Whispers of You (Lost & Found #1)(27)

“Good thing HR is Anderson, and he’s already drowning in his police work.”

I snickered. “Guess you’re safe.”

Lawson leaned back, his chair squeaking. “You okay?”

I rolled my lips over my teeth as if that would keep me from giving him the truth. “You asking as my boss or as my friend?”

“I’m asking as your surrogate big brother.”

In so many ways, that married the two. Lawson had a calm steadiness about him that made people want to leave their burdens at his feet. He had that quality that I missed in Holt so damn much—that silent assurance that nothing I told him would ever freak him out.

He didn’t see me the same way Holt had. Holt knew what I was thinking or how I was feeling before I could even find the words. But there was comfort in knowing that I could still keep the worst of my torture to myself around Lawson.

“The call rattled me. It isn’t the first one that has, and it won’t be the last. I can handle it.”

Lawson nodded. “I know you can, but you’re also allowed to take care of yourself when you get rattled. If you need to take the rest of the day, do it.”

I shook my head. “That would just make things worse. I took a walk around the block. Cleared my head. I’m good.”

“All right. How’s everything else?”

I arched a brow. “Are you digging, Chief Hartley?”

He had the decency to look a little sheepish. “I’ve been known to, time and again.” The hint of humor slipped from his face. “He’s a mess, Wren.”

My fingers curved around the arms of the chair, but I didn’t say a word.

Lawson let his statement hang heavy in the air for a moment. “I know he hurt you, but he was a kid, too. What happened to him, finding you like he did…it can twist a person up.”

“So it’s my fault he bailed?”

“Of course, not. I’m just saying there are as many sides to a story as those who’ve lived it.”

My back teeth ground together. The fact that Lawson made a perfectly reasonable point just stoked my mad. But I breathed through it. “I get it. He was struggling. You think I don’t hate that? But I can’t just forget that he left me when I needed him the most. That what we had wasn’t enough for him to fight through whatever bullshit was swirling in his head.”

I met Lawson’s gaze dead-on. “He broke me, Law. Worse than that bullet. Worse than the agony of waking up after open-heart surgery. Worse than the torture of months of rehab. I can’t just magically forget that happened.”





I stared down at my phone, my gaze tracking over the text again and again.

Grae: My best friend isn’t a weak-a biznatch.





I couldn’t help the flutter of my lips. Grae had always had a foul mouth. Probably because she had four older brothers. But when Lawson’s first son was born, she’d done her best to clean up her act. The results were these ridiculous non-cussing curse words.

And she’d been using them to taunt me all afternoon. To bait me into coming tonight.

I tossed my phone into the cupholder and stared up at the house. I knew every nook and cranny of it like the back of my hand. How many times had I wished I could live here growing up? Too many to count.

And then there were the times when I’d picture it—building a house on the land that would be close enough that Kerry and Nathan would be in their grandbabies’ lives every single day. Those invisible claws dug deep, and I shoved the memories down.

I was good at that. Shoving away things that I didn’t want to look at. I was a master at it, really. But I could never burn the memories out altogether.

And we had half a lifetime of them. Grae and I had been in the same playgroup as infants. And Kerry often told this story of two-year-old Holt toddling over, transfixed by the baby with the hazel eyes. She said he used to stand guard over me, not letting anyone close until they proved their good intentions.

That had never changed over the years. Always my protector. The one who picked me up when I took a tumble off my bike and tended to my skinned knees. The one who insisted his brothers let Grae and me play whatever they were doing. The one who decked a jerk in the third grade for making a habit of taunting me, thus getting suspended for a whole week.

I’d been half in love with Holt Hartley since I could walk. But it took some time for him to come around to the idea. He’d said that he’d always loved me but that the love just looked different at each point in our lives. I’d thought that would continue forever, never realizing he could simply walk away.

I tugged the keys out of my ignition and wrapped my fingers around them, the metal teeth biting into my flesh. I wished the flash of pain were stronger. I needed so much worse if I were going to make it through the next few hours.

Climbing the steps to the front door, I took one last lungful of mountain air. My steps paused, and I almost lifted my hand to knock as if Holt’s presence had turned this place into a stranger’s home. I shoved the impulse down and opened the door.

The sounds of muted chaos came from the living area. I followed its strains. Grae leapt from the couch the moment she saw me. “Wren!” She engulfed me in a hug. “I was worried you were going to bail,” she whispered.

“Your thirty-two texts might have given me a clue to that.”