Page 128 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“It’ll pass. Just…” He sucked in air, blew it out. Did it again. After a few minutes, he seemed to calm, though his face was beet red and his hand shook.

It hadn’t been an act. This man was very sick. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m okay. Just…” He rested against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes.

She sat on the other section of the sofa and waited. After a few moments had passed, after his color returned to normal, he opened his eyes and met her gaze.

“Sorry about that. They come on suddenly, when I get upset. I should really take the medication they gave me.”

“I’m sure Deborah and Garrett would appreciate that.”

His lips turned up at the corners as if he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite make it happen. “There are a couple of things I want to tell you.”

“Aside from your confession?”

“Yeah. Aside from that.” His almost-smile faded. He tried to sit up higher on the sofa but couldn’t seem to make it happen.

Should she help him? Now that the episode had passed, she didn’t want to get that close.

He finally settled again. “I was really selfish. Asking Garrett to spy for me—that was unconscionable. He feels like he owes me. He doesn’t. He’s brought us so much joy. Deborah wasn’t able to have children, and I was against adopting. I didn’t figure I deserved to have kids. More than that, I didn’t want anybody looking into my past. When my sister, Garrett’s mom, asked if we’d take him in, I agreed because I felt like maybe I could earn forgiveness. Maybe if I did some good, it might counteract some of the bad. I knew the Lord, but it took me a long time to understand that God had saved me by grace, that there was nothing I could do to make up for the bad or be good enough for Him.

“But I fell in love with Garrett. Deb and I both did. He doesn’t owe us anything. Anything. He’s been…” Dean’s eyes reddened around the edges, and he lowered his gaze.

Aspen looked away to give him a moment to pull himself together.

“He didn’t want to do it,” Dean said. “Spy on you. At first, he said he would. But then he came back after this place was broken into. He all but accused me of doing it.”

“Did you?” she asked.

He met her eyes and held them. “No. I didn’t break in, and I didn’t try to run you off the road the other night.”

He’d confessed to building a bomb that killed a woman. Why would he lie about that?

But if it wasn’t Dean, then who?

Before she could vocalize the question, Dean continued. “Garrett told me you didn’t know where your mother was, that you were in town looking for answers. And he never told me anything else about you. Not a word. Except that he was coming to care for you.”

She closed her eyes against the emotion building there. Garrett did care for her. It hadn’t all been an act. It hadn’t been a ploy to get information.

Garrett had told her the truth.

It didn’t change anything. She still had to leave. Knowing what she believed her father had done, how could she stay? But it helped to know.

“Last night,” Dean said, “I realized… Deborah helped me realize how selfish I was being by giving Garrett that ultimatum.”

“What ultimatum?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“I overheard that you’d asked him to spy on me, and I left. After that, I didn’t give him the opportunity.”

Dean leaned forward. “I told him I would cut him out of my life if he kept spending time with you. It was unbelievably selfish. I was letting my fear rule me. I just wanted you gone from our lives, gone from Coventry.”

Aspen couldn’t think of a response, though the honesty that roughened his voice clawed at her heart. Everybody wanted her gone.

But Dean wasn’t finished. “Garrett chose you. When I told Deborah, she was furious. Sleeping on a crappy sofa in myworkshop last night, I realized… Here I’ve gotten away with murder for thirty years, and I was going to ruin my son’s life just to keep getting away with it.”

Garrett wasn’t his son by blood any more than Jaslynn was Aspen’s sister by blood, but the relationships were just as strong.

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