Page 29 of Cold Case Discovery

He reached out and wiped them away. “I might play by the rules, but that doesn’t mean I have to play fair.”

She managed a watery laugh, but it died quickly because maybe she could believe he loved her. Maybe she would give him that thing he needed—the chance to protect her and Ry. But he was ignoring something very important.

“You have to look at the very real possibility that my father killed or had something to do with the murder of your parents. You can’t just brush it away. Because when this is all figured out, it’s going to matter. You have to really think about what that’s going to be like.”

Jack nodded. “I have.”

“But—”

“No. No buts. I understand. If it’s true, if we finally have the answers my family has wanted for seventeen years, it’ll be a relief. But it won’t bring them back, and it won’t change anything. Not really.”

“I’ll be a reminder.”

“No. You’re not an extension of your father, Chloe. Any more than you’re an extension of your mother or Ry. You’re you, and I love you.”

He said it so earnestly, holding her hands, looking at her tearstained face. Coming up with an answer for every one of her arguments. Taking away all the excuses she’d held herself up on for the past year.

It was scary—the scariest thing, really, because this had the potential to go so very wrong. But when he looked at her like that, she wanted to be someone else, just for a little bit. Someone who could just enjoy the fact that the man she’d been pining after for far too long had feelings for her too.

No, not just feelings.Lovedher.

“You know, I’ve been in love with you for longer,” she managed to say, not quite sounding like her usual self, but closer. More in charge.

His mouth quirked up at one side. “Is it a contest?”

She nodded emphatically. “Absolutely.”

“Okay, how about this?” He pulled her close, brought his mouth next to hers. “I’ll love you best,” he murmured. Then sealed that promise with a kiss.

JACKHUDSONWASa planner. He had emergency backup plans to the emergency backup plans. And yet it had never served him. He’d focused for the past seventeen years on wielding more and more control, and still...he’d never actually gotten it.

Grant had gone to war. Palmer and Anna had gone to the rodeo. Cash had gotten his high school girlfriend pregnant at sixteen. Not exactly a great parental track record to his way of thinking, certainly not if he compared himself to what his parents might have been able to do.

Then, over the past two years, Grant had been hurt on Dahlia’s case; Palmer had been hurt and Louisa had been kidnapped; Anna had gotten pregnant, almost burned alive; and Mary had been kidnapped by a madman. And that didn’t even get into everything that had happened with Cash when his ex-wife had tried to frame him for murder.

And every time something terrible had happened, Jack had tried to hold on tighter and tighter only to be reminded it never really mattered.

Bad things happened.

Loving Chloe wasn’t a bad thing, but it was a complicated thing, and for all the ways he planned for twists and turns of fate—the inevitablebad—he had not ever once come up with a plan for what happened on the other side ofI’m in love with you.

They drove to the station in silence, the weight of it sitting there between them. Because now they had to go into work.

Maybe next time he could plan love confessions around their work schedule.

“You should have let me drive my own cruiser,” she muttered as he pulled up to the building that housed the Sunrise Sheriff’s Department.

“Everyone will understand why I want you riding two-man right now. In fact, they’ll probably be surprised I’m not making you take some leave.”

She glared at him. “I’ll take leave overyourdead body.”

“I know, that’s why I’m not going to make you.” He’d certainly considered it, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.

She grunted and pushed out of the car, and he realized this wasn’t so much her real frustration as it was her trying to build that wall back. So they could walk into their place of work and not have what they’d just laid out between each other broadcast to the world.

Jack had long ago given up on the world being fair. He never expected it. But it struck him in a way it hadn’t in a long time what a bad hand they’d been dealt with this.

Still, he let Chloe blaze her way in first, and he took his time following. When he walked into the office, Suzanne immediately got to her feet. “Sheriff, is it true?”

---