Riverbend Road. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ paused and he heard more sniffling on the line. “Don’t you think I’ve tried that? Only about a thousand times. He won’t listen.”

      “It’s worth a shot.”

      “Maybe you’ll have better luck. He respects you more than any other man he knows.”

      “I can’t make any promises,” he warned. “Any change has to come from him.”

      “I appreciate the effort anyway. You’ve been a good brother to him.”

      He would beg to disagree. A good brother would have been better at keeping his siblings out of trouble.

      “It might be a few days before I can get over there. I’ve got to work double shifts for a while since I’m short an officer this week.” He grimaced at the reminder of Wynona Bailey and her foolhardy stubbornness.

      “That’s fine with me. Let him stay in there and stew about the mess he’s created.”

      “I should be able to squeeze out a few hours toward the middle of the week to drive to Boise.”

      “I hope you can talk sense into his hard head.”

      “So do I.”

      She was silent for a moment and he heard more sniffling on the line and a muffled sob. “Why does he have to make it so hard to love him?” she finally burst out.

      If his brother had been there, Cade would have had no problem pounding him, badge or no badge. Idiot. He had a good thing going. A wife who loved him, kids who needed him. Why would he throw all that away?

      Cade’s own beer—the bottle from the single six-pack he allowed himself per week—suddenly tasted flat and bitter.

      None of them had been given much of a chance, with an abusive drunk for a father and a weak mother who didn’t take care of herself and ended up with liver disease because of it.

      With such a screwed-up childhood, it was a wonder Marcus had been able to maintain a good relationship with Christy all these years.

      “You take good care of yourself and those kids.”

      “That’s what I’m trying to do. But you know Marcus won’t see it that way.”

      He feared she was right. “Do you need help with bills?” he finally asked quietly.

      Christy was silent for a long, awkward moment. “You’ve done more than enough, Cade.”

      He didn’t mention to her that Marcus had come to him asking for help paying the mortgage the last few months. He had a feeling she knew and was too proud and stubborn to ask for more.

      He would send a check anyway and hope she accepted it, for the kids’ sake. Losing their home wouldn’t help the situation right now.

      “I’ll talk to you later in the week to see how things are going,” he said.

      “Thanks, Cade. I didn’t know what else to do but to call you. I needed to vent to someone else who loves that idiot as much as I do.”

      “I’ll do what I can,” he promised.

      After they said goodbye, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, exhausted suddenly from the crazy day. Marcus and his latest DUI seemed like just one more thing he couldn’t fix.

      The world was filled with problems he couldn’t solve, which sometimes seriously sucked.

      The doorbell rang while he was still trying to figure out how he could slip Christy the extra money for her mortgage—which happened to be the one problem he could remedy.

      He might get to that steak at some point that evening, but he was beginning to wonder.

      “Coming,” he called out.

      He headed to the front door and pulled it open. All thoughts of Marcus and Christy, DUIs and mortgages, flew completely out of his head.

      Wynona Bailey stood on his doorstep with her wheat-colored hair pulled back into a thick braid and tan shorts revealing a surprisingly long stretch of tawny legs.

      Yeah. The world was really good at throwing unsolvable problems at him.

      His mind snapped back to that nightmarish moment when he had pulled up to the fire at Darwin Twitchell’s barn and found her patrol vehicle empty and no sign of Wyn, and then an instant later she burst through the doors of the barn with a kid in each arm and flames exploding behind them.

      He had run through that moment in his head dozens of times in the last few hours and still couldn’t figure out the emotion he’d experienced, when he knew she was safe and unharmed.

      Something had changed. That’s all he knew. Or maybe it had been there forever but was only now growling to life.

      “What are you doing here?” he asked, then realized how rude the words sounded when her hesitant smile slid away.

      But what was he supposed to say? Though she lived at the other end of the street, they didn’t socialize at each other’s homes outside of work. He could count on one hand the times he’d been to her place, usually to drop off paperwork. She stopped here just as seldom.

      Why was that?

      He didn’t know the answer and it seemed odd now. They were friends and had been for years, even before she came to work for him after her father’s injury. Her brother was his best friend.

      He had been to all his other officers’ homes several times. Barbecues. Birthday parties. It had never been a big deal to socialize outside of work, especially in a small police department like Haven Point. But something about Wyn Bailey was...different.

      Maybe he could blame the same something that had sent him rushing to the scene of a fire after she stopped responding to the radio, with his heart hammering and his foot pushing hard on the gas pedal.

      “I’ll tell you why I’m here but I’d rather not do it standing on the porch,” she said. “May I come in?”

      He had no choice but to step back and open the door wider for her.

      A familiar canine followed her in and he couldn’t help a smile, despite the tension that popped and sparked between them like a bad wire.

      “Hey there, Young Pete.”

      The dog’s ears perked up at his name and he sat at Cade’s feet with his tail brushing the wood plank floor of his entryway. Cade reached down and scratched Pete in the spot he remembered the dog liked, just under its left ear.

      “How are you, buddy?”

      He and Young Pete went way back, to the days when the dog used to be John Bailey’s constant companion. The former chief had adored the puppy, the latest in a string of dogs he always named Pete.

      He wasn’t a puppy anymore. Gray peppered his muzzle and he walked with the same ginger care of an old man on the cusp of needing artificial knees.

      “How СКАЧАТЬ