Page 3 of What We May Be

Two steps from the top, Sean’s gait faltered at the last carving, one he’d never laid eyes on before.

The date he, Charlie, and Cal had graduated from the police academy.

The same day he’d proposed to Charlie and Trevor.

The Saturday that had started amazing then turned awful with one phone call and one wrong decision that had altered the course of his life, that had put him on a path away from his heart.

He’d never seen the carved initials and date because he hadn’t come home that night or any night since. He’d left Charlie and Trevor waiting in a house packed with friends and family for a celebration that was never to be. That had been the worst day of his life. Before today. Standing on the outskirts of the cemetery crowd, fighting everything in him that screamed to go to Charlie and Trevor, had been a special kind of hell. Not one he’d ever experienced.

He’d been a fool to throw them away. Honor and obligation, duty and loyalty, fear and worry had gotten all mixed up in his twentysomething head. He’d been lucky to be a part of their lives at all, lucky to somehow fit with them. That sort of luck—that sort of love—came along once in a lifetime, maybe twice if you were supremely lucky. For him, nothing had come close in the decade since.

The clink of glasses inside filtered through an open window and jolted Sean out of his memories and up the final steps. Turning the corner and walking along the back deck, he shifted his gaze away from the too-painful sight of moving boxes inside to the expanse of sand dunes and beach just beyond the house. The ocean was calm, its waves breaking gently against the shore, the setting sun giving way to the rising moon’s reflection on the rippling water.

Roughly bumping his side, Trevor yanked the bottle from under his arm and hopped up on the wide deck rail. He leaned back against the corner pillar and examined the label. “You always did like the peaty stuff.”

“They were out of Blue,” he replied, referring to Trevor’s favorite.

“Well,” Charlie drawled as she appeared at the door, “seeing as that’s the only alcohol in the house, beggars can’t be choosers.”

She set three glasses on the round metal table between two rockers and snagged the bottle from Trevor. She filled the glasses, handed them their drinks, then claimed the chair closest to Trevor, rocking back and propping her feet on the railing near his thigh. Sensing she needed the reprieve and that Trevor would deck him if he interrupted it, Sean followed her lead, toeing off his socks and shoes, settling in the other rocker, and lifting his bare feet to the railing. He stared out at the ocean and sipped his drink, drowning under the weight of the silent, mounting tension among them. There were things that needed to be said, but more than anything, he just wanted to hear their voices again, to be part of a conversation with the two people who’d mattered most to him at one time. That still did.

So, when Charlie dropped her feet and angled to refill her glass, Sean moved, catching her wrist halfway to the bottle. Trevor shifted, and Sean lifted a hand, wordlessly pleading for the chance to say his piece. Trevor held his gaze a long, assessing moment, then resumed his position against the pillar. A single deep breath later, Sean removed the empty tumbler from Charlie’s grasp and set it on the table next to his.

“I need to—”

His long overdue apology was cut short by the last thing he expected Charlie to say. “I caused today’s damage. They’re dead because of me.”

Surprised, Sean tightened his fingers around her wrist. He brought to mind the details of the police report, plus the details Officer Sylvan had shared, and he couldn’t recall a single scrap of evidence that suggested Charlie was involved with or at fault in Mitch’s and Cal’s deaths. “How can that be?”

Given his sigh and pinched expression, Trevor agreed with Sean. “Charlie, we’ve been through this.”

She glanced away from both of them but not before Sean saw the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “Week before the raid, family dinner at Dad’s house. I was giving him shit for becoming a desk jockey in his old age.”

Trevor rotated toward them, both legs dangling off the rail. “Charlie, you can’t—”

“He was in dispatch when the call came in—from me—requesting backup. Dad took it, Cal was covering him, neither came back alive.” She shrugged, her voice barely above a whisper. “My fault.”

“You”—Sean grasped her hands—“did not tip off Hector Salazar that the cops were on their way. You did not put automatic weapons into his drug dealers’ hands. You did not fire Kevlar-piercing bullets into Cal’s and Mitch’s vests.”

Her eyes widened. “You get all that from your FBI contacts?”

And so did his. “You knew?”

“Of course we knew,” Trevor said as he hopped off the railing. His next words were for Charlie, though. “And Sean is right. This isn’t your fault.”

The detective remained focused on Sean. “Were you keeping tabs on me?” Her gaze flicked to Trevor. “On us?” She withdrew her hands and scooted back, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms defensively around her shins. “Is that how you knew about Dad and Cal?”

“I check on both of you from time to time,” he admitted. Moments of weakness overcame him occasionally, but being an ocean away had kept him from acting on them. “But in this case, Annie called me.”

Charlie’s tears instantly returned, and she angled her face away, angrily swiping at the wetness on her cheeks. “Annie was there that night. She heard what I said to Dad. She blames me. Aside from the funeral today, she won’t let me near her. She’s inconsolable, and all I want to do is help, to grieve with my sister, but I just make it worse. I had to leave her at Dad’s house with Jaylen.”

She buried her face in her knees, and Sean glanced at Trevor standing beside her chair. “Jaylen?”

“Jaylen Sims. Another officer with the department,” he answered. “They’ve been dating a few months, under the radar until today.”

Charlie lifted her tear-streaked face. “He’s the—” Her voice cracked. “He’s the only one who’s been able to calm her while we…”

While she and Abel made sure everyone responsible for Mitch’s and Cal’s deaths was behind bars. Sean slipped out of his chair and knelt in front of Charlie. He clasped her flailing hand in his and gently squeezed. “Charlotte, you are not to blame for this.”

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