Page 61 of Last Resort

Chance could feel exhaustion weighing him down by the time he got back to his parents’ house. It was well after midnight, so everyone was already in bed. Dad had kept him updated via text throughout the day just to reassure him everything was okay on the home front.

He was glad stuff was okay somewhere, because it surely hadn’t been in the office.

Weston had called in every favor he had left with the San Antonio PD to get a rushed lab report on the stalker’s letter, only for the report to come back with nothing. The letter was completely clean—not a single fingerprint or hair, nothing that could give them a clue. Even the stamp hadn’t been licked.

It was a complete dead end.

They’d pored over more footage. Ran faces and names through every program they had available to them. Dorian and his team had shown up to help too. Just because the stalker seemed to have moved on to Maci didn’t necessarily mean Stella was safe.

They all wanted to catch this bastard.

But he was still one step ahead of them, because once again, all their work had amounted to nothing.

Everyone had finally decided to call it a night. His brothers went home to the women who loved them. Chance went home to the woman who seemed only a half breath away from taking off in a dead sprint.

Chance scrubbed a hand over his face as he sat down in the kitchen. He didn’t know how to help Maci with whatever was going on in her mind any more than he knew how to stop this stalker.

Uselessness wasn’t a feeling he was accustomed to or liked.

Chance sat on a stool in the dark kitchen and thought about the past twenty-four hours. The doctor’s appointment, Maci’s silence, the note—he wasn’t sure the best way to handle any of it. He wanted to wrap Maci in bubble wrap, to insulate her and their daughter from the world, but that wasn’t his call.

Theirdaughter.

When they heard her heartbeat for the first time, he’d been overwhelmed by emotion. He could already see a little girl with Maci’s nose and his eyes. He was ecstatic.

The baby and Maci were every dream he’d never let himself have. He had no recollection of his own biological parents. And while he would lay the world at the feet of Sheila and Clinton, this baby would be the only biological relation Chance had ever really known.

But where he was full of joy, Maci was shutting down and shutting him out. Running.Again.

Why did she always run?

Even after all the passion between them. Even when they could hardly be in the same room with each other without touching one another—magnets drawn together in a way they couldn’t resist.

But still Maci refused to truly get close to him.

Chance wasn’t surprised when he heard his mother’s soft footsteps come down the stairs. Had he ever sat in this kitchen having a crisis without Mom somehow knowing and making her way here?

“Hey, Mom.” He stood to put some water on for tea. Maybe something warm with no caffeine would help him settle down.

“Hey, baby. You just getting home? Long hours for you.”

“I’ve been home for a little while, but yeah, long hours.”

“You’ve got a lot on your mind. And not just what’s going on with this case. I had a talk with Maci today.”

“You know about the baby.” He gave her a shrug and a smile. “I’m surprised she told you. But I shouldn’t be, I guess.”

“It was more that I put the pieces together than she actually told me, but yeah. Congratulations.”

She wrapped her arms around him and he let himself sink into his mother’s hug. Sheila Patterson had always been his safe space. From the moment he’d finally stopped fighting them, his parents had become his rocks, grounding and centering him when nothing else could. They’d earned his trust over and over again.

It was what he wanted to be for Maci, if she’d let him.

They finally broke apart when the kettle whistled. Sheila moved to put tea bags in the mugs.

“We found out we’re having a girl yesterday.”

“You excited about that?”

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