Page 35 of Cold Case Murder Mystery

He moved to wash out the pan he’d heated her stew in. He’d tidy up the kitchen and go to bed, like she should. He wasn’t going to say another damn thing.

But had she not understood? He’d always thought she had. Wasn’t that why she’d scared the hell out of him? She’d seen through him, too easily. And now she was just... sitting there, like his apology or the kiss orsomethingdidn’t mean anything.

She had kissed him back. She had not pushed him away. He’d been the one to end it. So there wassomething, and didn’t they both deserve to go over thatsomething, so somewhere along the line they could move on and allthiswouldn’t whirl between them?

“Did I ever tell you why I joined North Star?” he demanded. When heknewthis wasn’t the way around what he was feeling. Because he was angry again, this big, hugethinginside him taking over. No control. No finesse.

“You wanted to help people like your family,” she said, not quite meeting his gaze. “Your cousin was already in North Star and she brought you in after your stint in the army.”

He shook his head. Even if he was surprised at how many details she’d retained, it wasn’t the real story. Maybe back then he’d told her it was. Maybe he’d even convinced himself it was when he’d been young and in so much denial it should have choked him.

It was hard to look back with a critical eye and know where exactly he’d started to change, mature, evolve. He only knew that, standing in the kitchen of a ranch he’d bought and begun to rebuild, he was different than he had been.

“Yeah, Mallory got me into North Star because our dads were worthless Sons’s pawns and I had some military training. But the real reason I joined the army, joined North Star, was because I couldn’tdeal.”

Her eyebrows drew together, clearly not understanding what he meant. And he wasn’t even sure what he meant. Just all of these... things rambling around inside him, grappling for purchase. He couldn’t seem to put them away, any more than the words.

Zeke had never admitted that out loud. Never let himself poke into that old feeling. But here it was, and he didn’t know why he thought it a good idea to lay it at her feet, but that’s what he was doing.

And he couldn’t stop.

“I couldn’t hold it together. Every moment since my mother was murdered when I was a teenager, I felt like I was on this edge, ready to explode, because everything mattered too much. Keeping Carlyle safe, figuring out who killed our mother, helping Walker keep us together. It was too much. I couldn’ttakeit. But the army? North Star? I could do that, and... well, because they weren’t my family. Because they weren’t the people I loved. I could set all the feelings aside and do what needed to be done.”

When he met her gaze, it was shocked and on his, the piece of cheese in her hand clearly forgotten since she didn’t bring it to her mouth. He felt like he’d run a marathon. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to...

Everything was justhardbecause she was sitting at his kitchen table, as pretty as the day he’d met her, even though she was run ragged. And what did it say about him that he was having this conversation with her when she was exhausted and hungry?

But she was in his kitchen, and the past four years had disappeared because she’d never been off his mind. He’d ended things, and he’d been living with a heavy, ignored regret ever since. Keeping it buried underneathaction—North Star cases, then helping Walker track down their mother’s murderer. And for the past few months, he’d had nothing to do except deal with the fact that he was almost thirty years old and likely still had a hell of a lot of life left to live.

With no missions on the horizon. Just all thatlife.

He hadn’t wanted to miss her, hadn’t wanted to wish she was somehow present when he’d had this realization life existed beyond a death wish.

But he had missed her. The whole time, and now she was here and... in danger.Danger.

“So it’s like that all over again,” he continued, because apparently once he started spouting all this, he couldn’t contain the rest. And maybe something could ease if she understood. How hard this was. How much she meant. “This untenable pressure. The thought of anything happening to you is more than I can bear. You matter too much.”

She blinked at him once before returning her gaze back to her bowl. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this,” she said quietly.

“That’s fine.” And he meant it. He wasn’t interested in a walk down memory lane. Or he thought he wasn’t. But he was the one who’d started all this. He could have let her eat and go to sleep. He could have said he was sorry and left it at that. He was the one pushing.

He didn’tneedto push, not if she didn’t want to. This wasn’t four years ago. He could give her feelings, herwants, the space they needed. Even if they weren’t him.

Seemed about the way things usually went anyway.

He finished cleaning the kitchen and then noticed she’d eaten most of her food. She handed him her dishes and he washed them. She dried them in a quiet, easy show of teamwork.

So much about them wasn’t easy but working together always had been.

She gave him the dried dishes so he could put them away. Then she turned from him, no doubt to go upstairs and go to sleep. She clearly needed a really good night’s sleep. Hopefully she wouldn’t wake up at the crack of dawn to sneak out tomorrow morning like she had this morning.

She paused before stepping out of his visibility. When she spoke, it was quiet but so damn sure every word landed like a stab wound. He’d had a few of those, so he knew.

“You didn’t love me, Zeke.”

He inhaled sharply. “You really don’t think I was in love with you?” He stared at the back of her head, at the careful way she held herself. He really hadn’t thought she couldhurthim quite that viscerally. How could she have gone through what they’d been to each other and think that?

“You said you weren’t.”

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