Delores Fossen - Santa Assignment

So did Colton and Brayden.

So did she.

That didn’t mean they didn’t have to deal with more. And that was something Ashley couldn’t put off much longer. Not after what she’d just witnessed.

“Colton’s worried that he’ll be in the hospital for Christmas,” she let Brayden know.

“God, I hope not, but there’s always a chance of that happening. Still, the doctors think he’ll be home in a day or two.”

Home, but not for good. Probably only until the next round of chemo.

They went through the automatic exit doors and walked outside. The night air was cold. Not a Virginia kind of bitter cold, but it was enough of a chill that Ashley put on her coat and pulled it tightly around her.

As she always did when she stepped into a parking lot or even her own driveway, she looked around. Checking. Making sure no one was lurking. Because even after two and a half years, the fear was still there.

“Could you drop me off at a hotel?” she asked when they approached his car. She checked the time. Almost seven. “I don’t want to fly back to Virginia tonight.”

He nodded. “I inherited my grandparents’ house last year, and even though I still have a lot to renovate, the guest room is finished. You can stay there if you like.”

It sounded like an obligatory invitation. And a halfhearted one. Ashley considered letting it pass, but frankly she was tired of this. “Look, Brayden, I think it’s time we cleared the air. Don’t you?”

He didn’t look at her. What else was new? “This isn’t easy for either of us.”

He made his own sweeping glance around the parking lot, a cop’s glance, and opened the car doors so they could get inside. When he started the engine, Ashley was sure he’d just drive away and ignore the verbal gauntlet she’d tossed.

He didn’t.

“When I see you,” he said, his words clipped and precise. “I can’t help it. I think…”

“Of Dana,” she finished. “I know.”

“Of that night,” he added, getting right to the heart of the matter.

She nodded. Not that he saw her. He had his attention focused on the parking lot. “That night’s always with me, too.”

The night her sister was killed. Gunned down by an unknown assailant. Except most people suspected that unknown assailant was really Hyatt Chapman.

Ashley’s former friend.

Her former client.

Just hours before the shooting she’d helped him get the lightest possible sentence for an aggravated assault charge. Ashley had done that knowing full well that Hyatt was mentally unstable.

Situational ethics, some would say.

Doing her job, others would say.

Either way, she was wrong, and there was nothing she could do to change that. Her sister had paid for her mistake with her life. Though heaven knows, Ashley had tried to undo some of the damage by finding Dana’s killer. For two years, seven months and four days, she’d gone over every piece of evidence, every nuance of the case.

Two brothers. Trevor and Hyatt Chapman. They’d grown up with Dana and her. Along with the other player in the saga—Miles Granville—the man that Hyatt and Trevor had allegedly assaulted during a drunken rage because of a business deal gone bad. Miles was also her former boyfriend. Basically, those prior relationships made the case an ethical hornets’ nest and one she should never have taken.

And Ashley would regret her decision for the rest of her life.

“You can’t forget I withheld evidence about Hyatt Chapman’s psychological profile and indirectly allowed Dana to walk into ambush,” she reminded him.

“I can’t forgive it, either. I’m not even sure I’ve tried. Hell, I’m not sure I want to try. And you can’t forgive me for putting Dana in a place that made her feel as if she couldn’t come to me with the truth.”

Yes. Because if Dana had thought Brayden would give Ashley’s recently escaped client—Hyatt—a chance to surrender, then Dana might not have gone to that meeting. She might have sent Brayden instead.

And Dana would be alive.

And Brayden and Ashley wouldn’t be here having this conversation.

Instead, Dana and he would be trying for another baby. Or perhaps they’d already have one. Either way, Ashley was partly responsible for Dana no longer being alive and that made her partly responsible for Colton’s fate. The only problem with being partly, however, was that in this case, it felt overwhelming.

The silence closed in around them, and Ashley blew out a long breath. “Sheez, that was a vanilla argument, considering our past. We spelled out our sins with no gnashing of teeth or yelling. That’s a far cry from that night when you told me I hope like hell I never see your face again.”

“Yes. A far cry from the night you told me that I’d all but put a bullet in my wife.”

Yes. Those were her words all right. Each bitter one of them.

“Far cries aside,” she murmured, “you still haven’t seen my face.”

It was a dare, another gauntlet. And this time, it worked. Brayden lifted his head, turned and nailed his gaze to hers. Unfortunately, his movement came at the same moment when she noticed the car creeping through the parking lot.

Ashley tried to ignore it. Tried and failed. Before she could stop herself, she began to make mental notes of the specifics. A dark green van. Texas plates. Nondescript, except for the fact it had heavily tinted windows. So heavily tinted that she couldn’t see the driver.

When it finally crawled by, she pulled her attention away from it and reaimed it at the man who was waiting for her to fulfill her part of the you still haven’t seen my face dare.

“Want me to run a check on those plates?” Brayden asked.

So, he’d noticed. Of course, he wouldn’t have been much of a cop if he hadn’t. “No thanks. Old habits, you know.”

And those old habits ruled her life. In fact, when Ashley got right down to it, to that elusive bottom line, one of those old habits was the thing that worried her most about becoming pregnant. Giving up her life in Virginia was only part of the problem. Getting past her unresolved issues with Brayden was another. But the worst part was facing a fear that so far she’d had zero success in facing.

She cursed herself.

And cursed Brayden, as well.

While she was at it, she cursed the medical community for not having a cure for her nephew.

“You know those scenes in horror movies where the people go into a scary-looking house?” Brayden asked.

Okay. That got her mind off her mental profanity. “Excuse me?”

“Those scenes where people go inside even though they’re scared spitless and there’s this creepy music playing?”

Now, he looked at her. And she looked at him. Even though the subject was intriguing, and somewhat confusing, Ashley got lost for in moment in those eyes.

Mercy, where had that come from?

“Those people are too stupid to live because they ignore all their instincts and do something, well, stupid,” he continued. “And the point is, you’re not stupid. So, that means I want you to accept my offer to stay in the guest room at my house. You might think I’m a couple of steps below navel lint, but I didn’t ask you to come here so you could get hurt.”

As one-sided conversations went, that one packed a wallop. Brayden didn’t dismiss her fears. Didn’t give her one of those icy coplike glances. It was one nearly perfect moment in what had been far from perfect between them.

And in that moment, Ashley knew exactly where this had to go. Maybe she’d always known but had needed this moment, this visit with Colton, for it to sink in. Now, she only hoped she could live with the decision she was about to make.

“I’ll do it,” she heard herself say.