Outside, her legs refused to hold her. She collapsed on the small stone step. “I thought you always call Ladybird before you come over.”
He looked at her, but didn’t answer. He’d come like the cavalry knowing she was up to something, and they both knew he knew the truth about what had happened during the afternoon. Virginia Spring had never extended an invitation.
She looked up from her perch on the stoop. “Will they arrest me?”
He took a deep breath. “No. As long as your prints are nowhere near that gun and her hand shows the powder burns.”
Would that count for enough if Bud Traynor decided to feed her to the wolves?
“Did you find the rolling pin?” he asked.
She made one last effort to save his neck while sticking as close to the truth as possible. “She wanted me to help her bake cookies while we waited. I never got a chance to look.”
“Doesn’t matter. If it’s there, the boys will find it.”
They might, unless Virginia had told the truth about throwing it away.
Sirens broke the silence. The first rubberneckers opened their doors a crack. She and Witt didn’t have much time.
“Tell ’em you heard the shot and came running, okay?”
“That’s what I did do, Max.”
“I can take care of the rest.”
“By yourself, like you always do?”
“I’m just saying don’t get yourself in trouble because of me.”
He sighed. “Jesus, Max. I’m already in trouble. Big fucking trouble. Up to my eyeballs in it. Don’t you know that?”
What kind of trouble, she wanted to ask. Internal affairs trouble? Job trouble? Personal trouble? She wanted to ask. She really did. She chickened out at the last minute.
“I thought you were going to call me.” He looked down at his feet, then gave a small snort of pained laughter. “No, I didn’t. I knew that last night.”
She should have said she was sorry she’d hurt him, that her reaction wasn’t about him or what he’d done to help some young mixed-up kid. She should have asked him for another chance. Her nose tingled with unshed tears. “I’m never gonna call, Long.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
She curled her fingers and dug her nails into her palms, using the physical pain to avoid the emotional. “I would if I could,” she whispered.
She heard his deep breath. “I know you’re afraid—”
“I’m not afrai—” She stopped. He waited. “Yes. I’m scared. About what’s happening between us.” She wanted to make sure he knew she didn’t fear Virginia or Bud or the ghost invaders. It was him. It was her. It was them together that terrified her.
Silence. A long one. Her eyes stung waiting for him to say something.
“Look at me.”
She did. The understanding she wanted was in those deep blue eyes, but he didn’t move to touch her.
“I’ll always forgive you, Max. And I’ll always have feelings for you. But I won’t always stay and take the crap you feed me. Can’t do that and keep my self-respect, too.”
God, the words were so close to the things Cameron used to say to her, even the things he’d said to her after Witt had left last night.
She waited for the right comeback to pop into her head. It didn’t. Instead she admitted where she’d gone wrong on the cold tile of her bathroom floor. “I should have told you it wasn’t your fault about the girl.” Her throat closed. She forced herself past it. “About the abortion she had.”
His expression didn’t change, but his body tensed. “Touch me when you say that.”
It was a test. She’d failed last night. If she failed again? The first kiss she gave him of her own free will would be a kiss goodbye. Even more, she wanted, needed to do it for him. She couldn’t let him think she believed him less of a man or less of a human being for what he thought he’d done.
She rose on shaky legs and took the necessary steps to reach him. His eyes were unreadable. His face when she put her hand to it was rock hard. She cupped his cheek in her palm.
“What happened to that baby wasn’t your fault.”
He put his hand over hers, calluses rough against her skin.
“I know that, Witt. I know you’d never hurt an innocent. I know you’re a good man.”
For one fleeting second she saw the pain and guilt he’d carried all these years. Saw it, understood it, and knew exactly how much it had cost him to tell her his greatest failure.
She wasn’t sure she could ever pay that same price.
Witt turned and put his lips to the center of her palm in a lingering communion that seemed so much deeper than the mere touch of flesh to flesh. She didn’t say anything, had no words for the emotion. She simply soaked him in.
Sirens wailed. Suddenly the street was raging with noise and people and bright, flashing lights, and the moment vanished.
For now.
Chapter Thirty-Six