else, it proved that a dead oak was stronger than a life built on feelings. Maybe there really was something to being cold, lifeless...at least you could weather the storms.
None of it mattered. He’d gotten a daughter out of their screwed-up marriage. He could be thankful for that, even if Penny didn’t live with him. At least he had something to hold on to.
His father’s footsteps echoed down the hall toward his room; there was a knock on the door. “Jeremy, you in there?”
“Yeah, Dad. What do you need?”
“Your mother’s wondering when you’re going to run out to Robert’s. It would be good if you could get out there before dark,” his father said, as if he hadn’t heard them fighting over Robert for the last ten minutes.
It was funny; he’d been home just a few hours, but when he had set foot in the door it was like he had stepped back in time—parents fighting, brother missing and him searching for a way to escape. Just like when he’d been a kid, he’d found refuge at the neighbors’, but instead of being the one who needed to be saved, this time he’d paid them back for all the times Mrs. W was there for him. Finally things were coming full circle.
And just like the past, Blake had rushed him to the door while she made a point of being out-of-bounds.
He took one last look at the ring, now at home tucked safely away in his past. “I was just about to head out,” he told his father.
“Good,” his father said, turning to leave. “Oh, and Blake is here. Brought over some supper as a thank-you.”
He figured Mrs. W must have forced her to come over. It really was like all those years ago. He loved his family, but he needed to get the hell out of Butte and away from the ghosts that haunted this place—regardless of how beautiful one particular ghost was.
Blake stood in the living room, her hand on the doorknob. She was talking to his mother, who was sitting in her recliner. Blake’s uniform top was stretched tight over her bulletproof vest. The buttons gaped slightly, revealing a T-shirt underneath. As she moved, he caught a quick glimpse of her black bra strap, and he felt his body shift in response. There was just something so right about a woman who wore a uniform and sexy lingerie underneath.
He wanted to rip open her shirt and her vest, kiss the lines of her lacy bra, slip what he figured would be matching black panties down her legs.
Jeremy forced himself to look away, focusing on the painting of a meadow that had hung on the living room wall so long that there was a faint brown smoke line around it.
“Blake was just telling me that she has seen Robert lately,” his mother started. “Isn’t that right, Blake?”
Blake nodded.
“Apparently she was out to his place a few weeks ago.” His mother tapped her fingers on the armrests of her chair.
“It wasn’t anything that major,” Blake offered. “There was just a minor dispute. It was in the Montana Standard. I thought you must have heard.”
He hadn’t read the local newspaper in years, but Blake was right. It was surprising his mother hadn’t gotten a call from the phone tree. Her friends lived for nothing more than to read the obituaries and scan through the weekly police blotter.
“What happened?” Jeremy asked.
Blake chewed on her lower lip, and her gaze flickered to his mother, as if there was something that she didn’t want to say in front of her. “You know, just the normal thing.”
“Was it something to do with his wife?” His mother turned to him. “Tiffany has been threatening to leave him for months now. I told you that Robert needed your help. I wish you could’ve been here earlier, Jeremy.”
“Well, Mom, you know how it is. Work’s been busy,” he said, but he was focused on Blake and how she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
His mother said something under her breath that he was only too glad he couldn’t hear.
He made his way to Blake and opened the door. “You busy this afternoon?”
Blake glanced down at her watch. “Why?”
He waited for her to step outside and let the door close behind him. “I’d appreciate it if you can fill me in on what’s going on with my brother,” he told Blake.
She waved goodbye to his mother through the glass storm door. “Look, I appreciate what you did with Megan, but I don’t want to get involved with you or whatever it is you have going on.”
“Whoa.” He breathed out, unsure why she had been so abrupt. “I just thought—”
She raised her hand. “No, stop. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I’m not upset with you. It’s just my mother.” She motioned toward her house.
She had every right to be upset after what she had walked into. It would have taken more than a little fried chicken to talk him down if he’d walked into a scene with someone holding a hacksaw over his daughter’s head. Unlike her, he didn’t know if he could have held back from shooting.
His gaze drifted to the utility belt at her waist. “Lots of calls coming in?” he asked as they walked across the lawn toward her house.
She slipped out her cell phone and glanced down at it. “To be honest, no. But I should be on patrol.”
“What time do you get off?”
“Not for a few more hours.”
“Well, if you aren’t busy, I would really appreciate you running to Robert’s with me.”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes reflecting the color of the sky.
“I would hate to be walking into a mess up there.” He silently hoped she would say yes, and it wasn’t just because he wanted her to tell him about Robert. It had to do with the desire that seemed to rise in him every time he caught a glimpse of her.
“You heading up there now?” she asked him.
He nodded.
She nibbled her lip again, making him wonder if he made her as uncomfortable as she made him. “I did want to talk to Robert, make sure everything had smoothed out. You could ride with me, but you know—”
“I’ll follow you up there.” He motioned toward his truck. “I’d hate to get you in trouble. We have to follow protocol.”
There was a hint of a smile as she looked at him. “You say that, but we both know you’ve always been the kind who likes to make his own rules.”
* * *
ROBERT’S HOUSE SAT off a dirt road, shrouded by trees and brush. On the neighboring property, old cars and trailers in varying stages of rust were parked in a haphazard pattern. Between the rusting carcasses were piles of downed trees and garbage. A few of the detritus hills were covered with tarps whose prime of life had passed years ago and now were nothing more than weathered strings broken up by little squares of blue.
He’d always hated this place, the world his brother called home. The drive that led to Robert’s house was a steady climb, and Blake was taking it at a crawl in her patrol unit, twisting and turning as she attempted to miss the washed-out ruts in the dirt. This wasn’t the kind of place in which one wanted to find oneself stranded. Everything about the deep woods spoke of danger, from the road all the way down to the twisted faces that peered out from the windows of the derelict homes they passed.
Rising from the brush was a building, still covered in Tyvek plastic wrap, as if any day the construction company would come back and finish siding the house they had built—only it had been years since they’d been there. The roof sagged in the middle from too many heavy snows and too little care.
His brother had always cared more about what was in the earth than what was on top of it, and it had even been that way with his wife, Tiffany. The