Loreth White - Cold Case Affair

She stared at him. “Do you really still hate me that much?”

Wind rattled the panes. Rain smacked at the windows. “I hate what you did, Muirinn, to the people who loved you.”

He closed the heavy oak door behind him with a soft thud that seemed to resonate down through her bones.

Muirinn slumped into a chair at the kitchen table, and buried her face in her hands. If she’d known it was going to be quite so rough to see him again, she wouldn’t have come. If Jett only knew what she’d gone through since she’d left Safe Harbor. He didn’t have a clue just how much his ultimatum had cost her back then … how much it had cost them.

She should’ve told the lawyer to just go ahead and hire someone—anyone—to run Safe Harbor Publishing, and to put the word out that the company would be up for grabs within twelve months.

But at the same time, Muirinn felt in her heart that Gus had wanted her to come back. Why else would he have insisted she be given the small compass along with the terms of his will? She’d told Gus that she was pregnant, having a baby alone. He might have been trying to show her a way home, to remind her where her family roots lay.

Muirinn scrubbed her hands over her face quickly as she heard tires crunching up the driveway, telling herself it would be okay; she wasn’t trapped here anymore. She could go back to New York anytime before the twelve months were up if things weren’t working out. She could hire a publisher at any point she chose. She was the one in control here.

Smoothing errant tendrils of hair back from her face, Muirinn adjusted her sweater and went to meet the police.

“Could have been kids,” Officer Ted Gage said as he stared at the papers scattered under the desk, thumbs hooked into his gun belt. “Incidents of vandalism often flare up during the summer holidays.” His gaze tracked round the room. “Kids probably thought Gus’s place was still empty.”

“So you’re not sending crime scene techs or anything?” Muirinn asked from the doorway.

He shrugged. “That’s for the movies. We only dust for prints in major crimes. And nothing was stolen—”

“Not that I know of,” she interrupted.

“That footprint is pretty big for a kid, Gage,” said Jett. “I’d say about a size 12.”

“I can point you to several kids with feet that size,” he said around the gum between his teeth.

“Well, why don’t you see if you can match one of them up to this print?”

“That’s a lot of lab time and resources for a possible mischief or vandalism charge.” He glanced sideways at Muirinn, a whisper of hostility beneath his deceptive easy-breezy style. Unease fingered into Muirinn.

“Look,” he said suddenly. “I’ll send someone around later. Depending on our caseload.”

Muirinn was beyond exhausted now. She just wanted to go to bed. She thanked the cop, saw him out.

Jett hung back. “Would you like me to stay, Muirinn?”

She knew how difficult it must be for him to make the offer, and all she truly wanted to answer was yes.

“I’ll be fine, thank you. Officer Gage is right, it’s probably just vandalism with the place being empty and all. I can call 9-1-1 if the kids come back. Somehow I doubt that they will.”

Jett didn’t look so sure.

She wondered if his hesitancy was because of Officer Gage’s chilly attitude toward her. Or because it seemed pretty darn clear that someone had been after something in her grandfather’s office. For all Muirinn knew, they’d found what they’d been looking for, and had taken it. And she had no way of knowing what it was.

He reached for a pad of paper by the phone, scribbled something down, then ripped off the top sheet. “Here’s my number.” He looked directly into her eyes. “If you need help, Muirinn, I can be over right away. I live next door.

“Next door?”

“I’ve taken over my parents’ house.”

She felt the blood drain from her face.

His gaze skimmed over her tummy again, and she wanted to explain, to tell him that she was single; that she’d do anything for a second chance.

But he was married. He had a family.

And damn if they didn’t all live right next door. Muirinn felt vaguely nauseous at the idea of facing the other woman. She told herself that she was tough, she could handle it. She’d been through enough in her life to know that.

So instead of justifying herself, she became defensive. “You’re just dying to judge me, aren’t you, Jett?”

“I gave up judging you a long time ago, Muirinn. What you do is none of my business.”

And neither was his business hers. Yet here he stood, in her life again. And his words rang hollow.

“Look, I’m tired, Jett. I don’t want to argue. I need to get some sleep.”

He studied her for a long moment. “You always did get the last word in.”

“No, Jett. You got the last word eleven years ago when you told me you hated me, and that I should never, ever come back.”

His mouth flattened. “Muirinn—”

She swung the door open. “Go, please.”

And he stepped out into the storm-whipped darkness.

She slammed the door shut behind him, flipping the lock with a sharp click. Then she slumped against the wood, allowing the hot tears to come as she listened to the tires of his truck crunching down the driveway.

Jett stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows in his living room, rain writhing over the panes as he watched the yellow glow coming from the kitchen window of Gus’s house on the neighboring knoll.

He spun around, pacing the floor. What was he supposed to do?

Tell her?

After all these years?

No. He couldn’t. He’d done what he had for a reason—and Gus had helped him do it.

He cursed viciously.

Seeing her pregnant now, back here in Safe Harbor … the irony just made everything more complicated.

Jett poured himself a whiskey in spite of the hour and took a long, hard swig, felt the burn in his chest. He exhaled slowly. He had no choice but to ride out this storm that was Muirinn O’Donnell. If she stayed true to form, she’d probably be gone within twelve months.

He wondered again about the father of her baby; where he was, whether they were married. There was a chance that Muirinn’s husband would suddenly show up next door and join her. How in hell was he going to swallow that?

At least Troy was away at summer camp for a few weeks, because he was the one person who stood to lose the most in this situation. And Jett did not want his boy to get hurt.

He could not allow Muirinn to do that Troy.

There was just no way he was going to tell his son that Muirinn O’Donnell was his mother—that ten years ago she’d simply given him away in a private adoption.

He wasn’t going to tell Muirinn, either, that he’d named their son after her father out of some deep need to connect his boy to his mother’s side of the family.

In retrospect, Jett recognized that he’d probably been trying to tie himself back to Muirinn in some subconscious way, hoping she’d come back.

And now she was back.

Living right next door. Another baby on the way. Another man somewhere in her life. And before too long, she’d surely be gone again.

Right or wrong, the only way Jett could ever tell Muirinn the truth was if she somehow proved herself to him. She needed to show that she was worthy of her own son; that she’d stay, and not hurt Troy.

As she’d once hurt him.

Muirinn awakened to a warm and sunny morning, but inside her gut a tiny icicle of unease was growing. As she poured her morning cup of decaf, she glanced at Gus’s laptop and the envelope of photos that she’d put on the long dining room table.