Chapter 17

Wyatt knew his mother had said something. What, he didn’t know. But Deirdre had been white as a sheet when he’d turned back to the table. “Are you okay?” he asked, knowing he’d asked her a couple of times already.

“Your mother—something she said…”

Wyatt exhaled. “What was it? She just says stuff sometimes.”

Deirdre’s hands wound around and around each other, and Wyatt had never seen her do that before. “Hey,” he said, reaching over and taking one of her hand in his. “What did she say?”

“She said you’re not willing to be with anyone but Christine.”

His heart shot to the back of his throat and then fell to his feet. “Well, that’s just not true.”

“It’s not?”

“Deirdre,” he said, not wanting to be angry at her. He was frustrated with the situation though. He didn’t want to leave the family festivities early because of a house fire that had then yielded a marijuana stash once the fire department had arrived. Apparently, now there was weed-infused smoke drifting over an entire neighborhood in Getaway Bay. Who knew what would happen next?

And now his mother was saying stuff?

“Of course not,” he said. “I told my mother that the day after Christine died. I don’t feel that way anymore.”

“She made it sound like you told her last week.”

“Well, I didn’t.” He glanced at Deirdre. “Do you think I feel like that?” He’d kissed her with enough passion and need for her know that just wasn’t true.

She shook her head and looked out the window.

“Then what’s really going on? You’ve acted a little off today.” He wasn’t going to interrogate her, but he sure did want a relationship with a woman that was open and honest.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for a family,” she said.

“I don’t want more kids,” he said.

“It’s more than that.” She faced him, looking away again quickly. “That was really hard for me, Wyatt. Seeing the teenagers…so close to Emma’s age. Having siblings and in-laws.” She shook her head, her voice taking on a tortured edge. “That is just not my reality, and I don’t fit. I’m just going to mess it up.”

“Mess what up?”

“Them,” she said, the word almost exploding out of her. “You. Your relationship with them.” She sucked at the air, and Wyatt could see she was out of control now. Well, as out of control as Deirdre ever got. “I don’t do families, Wyatt. I screwed up everything with my own mother, and you know how things are with my ex and my daughter.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head, tight, angry bursts of movement.

“So we won’t go to Christmas Eve dinner with them,” he said as gently as he could. “It’s no big deal.”

“It’s a big deal,” she said. “Have you met your mother?”

“I can handle my mother.”

“So you’ll just go visit her yourself, and I’ll be labeled the blonde woman who’s stolen you away.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Or worse.” She shook her head.

Wyatt didn’t know where this was going, but it wasn’t a good place. “So…what? You don’t want to be with me because I have a family who gets together for holidays?”

Deirdre said nothing, despite Wyatt giving her plenty of time and looking at her several times while he navigated the curves in the highway.

“Deirdre,” he finally said.

“I think I need to take a step back, yes,” she said.

Shock moved through Wyatt, and the only reason he kept breathing was because his lungs knew how to do it without any instructions from his brain. By the time he pulled into her driveway, the silence had accompanied them for half of the trip home.

“I’m sorry, Wyatt,” she said. “Maybe you were right. Maybe I’m the one who’s not ready for this.”

He got out of the Jeep quickly, meeting her almost before she’d closed her door. “Deirdre, don’t do this.” He swallowed, so many things still left to say to her. “I really enjoy spending time with you. I want to be with you.” He cleared his throat. “I’m falling in love with you. Please.” He took her hand, and she looked down at their joined fingers.

“I need to think,” she said, slipping her hand away from his. She slipped around him too, moving quickly up her steps and disappearing inside her house. Gone, like steam rising into the air.

Just gone. And Wyatt had the terrible, writhing feeling that he wouldn’t be getting her back.

***

Several citations and hours later, he finally pulled up to his house. Alone. He’d been hoping to bring Deirdre back here for coffee and cookies, as well as a Christmas movie. They’d talked about it and everything.

“Chief,” his next-door neighbor, Prudence, called, and he sighed as he turned her way. The old woman carried a pie in her hands as she tried to cross the uneven lawn, and Wyatt jogged toward her.

“Pru,” he said. “You’re going to break another hip.” He took the pie from her and steadied her with his free hand. Baked apples and cinnamon met his nose, and his mouth watered though he’d eaten enough to kill a small horse at lunch. Some of the guys who had to work today had brought in carved turkey and rolls, and he’d eaten at the station too. There was nothing better than a mashed potato slider with turkey and gravy and fresh bread, in his opinion.

“Oh, I’m fine,” the woman said. “How was lunch as your mother’s?”

“Good,” he lied, though it was mostly true. “How was your daughter’s cooking? Edible this time?”

“She catered, thank the heavens,” Pru said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have agreed to go.”

“Do you want to come in for coffee?” he asked. “I bought cookies yesterday too, and Tigger would love to see you.”

“Why do you think I brought out that pie?” She laughed in her raspy voice, and Wyatt smiled down at her. This wasn’t exactly the date he’d been thinking of when he’d bought the red and white spiral cookies at the bakery yesterday. But he didn’t really want to be alone either, and he and Pru had spent many evenings together since Christine’s death. Before that, Pru was often in their home with Christine if Wyatt had something he had to do.

She’d sat with Christine on her last day on earth, even, and Wyatt loved the older woman as if she were his mother too.

“I think I may have lost Deirdre,” he said once they were inside. He’d put Tigger out to take care of his business, and now he busied himself with making coffee.

Pru sat on the couch in the living room, and she called, “How? What happened?”

How could Wyatt explain without betraying Deirdre’s confidence? “I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t think she’s ready, especially to be part of a large family like mine.”

Any family, she’d said. She’d told him that Dalton was unfaithful to her, and that was why they moved every few years and eventually she filed for divorce. He wasn’t sure why that had taught her that a family wasn’t worth having.

He knew she loved her daughter with the fierceness of gravity, and he could see her point about being around other teenagers being hurtful for her. So they wouldn’t go around his mom’s place until the teens were grown up. That wouldn’t be that hard. Or he’d go alone.

But he could just see and hear how his mother would react to that.

Helplessness filled him, and he spooned sugar into a mug and poured a cup before the whole pot was finished. He took it to Pru and handed the mug to her. He sat on the coffee table in front of her.

“I really like her,” he said. “But what if she’s not ready?”

“Give her some time,” Pru said. “She’ll come around.”

His phone bleeped out a warning noise, and Wyatt got up to get it from the counter. He’d put it on silent after leaving his mother’s house, but he had a setting where it would chime if the same number called three times within five minutes.

And the caller this time was his brother, Scott.

Annoyance flashed through him. He’d put his phone on silent for a reason, and Scott knew about Wyatt’s emergency measures. The screen brightened again as he moved to the back door to let in Tigger, but Wyatt didn’t answer his brother’s call.

He had fifteen texts too, all of them in the family group message. Yeah, he wasn’t going to read those right now either.

His mother had called; Melinda too. Eli, one of his officers who’d been on the scene at the pot fire today.

A weariness at being the Chief descended on him again, and he put the phone face-down on the counter and got down another mug. The only person he wanted to talk to was Deirdre, and she hadn’t reached out once.

So tonight, he’d drink his coffee and eat his cookies, all while watching a cheery, romantic movie with Pru.

He’d decide what to do in the morning.

***

Morning brought no clarity, but Wyatt did take Tigger to work with him. The day after Thanksgiving meant a ton of traffic in the downtown area, and nearly all the officers were out of the station that day. Norma always took the day off to go shopping with her daughters and her sister, and Wyatt enjoyed some alone-time in his office with the door closed.

He wondered what Deirdre did on days like today. He wondered if she’d had enough time to think. He wondered if he could stop by later and just check on her. Everyone wanted someone to check on them, didn’t they?

Thinking about you this morning, he tapped out to her. Are you okay?

“Chief,” someone said, opening his door before he could send the texts.

“Yeah, what?” He looked up to find the front desk officer standing there.

“There’s a woman here. McKenna Lotus. She says her ex-boyfriend beat her up. Same guy who drove the car into the building a couple months ago.”

Wyatt was up the moment Parker had mentioned McKenna Lotus. “Bring her in. I’ll talk to her. Who else is here?”

“Just me and Georgia down in records.”

“Get her to cover the desk. I need you with me,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re two deep on this.”

He’d known Stephen Villalobos was bad, just like he knew Deirdre wasn’t going to answer him even if he did text. His heart ached, and he wondered if he should text her, fight for her, or just let her go.

The very idea of not talking to her, not seeing her in the evenings, not kissing her had his whole world in a tailspin.

But he followed Parker out to the front of the station to find McKenna Lotus crying, with a trickle of blood coming from her nose and her arm held delicately against her body.

Everything male and protective and angry inside him roared to life. “McKenna,” he said. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”

“I didn’t know where to go,” she said, her voice too high. “And Bella has always said you’re a friend.”

Wyatt nodded to Parker, who jogged down the hall to the records room. “I just need to cover my front desk,” he said. “And we’ll go.”

“He just came over, and—”

“McKenna,” Wyatt said gently. “Let’s wait until Parker’s back. I want to do this by the book so this guy doesn’t get off on a technicality.” He sat next to her on the bench, but he didn’t touch her. “Okay?”

She sniffled and nodded, and Wyatt took five seconds to look down at his phone.

He was going to fight for Deirdre, and he hit the send button.