Page 166 of Risky Passion

He lightly smacked my bottom. “You’re a tease.”

I grinned. “Me? I’m still recovering from all those FaceTimes you did with your shirt off.”

He smiled at me like my comment was the best news he’d had all day.

In the bedroom, I flopped onto the bed and as Jaxson unzipped his bag and started unpacking, my mind wandered, and I couldn’t stop wondering, or hoping, that he was finally going to bring up the “something” he wanted to talk about.

He hung his clothes in the cupboard with a deliberate calm that was driving me just a little crazy. Finally, he turned, reached for my hand, and tugged me to my feet. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get some fresh air.”

We stepped out onto the back verandah, which stretched the full length of the schoolhouse. The air was warm, but thankfully not too hot to sweat off the makeup that I’d put on for the first time since . . . I didn’t know when.

Jaxson led me to a swinging chair as if he’d known it was there, and I giggled as I plopped myself into it, sweeping my feet up under me.

He sat beside me, and the chair rocked gently with our weight. Reaching for my hand, he laced his fingers with mine. His grip was warm and steady, but the worry in his expression made my stomach twist.

He cleared his throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Okay.” My heart thudded against my ribs as I braced myself. This was going to be bad, I just knew it.

As his jaw worked, like he was wrestling with the words he needed to say, the gentle creak of the swing’s chains filled the quiet space between us.

“Jaxson,” I said softly, squeezing his hand. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

He exhaled heavily, and his shoulders sagged. “It’s about my sister, Charlotte.”

I racked my brain, searching for her name in our discussions, but couldn’t remember.

“When Charlotte was sixteen, she went to her friend’s seventeenth birthday party.” The tension radiating off him wasnearly visible.

My heart thundered as I dreaded what he was going to tell me.

“She left the party at around 7:30 p.m. after a fight with her best friend, Lola, the birthday girl. That was the last time anyone saw her.”

“Oh my god.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. “What happened?”

“The party was at Lola’s house, which backs onto bushland. Charlotte would’ve walked through that bush to get home. She’d done it hundreds of times before, just like she did nearly every afternoon after school.”

I placed my other hand over his.

“The police interrogated everyone. Our family, her friends. You wouldn’t believe the things people said. That she’d run away. That she’d been abducted. That our dad . . .” His voice caught, and he swallowed hard. “That our dad was molesting her. They even accused Whitney of doing something to her because he was the only one without an alibi.”

“Jesus.”

“Nothing was ever substantiated,” he said, bitterness lacing his tone, “but it didn’t matter. The damage was done. Our family was never the same after that. Me, Parker, and Whitney all wanted to become cops because of what happened to our sister. But Whitney never graduated. Those unfounded accusations followed him everywhere, and I’m certain that’s why he failed the psych evaluation.”

“Shit,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry for you all.”

“It’s been twenty years, Tory,” he said quietly. “And we’ve never stopped looking for her. Not for a second.” Pain radiated in his words.

I hesitated, unsure if I should ask, but I needed to know. “Why didn’t you tell me this during one of our calls?”

He pulled his hand free from mine as he dropped his gaze to the worn wood of the verandah beneath us. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy with guilt. “Because it’s my fault.”

“What?” I asked, stunned.

“The night she went missing. Mom asked me or Parker to walk Charlotte home after the party,” he said, his jaw tightening. “But I thought Parker was going to do it, and he thought I was going to do it. By the time her friend called to see if she was home, she’d been gone for nearly three hours.”

My chest tightened as his eyes clouded with the kind of pain that never faded.

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