Page 41 of The Chase
Kurt stood, and stepped into the hall, after Jackson and Garth headed down the opposite direction. He needed to call the sitter, check on his girls. Make sure they were okay without him for a little while.
When he turned around—thereshewas.
Alone.
She hadn’t been alone all evening. “Hey. Honey, you need me?”
Greer gave him that little look of hers that said she thought he was being a damned idiot. “Never.”
He reached out, brushed a hand over her elbow. Greer had the softest skin of any woman he had ever touched. He wantedto touch her…everywhere. Forever. Did that make him a creep or an asshole?
Then her arms were open and she was reaching for him. Kurt just scooped her close. He hadn’t missed the fact that she could have walked right in on what had happened today.
Helovedthis woman in front of him. He would never deny that again. “Any new word on your brother?”
Whenever someone would bring an update, her parents and oldest brother George would step out of the room with the medical personnel—Greer’s doctor brother’s girlfriend or fiancée or whatever she was. Kurt was clear on the other side of the room each time.
He knew how much she loved her family. “I hate that you are hurting.”
If he could make it all better for her, he would.
His fingers spread, over her elbow. “Look at me, honey. Come on, look at me.”
“Why would I even want to do that?” But she was pressing closer, wasn’t she?
Kurt just held her as long as he could. All he wanted was for her to forgive him and love him again. He would do anything for that to happen.
“Because I’m not going away. And you are hurting. And I wish I could just make it better somehow.”
Kurt just held her, right there in the middle of the hospital, for as long as he could. “I’m not going anywhere.”
33
He neededto reevaluate just how he was going to capture his woman forever. But, well, Kurt just wasn’t good at that part of things, apparently.
He picked up his phone—it wasn’ttoolate. Not considering that she’d probably just made it back to the Hiller ranch a little while ago. He’d waited in the hospital parking lot for her to leave with her parents and her tiny fairy sister.
It hadn’t been deliberate—he’d only just left the waiting room a few minutes earlier, after Jackson had taken Garth back to sit with Marie for the night. Janie had taken the children to the Barratt Finley Creek for a few nights. Kurt had given her some money to do that—Marie and Garth’s, and Janie’s—house would need to be cleanedfirst.And Brenton’s. Jessica had attacked Brenton in his own home. How could Janie take two innocent kids back to that?
Kurt would never forget what witnessing violence had done to him and Kevin as kids. There had been nine years between them—Kevin had once protected Kurt. He’d beengoodat heart once.
Kurt was still digging into what had really happened to his brother. And why. He was finding disturbing reports in the social services files he’d had an investigator with Lassiter Investigations look into. But he had different directions to look in now.
Thanks to what Greer’s father had told him. Things Lassiter had been able to actually confirm, now that they knew the right direction to go in.
Kevin had gone…wrong. Bad, and not just when he was with the Hillers. Kurt was just trying to figure out why those reports had been covered up. Years before what had happened to Greer.
Hell, Kevin had been almost twenty-four when he’d hurt Greer. He’d lived with the Hillers when he’d been seventeen and a half. They’d gone into foster care when Kurt had been four and Kevin thirteen.
Five years later Kevin had aged out. And been arrested thirty-two times between eighteen and his death at twenty-four and ten months. Yet Kurt hadn’t seen those arrest reports until now. Not a single one, until Lassiter had found them.
It didn’t make a damned bit of sense to him at all.
Unless someone in the department of family services in this area was hiding something, at least twenty-something years ago. Kevin’s files just looked weird to him—and to Lassiter. They hadn’t found a satisfying answer yet.
And Kurt wasn’t too thrilled with that idea—considering where Greer worked now.
There were a lot of gaps and holes in his brother’s file. Holes Kurt was going to fill in. He’d already started gathering information—stretching from Oklahoma to Brownsville. He was just getting started.
