“Thanks for the ride,” Hayes said to the driver before slamming the door shut.
“Most people call their family when they’ve been hurt,” his father rebuked, arms crossed. He wore his typical small-town uniform of business casual pants, tan cowboy hat and a navy-blue polo shirt.
“I wasn’t hurt,” Hayes reported, sidling up to him. “I had a fall. It wasn’t a big deal, but Nash requires the hospital visit for insurance reasons. A call wasn’t warranted, believe me.”
His dad scanned Hayes from head to toe. “Not hurt, then?”
“Not even a little.”
His father’s frown only deepened. “I don’t know why you’re bothering with these wild horses. If you’re out to kill yourself, I can think of better ways to do it than putting yourself through repeated hospital visits.”
Hayes did them both a favor and didn’t deny it. He took risks he knew he wouldn’t have before Laurel died. In the last sixteen months of working for Nash, he’d gone to the hospital for stitches above his eyebrow, a relocation of his shoulder, and to get fluid drained from his knee, and that was only recently. The first eight months after Laurel died, he couldn’t even leave his house until Maisie showed up. “Like I said, the fall wasn’t bad.”
“What’s this, the second hospital visit in six months?” his father countered.
“Third, actually,” Hayes corrected.
His father’s expression softened, his strong hand cupping Hayes’s shoulder. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re doing with these horses other than punishing yourself, but don’t you think it’s time to stop it?”
Hayes glanced out to his red brick bungalow, with black accents and a matching roof. The flower bed hugging the walkway had been Maisie’s touch, as was the flowerpot resting by the front door—with the gold lion door knocker—that she repotted every spring. When Hayes returned home to River Rock, he’d bought the property with half of Laurel’s life insurance policy. The rest of the money was sitting in an untouched bank account. The only reason he bought the property was for the mature weeping willow tree that rested on the edge of the creek. Weeping willows were Laurel’s favorite, and Hayes had spread her ashes there, exactly where she would have wanted, giving her the perfect resting place that, in life, she would have loved. “This is my life now,” Hayes finally said, glancing back to his father. “You’re going to have to accept that.”
Dad frowned, slowly removing his hand. “Laurel wouldn’t want this. Getting yourself hurt all the time isn’t going to bring her back.”
“I know that,” Hayes shot back, heat building in his chest.
“Then come back to the force,” Dad countered gently. “You don’t need to work in Denver. Come work for me, in town. You’re a damn good cop, Hayes. That’s where you belong.”
The radio in the SUV crackled, and the dispatcher’s voice rambled off a radio code. That high-pitched voice was like an anchor, yanking Hayes back to the night when Laurel’s life ended, reminding him why, no matter how much he missed being a cop, he couldn’t ever go back.
“10-32 at 420 Mill Street,” the dispatcher called along the radio waves.
Hayes and the other cops were celebrating the arrests of five punks who unleashed a reign of terror on Denver. Men and women had been beaten and robbed. A few cars set on fire. The last of their crimes involved a banker, who had been abducted for the money he had access to at the bank. Now those bastards were behind bars, and the residents of Denver could sleep soundly again. Well, mostly. They still had cops out searching for the leader of the gang, Earl Falik, who’d gotten away with a gunshot to his shoulder from Hayes’s weapon.
Hayes had a split second to decide if he’d kill Falik or disarm him. Hayes went with the latter, and the second after the bullet sliced through Falik’s shoulder, Falik said through gritted teeth, his ice-blue eyes dead and cold. “You’ll pay for that.”
Falik smiled a deadly promise, and it looked like the devil was grinning at Hayes, when Hayes was suddenly hit from the side. He hit the pavement…hard, his head smashing against the concrete. Darkness crept into his vision as Hayes fought against Falik’s cousin, watching as Falik ran away.
Hayes never should have let Falik run. He should have shot him dead.
In the station, when Hayes heard the address come across the radio, he finally understood what Falik meant, and Hayes’s fucking world blew apart. The code the dispatcher used meant man with a gun. And that address was Hayes and Laurel’s home.
Not knowing if his fellow cops were following him, Hayes sprinted to his cruiser and pressed his phone to his ear while he gunned it down the road, the blue and red flashing lights cutting through the darkness. “Answer, Laurel. Dammit, answer.” Four times, he’d tried calling. Four times, she didn’t pick up. “Fuck.” He threw his phone to the car’s floor. He’d thought he’d felt fear, pain, and worry before in his life, but not until this moment did he truly understand those emotions. And they left him reeling.
When he reached his house, he drove up onto the grass of his lawn. His neighbors screamed at him from their houses as he ran from the cruiser. They were obviously hearing the gunshots, but too afraid to come any closer. Hayes couldn’t make out what they said past the thundering of his heartbeat. Gun drawn, he noted the front door was locked, so he moved swiftly around the back of the house. There, he spotted the back door open. He slowed his breathing, shoving hot emotions down deep into his gut as he entered the house.
Each step he took felt like a lifetime until he reached the bedroom. Time stopped, then. Everything stopped. His life ended when he spotted the blood dripping off delicate fingers and onto the hardwood floor.
Hayes’s stomach roiled, and he sucked in a harsh breath, yanking himself back from the memory he’d tried to forget. The night after he found Laurel dead in their bedroom, Hayes had hunted Falik, and after a shoot-out, Falik was dead. Hayes left law enforcement after that. He couldn’t go back to it. Face that old life. Face his pain. “I left the force for a reason,” he reminded his father. “Please don’t make me explain this again.”
His father studied Hayes and then sighed. “I know, but you can’t keep running from this and working yourself into the ground because of it. You need to forgive yourself for what happened. Laurel would want that.”
Hayes couldn’t forgive himself. Laurel was gone. Had he taken the shot he should have, Laurel would not have been targeted. She would still be alive. The thought left a sour taste in Hayes’s mouth, and his stomach knotted as he caught the sound of tires crunching against gravel. He glanced over his shoulder, finding a black MINI with a red roof coming up his driveway. An unexpected release of tension rushed over him. He shoved his hands into his pockets, hiding their shaking.
Maisie parked next to the SUV and got out of her car. “Hi, Mr. Taylor,” she said, a ray of sunshine. “How are things?”
“Doing good, Maisie.” Dad returned the smile and gave her a quick hug. Everyone loved Maisie; she was impossibly happy. Always. Her smile was infectious, and even Hayes felt an unexpected grin pull at his lips.
“Glad to hear it,” she replied to his father. Then she glanced at Hayes and she bit her lip, studying him intently. “Everything okay?”