Jagged (Colorado Mountain #5)(79)

So he wasn’t.

And I could not cope with that.

Not then.

I was too freaking tired.

I’d cope with it later and I’d figure it out, like everything I’d figured out in my life. I’d find my way past it, like I did with every blow I took. And I’d move the f**k on.

So I turned and marched to the front door, yanked it open, and stopped dead when I saw a woman standing at it, hand raised to the doorbell. She jerked in surprise, went solid, and stared at me.

I stared at her right back.

She was pretty, very pretty but in a way that it looked like she’d once been beautiful. In fact, a raving beauty. But she was older than me, if not by much, and the years had not been kind. There was a sadness to her face that even seeing her just then for the first time was easy to read. And it was so immense, that sadness had worn the beauty she once held clean away leaving her a dimmer vision of what was once glorious.

She was also blonde, her hair long and thick and cared for. She had hazel eyes. Her makeup was carefully applied to try to hide the wear of sadness, but it failed. She was dressed well, taller than me, and even more so in the high-heeled boots she was wearing. And she was very slim. Too slim, seeing as her br**sts were large enough that they were either fake or her frame had endured more dieting than it needed, which made her seem top heavy and her shape unnatural.

“I, uh… gosh, um… I’m sorry. I thought Graham Reece lived here,” she stated.

“Rachel?”

It was at hearing Ham’s incredulous, displeased growl that I went solid.

This was Rachel? Sneaky aborter of babies, ex-wife Rachel?

As I stared in shock (and maybe a bit of abhorrence), her eyes went beyond me.

Her face changed in a way that another chill slid over my skin and she said, “Reece?”

“What the f**k?” he asked from closer and I felt his heat hit my back.

“I… well.” Her eyes darted from Ham to me to Ham again. “I know this is a surprise—”

Ham cut her off. “Fuck yeah, seein’ as I haven’t seen your face or heard from your ass for twenty years, you show up out of the blue at my front door, it’s a big f**kin’ surprise.”

He was most assuredly not being welcoming and she didn’t miss it, not that she could. In fact, she barely hid her wince but she still managed to power through it.

“I saw you on the news,” she told him.

“So did a million other Americans,” he returned.

“And I… a few days ago, a man came to me, asking about you,” she went on and I felt Ham tense at my back even as my body strung tight.

Dad’s investigator.

“I thought you should know. I was worried and”—she shook her head—“I thought you should know.”

“How’d you find me?” Ham asked what I thought was a very pertinent question, one of many, seeing as Ham grew up in Nebraska and he hadn’t said it, but since they married young, my guess was that she was there, too.

“I have, well”—she hesitated—“my husband has a friend. He’s a police officer. He… I’m sorry if you find this intrusive but he looked you up for me.”

“And he couldn’t look up my phone number?” Ham clipped and he was being kind of funny but it was far from amusing.

Her eyes went to me, then Ham again, and she said quietly, “You were injured by a serial killer, Reece. I’ve obviously upset you but after that… after that man visited, I wanted to see if you were all right. Not hear it. See it.” Her eyes finally came to me and she whispered, “I’m sorry. It was—”

Ham interrupted her again, “What’d you tell this guy?”

Her gaze shot back to him. “Sorry?”

“What’d you tell the PI who came callin’?” Ham clarified.

“Well… the truth,” she told him.

“There’s your truth and my truth, Rachel, and back in the day, those two didn’t sync,” Ham returned.

She held Ham’s eyes and requested softly, “Can I not do this out in the breezeway?”

Ham hesitated a second before he moved. Curling an arm tight around my shoulders, he tucked me deep into his side and backed us up three steps.

It wasn’t much and wasn’t intended to be much. She had just enough space to move into the apartment and close the door. That was all he was giving her.

I didn’t want to be there, now for a variety of reasons. But Ham had clamped me so tight to his side, I couldn’t move and I didn’t want to because of what that might say to her.

But also, someone kill me, because Ham obviously wanted me right where I was, and because I loved him, I couldn’t move.

“Now you aren’t in the breezeway, woman. So what’d you tell the PI?” he prompted.

She straightened her shoulders, ignored me, and stated, “Like I said, I told him the truth.”

“Rach—” Ham began but she kept talking.

“I said you were a good man, a good husband. We were young but you still gave me a decent home and that was because you worked hard. I told him that you wanted a family. You were ready for it. You were prepared for it, and you would have made an excellent father. But I was too young, I didn’t… I didn’t…” She faltered, probably because the extreme hostility rolling off Ham was hard to miss and all of it was aimed at her, then she rallied. “I didn’t know what I wanted. I screwed up, our marriage went bad, you worked to save it, but I was too young and I… I… screwed it up.” She pulled in a deep breath and finished. “That’s what I told him, Reece.”