Page 35 of Stone Cold Sinner

Until Kenzie, he hadn’t thought of it that way. In just a short time, she had him reevaluating everything he thought and believed. Coy vowed to stay away from his family in an effort to protect them from anything his world harnessed and brought forth. Protect them from what he couldn’t protect Emery from. Or… was it to protect himself from what he couldn’t avoid feeling after the brutal loss of Emery? Perspective was a funny thing, and Kenzie was handing it out like candy.

High-pitched squeals had Coy’s immediate attention, and red flags warning of danger quickly had him on alert and ready to engage with whatever threat was seeming to loom. Then, tiny giggles followed as Cut and Nora emerged from the barn where they bedded down the smaller animals, which were more like pets, for the night and Cut chased the kids, grabbing each of them, one at a time, and tossing them in the air as he growled playfully behind them causing them to run. Cut was a serious man. He took on a lot of responsibility very early on at an age that forced him to grow up and didn’t allow him to have the youth the rest of them had. With his kids, however, Cut was an entirely different man. Coy wondered if that was the man Cut was meant to be but was overshadowed by the weight and responsibility of the ranch.

Thinking of Cut in that way caused that nagging pinch in Coy’s chest. Still, it was quickly replaced by a comfortable sense of joy when he saw his brother playing with his children as he was or wrapping his arm around his pregnant wife and kissing her on the forehead as he lent her a shoulder to lean on. This was what he was missing. It was more than the love of a wife, but the love of a family that was absent, and what Coy had only just realized was that he craved but was equally feared.

Coy watched his four siblings at various stages of life and love and wondered if he would ever find himself navigating any of those stages. Looking for love, new love, newlywed love, or love for the ages… that’s what he was looking at through the kitchen window, and he desired most but also ran from. It was both what dreams were made of and nightmares. It could make you whole and leave you empty. It was both beautiful and tragic. It was boastful yet humbling. It filled his heart but seared his soul. It came with a price he wasn’t sure he could afford to pay again.

“Did I lose you there, Stone?” Kenzie said, pulling him from his thoughts.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. I was just… thinking.” He admitted. “About your question.”

“Ah. And all the emotions you were feeling?” she teased. “Are you frustrated at the moment or fulfilled?”

He grunted, “Funny. All of the above. I thought it would be a quick trip. Come for the funeral. Get back on the road to the next case.”

“Yet, here you are,” Kenzie said, pointing out the obvious. “Why do you suppose that is? Waiting for the reading of the will?”

Kenzie seemed to know full well it had nothing to do with that, but sometimes, asking the obvious and painful questions is what it takes for people to see what’s right in front of them — to see what they’re wrangling with and why they’re feeling what they are. Coy was a complicated man, and it seemed that the person most puzzled by his state of mind and state of being… was Coy.

“Nah. I don’t need to be here for that. I don’t even know why she had a will if I’m being honest. This is home. We all know we have a place to come back to here. Cut and Nora will live here, in the main house, run the ranch, and raise their family here. Dev will do whatever Dev is going to do, but this will surely be her landing spot. Nash will help Cut run the place and probably never leave either –– he’s too damn loyal –– and Dillon… well, it’s a great place to visit, and she’ll have a place to stay when she does. Nothing really changes with Mama gone.”

“And you? What does it mean for Coy Stone?”

“Me? Same as always.”

“So, the road is your home?”

“In some ways, yes. I have a place I stay in Portland. It’s where we’re headquartered. There are also a few other spots where I lay my head down, depending on what case I’m on or which division I’m working for at the moment.”

“Again, I say… Yet, you’re still here.”

Coy looked at Kenzie as if she’d lost her mind, “I can’t leave now. Not until we know about the remains we found. And especially not after what happened today. I can’t leave them unprotected like that. Poachers is the best case. They’re probably gone and never to return after realizing the wild game they were shooting at was actually a Toyota. If it’s the alternative, well… I won’t leave them here to deal with that on their own either.”

“Good thing you didn’t rush right out of here after the service then. What would they do without you here and only Dillon, her resources, and, gasp, the President and all of his…”

“What point are you trying to make here, Kenz?”

She chuckled, “The point I’m trying to make is that the only person you’re fooling… is you.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re still here despite those things. You didn’t leave like you planned. You stuck around and happened to be here for the recently transpired things. Maybe, Coy, you’re here because you want to be.”

“What? Like I’m homesick?”

“Maybe. Or perhaps you’re tired of running.” She shrugged. “Maybe you miss this place, these people, and the roots you have here.”

“That’s an interesting analogy. I'm not sure where you came up with all that, though. A couple of days in a car doing some recon work, and you think you have me figured out?”

“I’ve known you my whole life, Coy. I’ve had you figured out since day one, and the only thing that’s changed about you is you smile less, trust less, and wear every painful memory on your damn sleeve. I still see the real you, buried beneath all that broody, broken armor you hide behind.”

“So, you’re a therapist now.”

“No, but in my line of work, much like yours, I’ve learned to read people pretty well, and you’re a damn thriller novel full of plot holes and heartbreak.”

“Another interesting analogy. Still a big reader, it sounds like.”

“Yes, I still read. I also still know you. The only thing time and distance have changed is the details. What lies on the surface. I still know your heart, Coy, and though it’s guarded and tainted, at your core, you’re still the loyal, protective man who’d lay down his life for a stranger and take a life for his family.”

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