Page 76 of Meet Cute or Your Money Back

Thatcher

Lying there in the aftermath, with Allie’s head on my chest and the erratic thrum of our heartbeats syncing slowly, I dare to let my guard down. Our breathing steadies, and something shifts inside me—a door that’s been closed for so long, creaking open.

Not fully open, mind you. But a crack.

I lift my hand, brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead, and allow myself to really look at her. Vulnerability swims in her eyes and I wonder what it would be like to be so open. I’ve kept an ocean of emotions dammed up for years, threatening to overflow… Could I release that dam? For Allie?

“Hey,” she says, her voice soft and tentative in the quiet room. It unknots something within me. “Are you okay?”

Without meaning to, I jerk back with the question, caught by surprise. The words stumble out of my mouth like a drunken bumblebee, its wings beating frantically against the walls of my guarded heart.

“What do you mean?”

The gentle rise and fall of her chest as Allie breathes is in stark contrast with her eyes, wide with concern and searching my face for any sign of distress. “It’s just…” She seems to falter, chewing on her full bottom lip.

I brush my thumb over the spot and tug gently until it pops free. “Tell me,” I demand gently.

She takes a slow breath, then says, “Duke mentioned something about his mom passing a while ago.”

It’s a statement, not a question. Duke talked to Allie about Jenna? How long has she known? I barely talk about Jenna with my best friends…so bringing this up with someone I have such new feelings for is uncharted territory. But if I’m going to trust anyone with the ghosts that haunt me, it would be this woman—quirky, brave, and impossibly endearing Allie Larsen.

“Jenna,” I say. “Her name was Jenna…” My voice trails off as I prepare to bare my soul, not knowing how she’ll take it, but fully aware that I can’t hold back any longer. Not from her. Not after tonight.

I clasp her hand, the warmth a stark contrast to the chill that has nothing to do with the room’s temperature. “We lost her only months after Duke was born,” I begin, the words feeling like shards of glass in my mouth. “And it was my fault. She told me…” I pause again, a momentary pause stopping me. I haven’t admitted the truth about Jenna’s death to anyone other than Hunter and Griffin and a few superiors in the force.

I trust Allie…I think. But that’s the thing with a dam release, isn’t it? You can’t control the flow once you remove the blockage. The water will come pouring out.

Allie gives my hand an encouraging squeeze. Even though I want to trust her, I still need to be smart about this. I can’t bring Drakon’s name into it. Not withoutputting Allie in danger. “She told me she thought she had a stalker. I didn’t listen. I—I thought she was overreacting, stressed from work and being a new mom.”

The silence hangs heavy as I pause, each heartbeat pounding against my rib cage like it wants out, like it can’t bear the weight of my confession. It isn’t just saying the words out loud that’s getting to me; it’s the fact that I live with this knowledge, this guilt, every damn day.

“How did she…” Allie starts to ask and then fades away, trying to rephrase. “I mean, what happened?”

“Officially, it was a car accident,” I say, my voice deadpan. “The other driver had a heart attack behind the wheel and there was a head-on collision that killed them both.”

Allie’s quiet for a moment before she asks, “But unofficially…?”

“Unofficially, some things don’t line up with that. The person behind the wheel was indirectly related to my day job. And there wasn’t a single person who could corroborate the story, which struck me as odd. How was it there were no witnesses to this high-speed head-on collision at seven p.m.?” I pause and shake my head, trying to bury the emotion clogging my throat with this admission. “And in her autopsy, they found a bruise on her neck.”

“That…that could be from her seat belt, right?” Allie offers. It’s the same argument every other person not related to our mission has said. It’s the obvious answer.

I tap my index finger nervously against her arm as I shake my head. “It was the exact size of a thumbprint. And there was a darker band at the base of the bruise with three little indents as if?—”

“As if someone wearing a ring strangled her first,” Allie whispers.

I nod and exhale a breath. It’s a reliefto say it all out loud to someone other than Griff and Hunter. And have her believe me on top of that.

Still naked, with Allie in my arms, shame suddenly overtakes me. Here I am confiding in my new lover about my wife whom I let die? I don’t deserve to move on. I don’t deserve to find happiness. I drop my gaze to the light blue sheets beneath us. “I should have listened to her.”

“That’s not your fault,” Allie whispers, her voice a soothing balm. She reaches up, her fingertips lightly tracing the line of my jaw, drawing me to look at her again.

Her empathy wraps around me, a stark reminder of what I’ve been missing in my life these last five years—what I’ve shut myself off from. How can she sit here, so full of understanding, when I let Jenna down?

“Isn’t it though?” The question slips out, raw and ragged. “Because I can’t shake this feeling—that if I’d listened, if I’d taken her seriously...” I break off, unable to finish the sentence, the guilt gnawing through my defenses.

Allie’s hazel eyes hold mine, steady and sure. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. Hindsight is always clearer. You did what you thought was right at the time. That’s all any of us can do.”

“I did what was right formeat the time. I was busy with—” I stop short of saying the name Drakon. I trust Allie, but I can’t drag her into this either. I still need to be cautious. “I was busy with a case and exhausted with a newborn. Yes, I thought I was right, but it was still selfish,” I mutter, the burden of years threatening to crush me.

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