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They headed down her porch steps, and Jack took her hand, causing butterflies to shoot through her stomach with an almost painful rush.
“Right, but where are we…?” Robin’s words trailed off as he led her over to his house. “Are we having dinner at your place?”
“Yep.”
She eyed him curiously. “Did you order in?”
He opened his door and allowed her to enter, then shut it behind her and took her coat. “Nope. What? You think my mom sent me away to play with cars while she was teaching Holly how to cook when we were kids?”
Robin’s expression must have shown him how surprised she was by this new revelation, for he laughed as he hung up her coat and scarf. “Look, I’m not on her level by any means, but I can hold my own, and since it’s supposed to snow tonight, I figured it’d be better if we didn’t go far.”
“Very smart. Thanks for thinking of that.”
He shrugged as if it’d come naturally to him, and now that she thought about it, that was likely very true. Jack seemed to think about safety and security before most other things, which she’d seen while he was Holly’s bodyguard and knew was part of his daily life as a police officer.
Maybe it wasn’t so strange that she was interested in another man like Matthew. He didn’t quite remind her of him, for they were very different in many ways, neither better nor worse than the other. But just… different.
Their similarities, as subtle as they were, caused her to feel even more comfortable around him as she followed him into the kitchen. In fact, maybe that was what had drawn her to Jack from the beginning. It was a feeling; something he exuded without trying.
She feltsafewith him.
“Any news with the case?” Robin had wanted to ask him for days, but they hadn’t been alone enough, and she didn’t want anyone to know he was looking into it.
She wasn’t sure if it was something he was also keeping to himself, but the idea of anyone in this town hearing her talk to Jack about her husband’s cold case, given that gossip spread in Snow Hill as fast as lightning, didn’t seem like a good idea.
Jack poured her a glass of red wine, which she took with an impressed and grateful nod, then led her to the couch. They sat before the fire and the Christmas tree, which looked right at home in his manly yet inviting living room.
“I’m looking into a few things, but there’s something that’s been bugging me,” he said, shifting so that one of his legs was resting on the couch and his back was flush with the arm.
Robin angled her body toward his in a similar fashion on the other side of the leather sofa, marveling at how buttery soft it was despite its modern shape. “What is it?”
“Over the course of my investigation, I came across some stuff that doesn’t add up about why Holden wasn’t present at the scene.”
This was news to Robin. “As far as I know, he’d been called away on another emergency.”
“Exactly, but the thing is, it turned out it was a family emergency; he wasn’t attending to anything in an official capacity.”
Robin almost choked on the wine she’d just sipped. “Really? I’ve never heard that.”
“I’m not surprised. It wouldn’t be normal for them to have detailed whatever the emergency was to you. But it appears Holden’s whereabouts during the incident itself has never been documented. That seems strange to me.”
“But… why? Wouldn’t they only make it a point to document Holden’s whereabouts if they suspected he had something to do with it?”
Jack shrugged. “Not necessarily. It’d be a natural thing to do since his absence at the time was—to me—something that…”
Robin leaned closer. “Something that what?”
“Something that could have impacted the outcome.”
CHAPTER13
Jack
Jack watchedRobin’s face carefully. Could she tell what he was trying to explain? Whatever Holden was doing during the time of Matthew’s death was of interest because if he hadn’t been handling that emergency, he could have potentially saved his coworker’s life. The fact that there was even a hint of mystery around his whereabouts that day had been a blazing red flag.
“You’re saying…” Robin paused, setting her wineglass on the coffee table with a soft clink. “If Holden had been there, would things have turned out differently?”
Neither of them could say the words out loud, apparently, so he simply nodded in reply.
