Page 70 of Killer on the Homestead
“You should be at the hospital. You don’t need to worry about us.”
Duncan looked from his mother to his father. He worried about them, and there was no stopping it. This was devastating. But there was nothing Duncan could do to fix that, andthatsat on his chest like a heavy weight.
Dad stood, cleared his throat. “I’m going to need to go tell the ranch hands before the rumors go wild.”
“I can—”
Dad shook his head. “This is my responsibility, Duncan. You stay with your mother.” He strode out of the room.
Duncan looked at Mom, who was watching Dad with worry in her eyes. But she closed them, inhaled and exhaled carefully.
“He’ll be all right. It’ll be all right. It’ll just take some time to…smooth out. You should go see Rosalie. And while you’re gone, I’ll make her a cake. Some cookies. A feast.”
Duncan laughed in spite of himself. It felt almost normal. Bad things happened, and Mom swooped into action and comforted with food. It felt good and right.
He figured he could leave her and she and Dad would just be fine. After all, they had each other. Always had.
Still, he pulled her into a hug, and he squeezed her tight, wanting to transfer some kind of certainty that everything from here on out would be okay. For a moment, she even let him.
Then she pulled back, patted his cheek. “We’ll all be all right. No one gets through life without some hard times. Love is what gets us through.”
Because the sheen of tears in her eyes twisted painfully in his heart, he tried to lighten the mood. “Is that a not-so-subtle hint, Mother?”
She smiled at him. “I love you, Duncan. And I’m very proud of the man you are, who’d rush into help and save others, even though it’s not your job.”
“Everything good I am is because of you and Dad. Everything.”
A tear slipped over onto her cheek, so he pulled her into another hug. Yeah, life was hard. But no matter the hard, he always had them, and they had each other all these years.
They’d all be just fine.
Rosalie felt nauseous. They’d stitched her up, done annoying tests on her cognitive situation, then yapped at her incessantly about concussions.
They were keeping her overnight, just to be sure she hadn’t done more damage than they could see at the moment. Which was annoying as all get out.
Almost as annoying as Audra flittering around the room trying to make itcomfortable. Rosalie was glad when someoneelse came into the room, even if that someone elsewasCopeland Beckett.
“She’s resting,” Audra said primly, scowling at the detective.
To Copeland’s credit, healmostlooked sheepishly at Audra. “No more questions. Just an apology.”
“An apology?” Rosalie said. “Come on in.”
Copeland’s mouth quirked as he moved closer to Rosalie’s bed, clearly ignoring Audra’s scowl.
“I could have told you we’d narrowed in on Terry Boothe,” he said, almost sounding contrite. “That might have avoided today’s events.”
“Shouldhave told me.Wouldhave avoided.” Except she wasn’t so sure about that. Everyone had been working for answers, and sometimes there was just no one right way to find them. They’d worked together, and just happened to coalesce on the same point without enough time to avoid Terry’s violence.
“I don’t owe you details on an ongoing investigation,” Copeland said irritably. “It’s not my fault we were coming to the same conclusions at the same time.”
Rosalie grinned at him, immensely cheered at his bad attitude. “I thought this was an apology.”
Copeland grumbled something under his breath. “I am sorry you got caught up in this. But you handled yourself.” He jerked his chin toward the bandage on her head. “You and your baseball player.”
“Yeah, he saved the day. So did I. You…?”
“Arrived in the nick of time and arrested the guy? You’re welcome.”
