Almost Just Friends (Wildstone #4)(73)

She drew in a deep breath, but before she could say anything, someone else came along.

CJ. He was in uniform, and his gaze went to Gavin first before eyeing the rest of them, including what Winnie was holding.

“Why aren’t you resting?” Gavin asked.

“Yeah, I thought you were off duty for another few days,” Piper said.

CJ shook his head, and when he answered, it was to Piper, not Gavin. “Couldn’t stay off another second. I’m fine. On desk duty, but fine.”

“Doesn’t look like desk duty,” Gavin said.

CJ shrugged coolly. Clearly something had happened between the two of them to make the air seem suddenly arctic.

“I’m sorry to be intruding on what’s clearly personal business,” CJ said, “but Mrs. Wilkinson called in that there was something funny going on up on her hill. I took the call and came to check it out.”

“Who’s Mrs. Wilkinson?” Cam asked.

“The old biddy who lives on the south shore,” Gavin said. “She’s been there since like the eighteen hundreds. She sits on her lake-front porch with binoculars and spies on people.”

“She thinks the lake is hers,” Piper said. “And the hills around it, apparently.”

CJ nodded. “She said she saw something shiny being waved around up here. She thought it might be an alien invasion.” He turned toward the south and waved. “Smile, because you know she’s watching.”

“Maybe you should jump to conclusions and cuff us,” Gavin said.

Even Piper raised a brow at that. Yep, something had definitely gone down.

CJ ignored Gavin entirely and turned to Emmitt. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He looked at Winnie next, gesturing to the canister in her hands. “But if you’re intending to spread Rowan’s ashes into the water below, it’s my duty to tell you that you need a permit first.”

“What if we have one?” Winnie asked.

CJ looked at her. “Do you?”

“Winnie,” Gavin said warningly when his sister went to open her mouth, clearly not wanting her to lie.

The cop grimaced, looking pained as his work collided with his personal life. “Is there or is there not a permit?”

Everyone stared at each other.

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” Gavin said, after the awkward beat of silence. “Rowan’s official funeral was back East, and some of us didn’t get to go. We’re not trying to break any laws here, we’re just trying to honor a kid who died way too young in the best way we know how.”

CJ looked at Gavin for a long beat, and then turned to the rest of them. “As I said, you need a permit. Unfortunately, if you don’t have one, and someone, say a bored old woman with a powerful set of binoculars, turns you in, there’s a big fine. But if that bored old woman happens to receive a visit from a local cop in the next few minutes, who stops by to tell her everything’s fine on the lake’s perimeter, that there’s no alien invasion, and then possibly agrees to her offer of tea so that she’s busy and distracted for the next hour, then no harm, no foul.”

Gavin watched him leave, something in his expression speaking of a whole lot of pain that had nothing to do with Rowan. Then he nodded at Winnie to continue, who clutched the canister and looked to the water below.

“Hey, Rowan,” she whispered, eyes already wet as she pulled a handwritten note from her pocket. “I know, two good-byes and you hate good-byes. But I needed to tell you a couple of things.” She read from her notes. “First . . . I don’t think I appreciated you enough. Actually, I know I didn’t. I mean, who else could I have called in the middle of the night about a june bug in my room? You drove two hours to come save me.” She sniffed and lost her battle with her tears, but she kept reading. Not that Cam could understand a single word of it, and given the look on everyone’s faces, they couldn’t either.

He really wanted to close himself off to her heartfelt, raw grief. Instead, he held his hand out for the paper.

With gratitude, she handed it over, and as he began to speak her words for her, she dropped her head to his chest and sobbed.

“‘You always said I needed to reach for the stars,’” he read, his throat on fire as he held her close with one arm. “‘And I want you to know, Rowan, I’m going to keep trying. For you. Thanks for being my ride or die. I’ll never forget you.’”

“That’s sweet, Win,” Piper whispered.

Winnie lifted her head and gave her a soggy, grateful smile.

Cam handed her back the note and gently took the canister, looking down at all that was left of his brother. His heart was still beating in that heavy thumping rhythm from a grief he hadn’t been able to let go of, didn’t know if he’d ever be able to let go. Drawing a deep breath, he stared sightless at the water below, but what he saw was himself on the asphalt that night, holding a dying Rowan, the rain falling on their faces. “I dream about the car accident every night,” he said.

He felt Piper’s hand on his arm, and when he met her gaze, hers was filled with way too much sympathy and understanding, neither of which he deserved.

“We’d fought,” he said through an impossibly tight throat. “He’d been drinking and was acting”—he shook his head—“like Rowan. He could find a good time in doing absolutely nothing, and I snapped.” He knew he had to do this, had to say it all or he’d never be able to live with himself. “We got into it.” And a lot of that had been because Cam was mad that Rowan had ruined some girl’s life getting her pregnant so young, not that he could say that since Piper still didn’t know. “I called him immature and ungrateful and lazy. I told him he needed to grow the fuck up. And he”—he forced himself to look at Winnie and his dad—“he told me to stop being a controlling asshole.”