Page 60 of The Moment They Can Never Forgive
“About?” Dan was still looking at the door Bart had walked through.
“You and Leah. Sounds to me like you and her had a good thing.”
“Nope. We’re not going there,” Dan said. “You go in. I’m just checking around the back of the Rollaway to make sure no one is puking.”
“Never took you for a chicken, Deputy Dan,” JD said, clucking.
“I could drop you in a heartbeat, pretty boy, so maybe remember that. Or I’ll arrest you, and you’ll have to spend the night in the cell, which will play hell with your skincare regime and John Lobb loafers.”
“I don’t wear loafers,” JD said with a smirk.
Dan walked away, wondering who else thought he and Leah had something good going on before she’d left him. It hadn’t just been good. It had been everything. And after what had happened between them in her kitchen, he couldn’t leave it there. He needed her to talk to him, to face what was still burning between them. But first, he had to get her alone.
Yawning, he took the narrow drive between buildings to the rear of the Rollaway. He’d just got off duty, and the night had been uneventful other than Mrs. Landers cutting off the power cord to her glue gun, which she used to make her ceramics, and Dan hadn’t had to do too much.
The loud thud of music accompanied him as he walked, and he knew that inside the Rollaway, there would be plenty of drunk, happy women. Leah was one of them. Well, he hoped she was happy.
Reaching the rear of the property, he heard no sounds of anyone throwing up, but he did hear something. Almost like a soft moaning. No, crying maybe? Moving closer, he saw a woman with her face pressed into the side of the Rollaway. The security light a few feet to the right showed him her hair. He knew those curls, even if they were pulled back.
“Leah, are you okay?”
She didn’t look his way. Dan saw her shoulders were shaking, which told him she was crying, but no sound came out. This time it didn’t look like panic, just tears.
“Are you okay, Leah?” he repeated.
“Go away.”
“I can’t do that until you tell me you’re okay.”
She didn’t speak, just kept crying.
“Hey, come on, now. Let’s get you back inside,” Dan said. He felt as helpless as the next man when faced with a woman’s tears, but especially this woman’s. It made his chest burn, seeing her pain.
Leah ignored him. She wasn’t making a lot of noise, but there was a desperation to the gentle sounds coming from her. These weren’t just drunken tears—they were heartbroken ones.
Dan touched her shoulder. “Let me help you, Leah.” He turned her with the hand on her shoulder.
She tried to fight him, but he won and saw the devastation on her face. Tears dampened her cheeks and had smeared mascara under her eyes.
“Leah? What’s happened?” A fist squeezed hard in his chest as she pressed a hand to her mouth to stop more tears.
“G-go,” she stammered out.
“No. Who hurt you?”
“Please.”
He shook his head. “Tell me why you are out here alone, crying like your heart has broken. Who hurt you?” The anger that anyone could have done this to her made him want to find them and extract retribution even as he knew the thought was not a rational one. But then this was Leah. He’d never been rational around her.
The eyes she lifted to his were deep pools of despair.
“Leah,” he whispered her name.
“I miss her.”
He understood then. These tears were for Cassie. Sister and friend, and the only family who had loved her.
“I’m sorry you lost her,” he whispered, pulling her closer.
