaks that hadn’t healed right. The woman’s husband brought her in because she couldn’t breathe and he was freaked out. Turned out, one of the shattered ribs had punctured her lung. The asshole tried saying she’d fallen down the stairs, but it was obvious that wasn’t the case.
“Sheffield was with me, and she was talking to the woman, trying to calm her down and reassure her, but when the husband got word we were there, he came charging into the room, demanded we leave, and made this whole big scene. We ended up arresting his ass, and with him gone, the wife felt more comfortable telling us the truth. It wasn’t the first time he’d beaten her, not that we didn’t already know that. But it was worse than we’d expected. She’d been pregnant, twice, but lost both babies because he beat on her stomach when she burned dinner or didn’t clean the house to his standards.”
I sucked in a gasp and slapped a hand over my mouth. “Oh my god. Holt, that’s so awful.”
He nodded solemnly. “I’d visited a few times to check on her progress, see how she was healing, and I guess she formed a sort of attachment to me. I was the one who’d arrested her husband. I kept coming to visit her while she was in the hospital. I guess she started looking at me as her protector. I’ll admit, I liked how that felt. I got into this job because I wanted to help people.”
I nodded, understanding what he was saying. It was in his DNA to be a protector. But as he continued with his story, I understood that comment Alexis had made a while back about him taking his job a little too seriously.
“Anyway, we talked, and she agreed to press charges against the prick. Got a restraining order and everything. I was happy for her. I wanted her to have a fresh start. She was a good woman, she deserved it.” He stopped, shaking his head as his throat bobbed on a swallow. When he spoke again, his voice was a low rasp. “Looking back, I can see I didn’t make the lines between us clear enough. I just wanted to help. That’s all. But I wasn’t as firm as I should have been when she started coming around the station and calling. I tried being nice. I knew she was struggling. She’d married that bastard right out of high school, she’d never been on her own before, and she’d gotten lonely. I started answering her calls less and less, hoping she’d take a hint.”
My stomach sank to the floor.
He shook his head, those pale jade eyes growing glassy and distant. “Without me to guide her through, she ended up dropping the charges against her husband.” A humorless chuckle pushed out from his nose. “Even paid to bail him out. He ended up—” He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain he was feeling just then. “He ended up killing her a few weeks later. Murdered her, then shot himself.” A growl rumbled in his throat. “Couldn’t even make the son of a bitch pay because he took the coward’s way out.”
Tears spilled from my eyes, for poor Carla Sanford who let her loneliness guide her to making the wrong decisions, but also for Holton, who carried so much more on his shoulders than he should.
“That’s why you were at Bad Alibi that night, isn’t it? Why you were having such a shitty day.”
To be fair, it had been a shitty week. I’d only found out a few days earlier.”
“God, Holt. I’m so sorry.”
“If I had just—”
