“I will keep your secret, Makenna, but you have to let me in.”
I stared into his eyes. The shade was usually the color of the rich brown bark of an oak tree, but under the sun, they were more hazel. Dark foliage green was mixed with the brown. There was only truth in his eyes. I wouldn’t tell anyone this secret, but I wasn’t sure I could offer him what he wanted. To let him in. To see more of me. He already saw too much.
8
Colt
“Colt!” Gabby’s panicked cry was still echoing in my ears, even after our call had been disconnected. The distinct sound of metal crushing against metal rang through the line, but Gabby said nothing as I called out her name. Over and over until there was only silence.
Seconds before she had been talking about the sonogram appointment. I hadn’t gone. Instead, I’d picked up a shift for more money. Money was my driving force lately, my sole focus before we had a baby in our lives. If I was being honest with myself, there might have been some avoidance in there too. Gabby was a one-night-stand turned the mother of my child.
The leather of the steering wheel was creaking beneath my grip, and my booted foot smashed against the gas pedal. Every second that ticked by felt like a lifetime before arriving on the scene.
Seconds later, while I was still calling out her name, my scanner buzzed to life with the report of a crash on the highway. Even without the names of the people involved, I knew she’d be one of them. I flipped on the lights and siren and took off toward the scene. I swerved onto the shoulder when I saw the flashing lights from the ambulance, cop cars, and fire truck up ahead. The air in my lungs was caught and fear was choking me when I slammed on the brakes and slid from the car.
I ran toward her white SUV, smashed between two cars that I barely saw. I only saw hers and the firefighters using a hydraulic pump to pop open her door.
“Gabby!” I yelled.
Hands slammed into my chest, pushing me back. “Stop, Colt. Let them work,” Eric said. He’d graduated from the police academy with me, and we’d joined the Austin Police Department at the same time.
“Move.” I clenched my jaw hard enough to bite through granite as I stared at him, daring him to stop me. He pushed me back again, and I shoved him away from me, but he stayed solid, unyielding. “Get the fuck out of my way, Ulrich. That’s… That’s my….” I stopped, unsure what to call Gabby. “That’s Gabby. Get the fuck out of my way.”
I shoved him again, pushing past him. He crashed into the side of his squad car. I called out her name again as I came to a stop right next to her window. The door was open now, and paramedics were working on her.
“Gabby,” I whispered, staring at her.
I’d seen my first dead body my first day on the job. I’d seen bodies after wrecks, murders, suicides. Nothing could’ve prepared me for looking at Gabby. Someone I knew. Someone who was important to me. Even if our relationship was undefined, she mattered. My heart sank into my gut, and my knees clanged together as my legs shook. Bile churned in my gut and my eyes burned as the world became blurry around me and static filled my ears.
I’d seen that her car was crushed between two other cars, but I hadn’t seen that a two-by-four plank had smashed through her windshield. I didn’t see the truck in front of her with a bed full of unsecured wooden planks. I only saw Gabby in the front seat, wood penetrating her windshield, and the blood from the aftermath.
“Gabby,” I whispered again.
She didn’t respond. She wasn’t going to respond. I knew that, even as the paramedics worked and assessed her, I knew. She was already gone, and the baby I’d never get to meet had gone with her.
I jolted awake, drenched in sweat. My heart hammering through my chest. I sat up in bed, swinging my legs over the side, bare feet pressing into the cool wood floor, and rested my elbows against my knees. I clenched my eyes shut and breathed through the memories slamming through me and swallowed the bitter guilt and failure. I’d gone through that day over and over. Turning it around, upside down, examining every single crash report, interviewing the witnesses myself, but none of it changed the truth: that I knew. I could’ve changed it.
If I hadn’t had her on the phone asking about the appointment—maybe she could’ve braked a second sooner. Even though the call had been hands-free, I had called her. I distracted her.
If I hadn’t taken an extra shift, I would’ve driven her to the appointment. Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten into a crash, or if we’d gotten into the same wreck, it would’ve been me in the driver’s seat with the fatal injury. Better me than her and our baby.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t control the outcome or change it.
It’d been a while since the last time I’d woken up in a cold sweat, plagued by the memories. Sometimes I didn’t know what brought them on, but this time I knew the trigger. I’d worked a wreck the previous day with a pregnant woman. She was fine, not a scratch or bruise on her, but seeing the woman with a swollen stomach in a car with a smashed front end had robbed me of breath.
My vision was spotty as I walked up to her car, which brought me back to a different wreck. A different pregnant woman.
I’d barely gotten to know Gabby. We’d done it all backwards. Started at a baby before really getting to know each other, but we had been trying to see if something could happen between us before the baby arrived.
I lifted my phone, glancing at the time. Thirty minutes before my alarm. It wasn’t worth trying to find sleep again. Even if I had hours, I knew I wouldn’t. After nightmares about Gabby, it was usually days before I could sleep again. It’d been years since I lost her and the baby that I’d never know. She hadn’t wanted to know the sex of the baby, so I didn’t know if it was a son or daughter that I’d lost. The bundles I’d pictured in my arms over the years had changed from a blue blanket to a pink one.
In the bathroom, I slipped out of my briefs and turned on the shower and stepped into the cold spray, letting it shock my system and wash away the sweat and the memories. I forced my mind to think of the 1965 Ford Mustang that I’d been slowly restoring. It was a beast of a project, but it was something I could control. There might be some bumps during the restoration, but I could tackle them and control the outcome.
It was a place to slip away from the guilt of the things I’d failed at. The outcomes I couldn’t control.
Gabby and our baby.
Shayla.
People I’d tried to save on the job and couldn’t.
I stepped out of the shower just as the doorbell rang. I wrapped a towel around my waist, strolling to the front door. It was still early, the sun barely cresting above the hills. Even through the hammered glass, I knew it was Makenna.
I swung open the door and watched her eyes as they tracked down my body.
9
Makenna
A drop of water fell from Colt’s wet hair and splashed against his chest. I followed the rolling drop as it cascaded over his muscles, straight down the center of his chest, and rolled over the hills and valleys of his abs. I swallowed as the droplet of water met the navy towel at his waist, and my gaze slid back up his body to meet his eyes. I knew my cheeks were red, but I tried to refocus, blocking out everything except for his face. I ignored his strong shoulders, one of them tattooed, and his chest with hair that I found incredibly sexy and manly. I gulped.