His distress was apparent in his expression and his voice. “I’m not afraid of it, and I’m not afraid of it harming my kids. I need you to understand something. The only way this knowledge affects me is the pain of seeing how it affects you. It hurts to see you suffer like this.”
That’s what she’d feared most. She didn’t want the things she still dealt with—the nightmares, flashbacks, and anxiety—to bring hardship to Cole or his kids. This day had proven that they had enough of their own family problems without taking on hers. “You’ll get tired of having to deal with me and my issues.”
“Never.” He reached for her, and she longed to let him hold her again, but she shrugged off his hands and retreated until she felt the security of her Explorer against her back. All she wanted now was to get away, to go to the safety of her own home where she didn’t have to deal with Cole or this conversation.
Cole moved forward as if unwilling to let her go. “Mattie, there’s only one thing I’m afraid of. I couldn’t bear it if you let Harold Cobb drive us apart.”
But she could already feel herself pulling away. “Maybe not, but his actions are still a part of me.”
“You were just an innocent child.” Cole sounded like his heart was breaking, too.
“I know that.” She knew all that stuff about perpetrators and victims, but at times like this, it didn’t help. The way the two of them had been raised was light years apart. Cole wouldn’t understand. “It’s late. I need to go home so we can both get some sleep.”
“The last thing I want to do is sleep,” he said, sounding desperate. “Mattie, stay. Stay so we can talk about this.”
“I’m exhausted, Cole. I need time to think this through.” She called Robo and went to load him into the back of her unit.
Cole waited for her at her car door, blocking the handle. She couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness, but she could feel their intensity. “I’m sorry I’ve upset you, Mattie, but I had to tell you. I didn’t want there to be secrets between us any more than you did. You can trust me to be honest and to never hurt you on purpose. If there’s one thing you take away from here tonight, let that be it.”
Honesty? She knew he wouldn’t try to hurt her, but he’d kept this secret for weeks. She felt so tired she couldn’t think, and she didn’t know what else to say. All she wanted was escape. She reached for the door handle.
He opened the door so she could climb in. Even before she could settle into her seat, he leaned forward so their faces were inches apart. “I’m falling in love with you. And I hope like crazy that you won’t hold this against me.”
Mattie started the engine. “I’ve got to go.”
Her overhead light revealed his anguish. He touched her cheek tenderly, backed away, and closed the door. He stood in the glow of her headlights as they swept over him, shoulders slumped and thumbs tucked inside his jeans pockets. Looking dejected, he raised one hand in farewell as she pulled away.
She supposed the whole team at the station had been in on that conversation. Had it changed their opinion of her? How could she show her face at work again? An icy coldness filled her chest, making her shiver, and she thought her heart might break. How could she ever survive this betrayal?
SIXTEEN
Monday morning
Exhausted from a night with very little sleep, Mattie sipped coffee while she drove through dawn’s first light toward Wilson Nichol’s crime scene. She’d spent her early hours in bed tossing, turning, and thinking about Cole’s words until she’d finally dozed. Nightmares filled with twisted images of fire and the sensation of running through the forest awakened her at four, her legs thrashing the covers, tossing them off to the floor.
She had dressed in running gear and taken Robo outside to jog along the lanes of Timber Creek. With her dog beside her, she’d passed from one island of light under streetlamps to another, staying on the move while she tried to work through her feelings. Running had served her well in the past when she needed to ease her anxiety, and it was something she turned to still whenever that growing tightness threatened to take over her chest.
One thing came clear to her while she ran: she would not allow herself to become Harold Cobb’s victim. Though love might feel complicated at times, she knew Cole was the man she wanted, and she wouldn’t let a scumbag like Harold Cobb cheat her out of leading a happy life.
By the time she returned home, she’d decided it wasn’t Cole’s fault that Sheriff McCoy had brought up details from her childhood during an investigative team meeting. What bothered her most was that he’d never said anything about it to her. Not until after she’d wrestled with herself for weeks, working up the courage to broach the subject.
And yet … he’d had a point when he’d said he couldn’t discuss her past unless he knew she wanted to. If she were to be completely honest, she’d have to admit that’s probably the way she would have handled the situation, too.
Cole had said she could trust him—and that was the crux of her problem. He had no way of knowing the extent of her trust issues and how hard she struggled with them. She dealt with the subject with a trauma therapist in Denver, but she’d only touched on it lightly with Cole. She’d been coping well lately and working toward improving her mental health—keeping a journal, learning yoga and breath training. These things all helped, but she’d been surprised by her body’s response when Cole shared what he knew, bombarding her with such a painful feeling of betrayal.
It was like a column of ice had surrounded her. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She’d needed to run away, and she’d barely been able to manage that.
Fight or flight. Both Mattie’s work and personal life made her more than familiar with the bursts of adrenaline associated with this phenomenon. But rarely had they left her immobile, like last night. Now that she’d had time to separate and think about it analytically, she realized how large this trust issue loomed for her, especially as it related to someone she loved.
And she did love Cole. But could she trust him enough to give him her heart? Could she open herself to the possibility of being hurt by him?
By the time she reached Wilson Nichol’s crime scene, sunrise lit the eastern horizon with shades of vermillion and orange. Members of the sheriff’s posse stood guard around the crime scene tape while thirty feet away others huddled near the campfire, its smoke billowing up and drifting off on the breeze.
Mattie shelved her thoughts for later and exited her SUV. The high-altitude morning air combined with exhaustion made her shiver, so she grabbed her jacket and slipped it on.
Sheriff McCoy and Brody pulled up behind her in McCoy’s Jeep. The sheriff unfolded his tall frame from the driver’s seat and got out, shutting the door as he shrugged on a jacket. Brody stepped out on the passenger side.
Abraham McCoy, one of the few Black men in the Timber Creek community, was built like a tree trunk and had a deep voice that Mattie had seen soothe even the most rattled of victims. She’d experienced it herself as a six-year-old child when, as a young deputy, he’d answered her 911 call the night Harold Cobb tried to kill her mother. When he’d picked her up in his strong arms, she’d never felt so safe.
But now, she felt confused about how much he’d known about her childhood suffering, and yet … he’d done nothing to address it. She’d gone straight into foster care, bounced from home to home for years until she’d found a place with Mama T, and he’d never referred her for the services she needed as a child to work through her pain. Maybe that was putting too much responsibility on his broad shoulders, but she believed that’s what she would have done if she’d been in his shoes.