and she felt sorry. For Eric.
“Wow.” The word escaped. She hadn’t expected Cole to be this honest, especially not with someone who, high school alma mater aside, was a complete stranger to him. “So what exactly is it that you want from me—” she glanced at her watch “—other than making me late?”
“I’d like to talk to you when you get off duty.”
“All right, fine, but I really can’t help you,” she warned. “It’s not my case.”
“So you said.” His mind jumped ahead to a meeting place. Somewhere she’d feel at ease. He needed to win her over. “Do they still have that Mexican restaurant on 4th and Silver?”
“El Rancho Grande?” For a second she’d forgotten that he hadn’t been around all these years. The restaurant had closed down after a fire had gutted it almost eight years ago. “It’s gone. There’s a Chinese restaurant in its place now. The China Inn.”
Cole smiled again. He’d traveled over most of the lower forty-eight states. Whenever he came into a new city, one of the first things he’d do was find the best Chinese restaurant. It was a weakness he allowed himself.
“Even better. When do you get off?”
She was taking off early today, as she’d promised her father. Rayne didn’t feel like sharing that with him. It was too personal. “How does six sound?”
“Earlier would be better,” he told her honestly, “but six’ll do.”
She nodded then looked toward the electronic doors significantly. “It’ll also be impossible if I don’t get in there to start my shift.”
He moved out of her way, then followed her up the stone steps. Rayne found herself struggling with an uneasy feeling that had no name, no reason for existence. It was the same kind of feeling she had when something was about to happen. But there was no stakeout here, no reason to want someone watching her back. She didn’t get it.
Cole waited until she made it through the doors before walking in behind her. “Who do I talk to about seeing my brother?”
“That would be the desk sergeant.” She pointed the man out to him.
“Thanks.” As he began to walk toward the policeman, it was clear that he and the woman he’d stopped were bound in opposite directions. “By the way—” he tossed the words over his shoulder “—you look good. Electric-blue was never your color.”
Her mouth dropped open. That was twice he’d caught her off guard.
She was definitely slipping, Rayne thought as she hurried down the corridor toward the elevator. But then, as she recalled, Cole Garrison had that kind of an effect on people.
Some things never change.
“Three-ten, not bad for you.”
The lush green grass hushed her quick steps as she’d hurried across the field toward her father. His back was to her and he was kneeling over his brother’s tombstone. She could have sworn he hadn’t heard her approach.
The man still had ears like a bat, Rayne thought. But then, he’d always been one hell of a cop. It had taken her years to appreciate what she and the others had taken for granted.
“Not bad for anyone,” she corrected as she reached him, “considering that the city’s fathers in their infinite wisdom are rerouting Aurora’s main thoroughfare, making it almost impossible to get across town. I’ll have you know I left on time.”
Andrew nodded. There was a chill in the air but he was bareheaded as he kneeled over his brother’s grave. His hands were folded in front of him.
“I believe you.” He looked down. There were two headstones there. Diane Cavanaugh was buried next to her husband. They were side by side, at peace in eternity the way they’d never really been in life. “It’s not like Mike’s got anywhere to go.”
The depth of sorrow in her father’s voice seemed immeasurable. At a loss as to what to do, Rayne placed her hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”
Reaching back, Andrew covered her hand with his own, remembering when that same hand had been so small, almost doll-like.
“Yeah, thanks for asking.” Swallowing a groan, he rose from his knees, deliberately ignoring the hand she offered until he gained his feet. Only then did he glance at it. “You know, I can remember when you used to jerk that same hand away from mine. Wouldn’t let me hold it, wouldn’t let anyone steer you.”
She pushed her hands into her pockets. The January wind was getting raw. She should have remembered her gloves. “Had to find my own way, Dad.”
He nodded. There was no arguing with that, although he’d tried. “I’m glad you did, Rayne. And that when you finally found it, it was here, with us.”
She knew what he wasn’t saying, that he’d lived in fear that she would wind up in this lovely little cemetery, buried beside her relatives, years before her time. There was a period when she’d thought she would herself.
“Hey, why would I go anywhere else? Can’t beat the food,” she quipped.
Meals weren’t what kept her home. She felt she owed it to him. Owed him for years that were lost, years that she’d turned his hair gray and brought his heart to the brink of an attack. Truce was a good thing. It brought understanding with it.
And right now, she ached for what she knew he was feeling. It was hard to stand here and not feel the tears well up. Without realizing it, she laced her arm through his.
“Hard to believe it’s been fifteen years already,” Andrew murmured, still looking at the tombstone he and Brian had bought. Mike had left debts as a legacy to his family. The pension helped provide for Diane, Patrick and Patience, but pride had necessitated that they provide the burial for their fallen brother. “It feels like yesterday…” Andrew looked at his daughter. “Mike was a good man, Rayne. In his own way.”
She wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself. Of the three Cavanaugh brothers, Mike had been the one who’d made waves, who hadn’t been satisfied with his life. Ever. Outshone by both his older and younger brothers, he’d let it eat at his self-esteem. He’d sought absolving comfort in the arms of other women and in the bottom of a bottle. Though Rayne was the youngest, she knew that there were times her uncle had taken his feelings of inadequacy out on his children and his wife. Which was why Patrick and Patience looked upon her father with far more affection than their own. He, along with Uncle Brian, had had more of a hand in raising them than Uncle Mike had.
She felt close to her father right now, vicariously sharing a grief with him she didn’t entirely feel on her own. “He was kind of like the black sheep, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah.” The word came out with a heavy sigh.
It was a term she’d silently applied to herself more than once. “You know,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper, “there are times when I’m still afraid that I’m going to wind up just like him.”
Andrew looked at her sharply. “Oh, no, not you, Rayne. He was the black sheep, or maybe just a gray one,” he amended. “You were the rebel. Still are in your own way.”
The look he gave her seemed to penetrate down to her very soul. It was all she could do to keep from flinching. She withdrew her arm, shoving her hands into her pockets again.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Look at me as if you had X-ray vision and could see clear through to my bones.”
To lighten the moment, she pretended to shiver. But the effect of her father’s steady gaze was no less real. The way he could look at any of them would easily elicit a confession to some slight wrongdoing when they were growing up. She used to imagine that her father could force confessions