His father turned to face him. “Why the hell would you think that?”
“Maybe the fact that you were trying to warn me off of her every time we talked? I thought you’d be elated that she’s out of the picture.”
His father held his gaze before looking away. “I think maybe I was wrong about that.”
Luc’s head jerked back in surprise. His father had always been a fair, if not sometimes stubborn, man, but admitting he was wrong had never been one of his strong points.
“How so?” Luc asked warily.
His father rubbed a hand over his face. “Well, I don’t know that this will translate until you have kids of your own, but when you’re a parent, you can get…crazy. And you can do things you wouldn’t normally, say things you shouldn’t…whatever it takes to protect your own.”
“I know, Dad,” Luc said huskily. “You did what you did about Mike and Shayna because you thought it was right.”
“I’m not talking about that,” Tony said. “I mean, yes, I’d do that all over again, although I wouldn’t have kept it a secret from you. But what I’m trying to say, Luca…being a cop’s important. It’s damned well defined me and this family for decades. But it’s not the most important thing.”
“Dad—”
“I take it for granted,” Tony said, his voice sad. “I have your mother. And you kids. And I forget…I forget that you need space to find yours.”
“Find my what?” Luc asked, even though he already knew the answer.
His father met his eyes. “Your heart. The one who makes you a better cop because she makes you a better man.”
Luc swallowed, and he stared blindly at the crowd. “I think I already found her.”
His father’s hand landed on his shoulder. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
There were flowers on the grave.
They looked less than a week old, which struck Luc as odd considering he knew Shayna’s parents only came on the anniversary of her death.
He didn’t blame them for it.
Jasmine Johnson had said that they didn’t like the reminder that their vibrant little girl lay still and buried.
They preferred to let her live alive, laughing in their memory.
Coming to the cemetery ripped their wound wide open again, Jasmine had said.
Luc knew the feeling. He hated it.
But he also needed it.
He’d been coming the first Friday of every month since the funeral, and each time he felt like he was discovering her tiny body all over again.
Curiously, not today though.
Today he felt…at peace.
There was sadness, certainly. It was impossible to look at a gravestone celebrating a life of only seven years without feeling a pinch of remorse.
But there was something different today. The sorrow was gentler, not quite so eager to choke him in a vise.
“Hey, sweetie,” he said, kneeling in front of Shayna’s grave and putting a hand on the cold stone as he always did. “Looks like you’ve got some pretty tulips here. I always get you roses. Do you like the tulips better?”
He set the bouquet he’d bought against the slowly dying tulips.
“I bet you like both, huh? They’re pink. Your mom told me it was your favorite color.”
Luc stared at the flowers for a long minute. “It seems like forever since I’ve last been here. I know it’s been a month, but…a lot’s happened.” Luc let out a rough laugh. “A lot.”
He’d long ago stopped feeling foolish talking to a gravestone, and a little girl who had never known him.
He kept talking anyway.
“Remember how I told you last time that I was kind of famous? Well, now I’m really famous. Like, national TV famous.”
His finger traced the S of her first name. “You’re a little bit famous too. I talked about you. How I couldn’t save you. How I wanted to more than anything.”