It was my unfortunate luck that fate was determined to have love, death, and Kody Lawton pulling my strings for an eternity. I’d never wanted to tell her she’d lost someone else. Never planned on being the guy who continually trampled her heart. But here I was, so many years later, getting ready to explain to all the Lawton kids their father had been murdered. And it was my job to find his killer.
Chapter 1
Kody
I skipped over the first stage of grief after hearing about my father’s murder and went right to stage two…anger. I had little use for denial, bargaining, depression, or acceptance. The last time I’d lost someone I loved, I’d suffered through all the stages and still ended up feeling lost and alone. This time I knew anger served me well. Anger kept me going. Anger was a comfortable, familiar feeling when it came to my father. It was an emotion I had no problem embracing when word of his murder made its way around the small town where our family had lived for generations.
Loveless was a tight-knit community, one with a lot of secrets and a history of looking the other way when bad things happened. However, those bad things were forever discussed in hushed voices after church and in low tones in passing. The fact that Conrad Lawton, my father and the town’s sheriff for many, many years, had been found murdered just outside of Austin was bound to be the only topic of conversation for months to come. The thought made my skin crawl and fueled the silent fury I’d been clinging to since I’d gotten the news my father was no longer around to be a major thorn in my side.
But my anger was complicated. I didn’t want false sympathy from the folks who whispered when my back was turned that the old man had deserved it. I didn’t want to hear the gossip about how Conrad Lawton’s notorious misdeeds had finally caught up to him. I didn’t want to see the curious looks weighing and judging how I and my two older brothers were dealing with the loss of the man who had demeaned and emotionally terrorized us throughout our childhoods. If I showed any sort of regret, the busybodies and rumor mill would start churning out theories that tales of our tortured youth had been exaggerated. Yet if I wasn’t sad enough that Conrad had met a violent, brutal end, I would never hear the end of that.
People in Loveless already questioned my motives, sanity, and capability. If they decided I wasn’t responding appropriately to the news that my father had been murdered, I would become more of an outcast than I already was. And my bar, which was barely staying afloat as it was, would undoubtedly go under.
So anger it was. We were old friends anyway.
I lived it. I breathed it. I spread it around to the point that my brothers and everyone else who loved me were walking on eggshells, not knowing when or where I was going to explode next. I was unpredictable and volatile. Which wasn’t exactly new, but I’d gotten better at controlling myself as I’d gotten older. But after I got the news about my father, all my old, uncontrollable impulses seemed to roar back to life, and I was back to being a prickly, easily provoked mess. It didn’t help matters that the person who came bearing the bad news was the last person on the planet I wanted to hear such devastating words from.
It felt like every single time my disorderly world was finally righting itself, Hill Gamble and his stupidly handsome face would show up and send everything spiraling chaotically out of control once again. I’d started to associate Hill with everything bad that had ever happened in my life, so naturally, where my unchecked anger was concerned, Hill always seemed to end up being the main target. Since he’d delivered the news of my father’s death, I had a hard time recalling a single second when I wasn’t absolutely furious at the gorgeous Texas Ranger. It should’ve been exhausting, but the warmth from the rage Hill sent swirling through my blood was the only heat I felt anymore.
I grew up in a house mostly devoid of love and affection. Sure, my mother doted on me and my brothers, but she did it knowing she would have to bear the brunt of my father’s temper anytime he thought she was being too soft on us. There was no love between them, only fear and impossible expectations. My older brothers, Crew and Case, loved me unconditionally, but sometimes that love leaned into their being overprotective and overbearing. Especially after our mother died. I’d had to push them back in order to breathe, in order to live any kind of life of my own. Their love was tinted with several shades of pain and remorse and always came with the dark shadows of our shared history. It was ultimately a cold, and slightly savage, upbringing.
When I was a teenager, I thought I’d finally found the kind of love that would chase away the chill that always lingered inside my heart. When Hill and Aaron Gamble came crashing into my life, they brought the sun and the promise of better days ahead with them. Hill reminded me of my oldest brother, Case. He was serious, steady, focused on the future and a life outside of Loveless, Texas. He was reserved and thoughtful, always watching and evaluating the world around him. He was also too beautiful for words. I literally had a hard time forming words around him. Luckily, Aaron Gamble was far easier to approach. He was quiet, moody, and sweet enough to give a girl cavities. He was the first boy who made me smile. He was the first boy brave enough to be my friend. Neither my brothers’ warnings nor my father’s ugly reputation was enough to scare Aaron off when I started to cling to him. He was my first best friend, and later on my first love. I wanted to believe the warmth he brought into my life, and into my heart, would last forever, but things were never that simple. It wasn’t until I promised to marry Aaron Gamble that I realized exactly how cold I could be on the inside.
Loving him forced my icy heart to thaw. Losing him froze it right back up and shattered the brittle block of ice into a million pieces. I was certain I was never going to be warm again. I got used to living with a frigid void inside my chest. I tolerated the constant chill embedding itself deep into my bones.
From the start I never knew what to do with the heat Hill brought with him when he crept into my thoughts. I would never be as angry at anyone as I was at my father, but Hill owned the second spot on my shit list. I refused to think about why he was the only person who always managed to make me forget I was frozen solid on the inside. It bugged me to no end that Hill didn’t even have to try to make me feel like my insides were kindling for an impending inferno. He just did.
I hated that he was the one who was going to be investigating my father’s death, not because he wasn’t good at his job, but because it meant he was going to be hanging around Loveless and my family far more than I was comfortable with. It grated on my last nerve that with little effort, Hill still managed to make my whole world spin off its axis. I didn’t want him to have that kind of power in my life. I didn’t want anyone to have that effect on me.
But Hill always had. And still did…
When he calmly and coolly informed me that my dad was dead, I hit him.
Was it fair? No.
Did he deserve it? Absolutely not.
But once again, I couldn’t control my anger around him. It was the second time Hill was the one explaining to me that a man who had fundamentally changed me had been taken away. Since there was no way to take out my frustration on my father, Hill was the target. Just like he’d been when Aaron died.
He absorbed my misguided anger, my misplaced blame, in the exact same way he had when Aaron passed away. The man was a sponge. Taking all my insults and hastily hurled venom without saying a word, never letting a drop of my ugly, unjust emotions spill out and infect the other people in our lives. He suffered in silence, but I could see the way my words affected him in those sharp silver eyes of his.