Battered Hearts 3: Crossing the line (47 page)

“Maybe.” Wyatt smiled, thinking of his sister’s new sons and how his and Jules’s lives tended to mirror each other whether they wanted them to or not. “It’s entirely possible.”

Both of the investigators stood, and Wyatt pushed back from the desk and then shook both their hands. The one who had been concerned over Jules when they were back in the hospital reached out and patted Wyatt’s back. “Enjoy the last few days of leave and spend time with your new nephews.”

“I will, thanks.” Wyatt walked to his office door and opened it. “They’re coming home with my sister from the hospital tonight so they’ll be settled for Thanksgiving. It’s good.”

“Great news. Sorry that boy had to go and make an already stressful situation worse. Bad timing, but I’m glad it’s all working out okay.”

“Me too.” Wyatt had to stop himself from laughing in disbelief at how easy this was. “I’ll walk y’all out.”

Wyatt walked the investigators out and then went back to his office. He sat down at the desk he wasn’t supposed to be at until he was cleared for duty again. Any shooting, justified or not, earned a cop paid administrative leave until the investigation was finished.

Shooting Vaughn Davis should’ve ruined his life.

Instead it earned him a vacation.

He touched his desk, wondering what in the hell Nova Moretti said to Vaughn to make him so agreeable. Wyatt was sure he didn’t want to know. He’d asked, of course, when he found out Vaughn wasn’t pressing charges, because there was no way he believed that asshole came to that decision all on his own.

But Nova had looked him in the face and flat-out denied it.

Anyone who could teach Wyatt to lie in one afternoon, when he’d been terrible at it his entire life, was good at sticking to his story. No matter how many questions Wyatt barked at him, Nova just stared at him, unflinching, and denied any involvement besides helping him keep his story straight.

Nova was
very
good at what he did.

But he wasn’t a bad person. He was actually a really good person life put in a bad situation. It seemed very unfair that Wyatt’s mistakes were staining Nova Moretti’s soul worse than it already was.

He was still contemplating it when Adam walked in and shut the door louder than necessary. The thump of something falling off the bookshelf had Wyatt glancing back, but then Adam spoke.

“Did they tell ya when you’re coming back?”

“Few more days.” Wyatt turned back to Adam. “Sorry this stuck ya with so much extra work.”

“I’m just glad it’s all getting done.” Adam fell down into the one of the seats the investigators vacated. “How come you didn’t say anything ’bout your radio being broke that Monday?”

Wyatt gave him a hard look. “You’re part of the investigation, Adam. You’re not supposed to be talking ’bout it with me.”

“Shoot, Sheriff.” Adam shook his head. “It was a justified shooting. That boy is completely strung out. We’ve known it for a long time now. Why do you have to be so technical with everything?”

“I guess it’s just bred in me.” Wyatt stood up and grabbed his jacket off the coat hanger in the corner. “I’m gonna go home to my wife and enjoy the last of my paid leave.”

“Sounds good.” Adam nodded. “We got it here. Have a good holiday.”

Wyatt put on his jacket, noting the picture on the floor. He walked over and picked it up, finding his father’s face looking back at him. It should’ve felt ominous. Like a warning or a reprimand for the mistakes he’d made.

Instead, he stared at it and felt something very different. This was a man who’d spent most of his life without a partner, pining for the one he’d lost. For so long now Wyatt thought he’d inherited more than his father’s high blood pressure. He’d followed in his footsteps for a lot of years.

Now he had a second chance.

He put the picture back on the bookshelf, letting go of his father’s legacy of loneliness. Life had taught Wyatt nothing if not the value of making sacrifices worth it.

He decided he owed it to Nova to let it all go.

“I guess I’ll wish you Happy Thanksgiving a day early.” Wyatt patted Adam’s shoulder. “Sorry you’re stuck working it this year.”

“You’ve worked it every year for the past six years. I can take a turn.”

“Well, I surely appreciate it.” Wyatt opened his office door once more. “Tell Kesha thank you.”

“Say hi to Jules for us. Tell her we wanna see those babies as soon as she’s up and moving.” Adam walked with him to the front doors of the sheriff’s office. “And say hi to Tabitha too. You know, Sheriff, I reckoned I ain’t ever told you congratulations ’bout that. That was something. Her coming back. All these years I’ve been working here, I didn’t even know you were married.”

Wyatt snorted. “Don’t take it personal. Most folks didn’t.”

“Why’d she leave?” Adam winced as he said it. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I made a mistake. I let her go.” Wyatt held up his hands and gave him a sad smile. “Now I reckon I got the rest of our lives to make it up to her. It’s more than other Conners got.”

“You got three more days of paid leave.” Adam gestured to Wyatt’s SUV in the parking lot. “Best get started.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that.” Wyatt left Adam standing in the sheriff’s office. “See ya after the holiday.”

* * * *

“He just left. For no dang reason. Just packed up and left. Good-for-nothing bastard. After all I’ve done for him.”

Tabitha arched her eyebrow as she sat at the kitchen table in the old Conner house and listened to her mother sob. The old Tabitha would’ve felt bad to hear her mother so distraught. The new Tabitha just pointed out, “I doubt you were crying like this when I packed up and left.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t like us,” she growled. “You never understood me like he did.”

“No, Mama, I didn’t,” Tabitha agreed. “Not at all.”

“Now I’m all alone. I got no one.” She let out a sob of misery. “Ain’t ya at least coming over for Thanksgiving?”

“No, I’m not. I’m going to Jules’s house for Thanksgiving.”

“I can’t believe you went and married into that family.” Her mother’s voice was slurred with drunken indignation despite the recent heart surgery Tabitha had paid for. “Those Conners think they’re better than everyone. You think you’re better than everyone too, but I don’t need you or your money. I can be alone. I don’t need anyone.”

“I have to go now.” Tabitha looked up when Wyatt walked in through the back door. “I have things to do.”

“What things?”

“Important things.”

“And I suppose I ain’t important?”

“No, you’re not,” Tabitha said as she looked at Wyatt, who stood in the kitchen pulling off his coat. “I have a life now, Mama, and it doesn’t include you anymore. I’m spending Thanksgiving with my real family.”

Her mother huffed on the other line. “Well, I don’t need you either.”

Tabitha flinched when her mother hung up. She looked at her cell phone until the screen went dark. Then she set it down, surprised at just how little she felt over the entire exchange. Which, she was pretty sure, meant she was getting better.

She knew it wasn’t the last time she was going to talk to her mother.

But it
was
the last time she was going to let herself be hurt and controlled by her. If her mama died alone, Tabitha supposed that was her own fault, because she wasn’t sacrificing herself for that woman anymore.

“That was awesome, Tab,” Wyatt said with a laugh of disbelief. “I think that just made my life. What was wrong with her, anyhow?”

“Brett left.” Tabitha lifted her head and gave Wyatt a smile. “He just packed up and left town. Left the whole dang state. He told her he was moving to California.”

“That’s—” Wyatt started as he raised his eyebrows. “Not really all that shocking. I’m pretty sure we know who to thank for that.”

“Yeah.” Tabitha smiled as she glanced to her laptop, staring at the book she was working on. “How’d the last of the questioning go?”

Wyatt held up his hands. “Looks like I’m back to work after the holiday.”

Tabitha looked at her phone again, shocked at what this all meant.

“Are we okay?” she asked in awe. “Are we
actually
gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I think we actually are.” Wyatt sounded dazed over it too. “I mean, Vaughn is looking at thirty years easy. Shooting at a sheriff. He was over the legal limit, and he had crack cocaine in his system while he was on probation. That boy will die in prison for sure.”

“What did Nova say to him to make that the better option?” Tabitha asked in amazement. “What did he say to my brother? He was living for free in that house. Now he’s gonna go off to California? He might have to get an actual job. I can’t even imagine him doing that.”

“Tab—” Wyatt shook his head. “I don’t think either of us are ever gonna find out what Nova said to them, and maybe it’s better that we don’t.”

“Yeah?” Tabitha was surprised. Wyatt wasn’t one to let things go. “How come?”

“’Cause I think, whatever it is he did, it bought me a happy ending with my girl.” Wyatt smiled. “And I really wanted one.”

Tabitha pushed away from the table and stood. Wyatt met her halfway and wrapped his arms around her. He laid his cheek against the top of her head and whispered, “I love you, Tabby Cat.”

She hugged him back and whispered, “I love you too.”

* * * *

Three weeks after Vaughn Davis was released on bail pending his trial, he was found dead in his trailer. Wyatt had to apologize to Adam for being the one forced to go on the call. Wyatt couldn’t do it. He still had too much of a conflict of interest, or he would have. Finding a body eight days gone was never a pleasant experience for a cop. He tried to spare his deputies as much as he could, but this one was out of his hands.

Wyatt expected a gunshot wound.

What they got was a heroin overdose. Vaughn had been a known addict for most of his life. No one questioned it—except Wyatt.

He questioned it again when Tabitha’s brother turned up dead six months later of a similar overdose.

Nova hadn’t been in Garnet when Vaughn died.

He hadn’t been in California when Brett died.

Yet Wyatt knew he’d been the one to pull the trigger.

A nice, neat trigger without any loose ends, but a trigger nonetheless.

Wyatt let it go rather than investigate it.

Tabitha told him the story about the hundred-dollar bill she’d given Nova in the bar when he was twelve.

It was a lot of money to her at the time.

But it was still a pretty good price for a happy ending.

Part Ten

Happy Endings

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

—Bruce Lee

Chapter Thirty-Six

One Year Later

Christmas Eve 2013

Tabitha pulled the string-bean casserole out of the oven and set it there.

Then she knelt down to check on the ham.

“Don’t burn it,” Wyatt said as he came in from the outside with snow in his hair and dusting the shoulders of his sheriff’s jacket. “Last year all they had over there was fish and scallops and a whole host of other weird things I ain’t never heard of before. Just no, that ain’t right. Folks are supposed to eat ham on Christmas.”

“Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian tradition on Christmas Eve,” Tabitha argued. “It’s important to them. It reminds them of their mother.”

“I appreciate that, but I’m not eating octopus salad for Christmas Eve this year. I want ham.”

“You shouldn’t be eating ham at all.”

“I ain’t even on the blood pressure medication anymore.” Wyatt held up his hands. “Doc Philips says he’s gonna have you write up a diet for his other patients. That’s what a vast improvement you policing my diet has made. Once a year won’t kill me.”

Tabitha closed the oven and smiled at him. “Fifteen more minutes. Melody’s making turkey and stuffing. It won’t be just seafood this year.”

“Merry Christmas to me.” Wyatt seemed very pleased over the development as he walked over and kissed her. He put a hand on her rounded stomach and waggled his eyebrows. “Fifteen minutes, huh?”

She giggled. “I need a shower. I’ve been cooking all day.”

“You didn’t overdo it?” Wyatt frowned in concern as he wrapped an arm around her and rubbed at the small of her back. “I wish I could cook so you didn’t have to do all this.”

“That would be a dispatch call just waiting to happen.” Tabitha laughed. “You’d burn this place down for sure, and considering the amount of money we spent on restoring this year, I’d rather you didn’t.”

“How ’bout I wash your back?” Wyatt placed a kiss against her forehead. “Make it up to you.”

“That sounds like more than fifteen minutes.”

“Nah, a lot can happen in fifteen minutes.” Wyatt pulled back and tugged off his jacket as he headed toward the living room. “Come on, Tabby Cat. I got something to make up to my girl.”

Tabitha giggled again and reached over to turn down the temperature on the oven, because showers with Wyatt always lasted more than fifteen minutes. She took the time to cover the green beans with foil so they wouldn’t get cold.

Then she started working the buttons to her blouse as she followed Wyatt up the stairs. She walked past Wyatt’s old room as she headed down the hallway and pushed open the door to the master bedroom instead. Steam was already coming out from beneath the door to the bathroom. She pulled her maternity top off and walked over to lay it over the chair at her desk that faced the balcony doors.

The room was beautiful. They had spared no expense to make it exactly what they wanted. They didn’t live an overly extravagant lifestyle despite being able to afford it, but they were indulgent with the bedroom when they’d remodeled.

When Tabitha had gotten pregnant, Wyatt and Jules made the decision together that it was time to clear out the ghosts and make room for a new generation of Conners. They had worked together at packing their father’s old things, which was an emotional day for both of them. Jules took half of the pictures and furnishings to her house. The rest remained.

Big Fred’s old dresser held Wyatt’s clothes now. The picture of his wife that Fred used to talk to every night was resting on top of it. Right next to the spot where Wyatt tossed his badge, wallet, and car keys every time he got home and stripped out of his uniform.