Kansas City Christmas. Julie Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ the street, shot Cara when she tried to protect their trusting little girl and then shot Melinda to silence her wailing cries over her fallen mother. Edward had been out to pick up a bicycle with training wheels for Melinda’s Christmas present when he got the call about Butler being spotted near his own address. He’d raced and skidded over slushy, snow-packed streets in a desperate effort to get to his family.

      By the time he turned the corner onto his block, Edward knew he was already too late. Butler ran to his car, turning his gun on Edward’s speeding SUV and firing off multiple shots. Edward prayed the bastard’s neck hadn’t snapped when he ran him down—that he’d died a slow, painful death. Though he’d barely felt it at the time, one of the bullets had cracked his windshield and pierced his chest, doing plenty of damage to his insides. Plowing over Butler, crashing through a line of parked cars and wrapping his engine around a tree had done even more. With both legs busted and his own blood leaving a crimson trail across the snow, Edward had crawled to the front sidewalk to try to breathe life back into the women he loved.

      He’d taken out the bad guy, but he couldn’t save them.

      Merry Christmas.

      Yeah, any romantic notions he might have once had were long gone.

      “Edward?”

      His mother’s grip steadied as her soft voice jerked him back to the present. Why had he gone back to that morning? Too many beers had numbed his memory for too many months. But now that the physical mess of reclaiming sobriety had passed, every detail of that morning—every image, every hurt, every blame—stuck in his head with painful clarity.

      He had no business being here, no business making this day any worse for his family than it already was. “Mom, I…”

      Edward tried to withdraw his hand, but Susan held on tight.

      He stared down at their interlocking fingers, resting atop his thigh. He was supposed to say something now. Unlike smoothtalking Holden, or Atticus who’d always been smart enough to figure out what needed to be said, or even Sawyer, who led with his heart and blazed ahead and dealt with the consequences later, Edward wished he was eloquent enough to either compliment his mother’s strength or console her grief. But his instincts about such things were rusty from months of lonely isolation, and the right words wouldn’t come.

      They didn’t have to. Susan Kincaid hadn’t been married to a cop or raised four more for nothing. “I understand that you’re not ready to face a crowd of well-wishers. I’m sure the comparisons to Cara and Melinda’s funerals must be overwhelming. But it means everything to me that you made the effort to be here. For your family.”

      Was simply showing up really enough? He turned his head and looked down into the sincerity shining from her dark eyes. No wonder his father had loved this woman so much. Edward leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Atticus can be pretty darn convincing.”

      Susan stroked the neat, triangular flag that had been draped over his father’s coffin. Stress and sorrow had deepened the crow’s feet beside her eyes as she summoned a smile. “He doesn’t take no for an answer, does he.”

      “Never has.”

      “He’s stubborn, like your father. Smart like him, too.” Her smile faded into a wistful sigh. “Each of you has something of your father in him.”

      Edward absently twirled his dark walnut cane in his right hand in the heavy silence that followed. He was more steel pins than bone from the waist down, his heart and soul gutted. What part of John Kincaid did he have left in him?

      His mother didn’t need to be intuitive to sense his discomfort. She leaned her cheek into his shoulder. “Holden obviously looks like your father—sings like him and has some of that Kincaid Irish charm in him, too. Sawyer has his heart—his gentleness, his compassion—he’s just as eager to right the wrongs of the world as your father was. And you…?”

      When she paused, Edward made a sound inside his chest that might once have been a laugh. “Hard to come up with something nice to say about me?”

      “No. Hard to choose the right words to say so that you’ll believe them.” She turned in the seat to face him. “You’re the leader of this family now—”

      “No.”

      He shrugged away from her grasp and tried to retreat, but she simply followed him across the seat. “I know we’re all grownups. Your brothers are fine men and can take care of themselves. They’ve been taking care of me these past five days.”

      His mother deserved better than an absentee son during a time like this. He should have been stronger. He should have been able to deal with this. “I’m sorry, Mom. I should have called. I was busy—”

      “Coming to grips with the loss of yet another person you love.” Laced with a gentle understanding he didn’t deserve, the touch of her hand against his jaw was almost painful. “You were busy getting sober.”

      For a moment, his eyes locked onto hers. “How…?”

      Her pale mouth curved into a smile. “Your clothes smell clean. You trimmed that ratty beard. Your beautiful eyes are clear.”

      “So I’m a bum who ignored my own mother in her time of need.” He turned away from her forgiving touch and intuitive gaze. “And you think I’m the leader of this family?”

      She brushed her fingers across his jaw again, ignoring his sardonic tone. “Your father would be so proud of you today.”

      He could pull away from the gentle touch, ignore the kind words. But the sheen of tears pooling in her eyes and spilling over did him in. Edward caught the first tear with the pad of his thumb and wiped the trail of sorrow from her cheek. “Mom…I…What are we supposed to do? Just because I’m the oldest doesn’t mean I can make sense of any of this. I can’t make this right.”

      “But you can make it better. You have made it better, just by being here.”

      “In a way, I can see one good thing about the girls not being here—I don’t know how I’d explain losing Dad to Melinda. She loved her granddaddy so much. I’m not eight and I wasn’t born with Down’s syndrome. And I still don’t understand this.”

      “They were crazy about each other, weren’t they? John always called Melinda his little angel.” Susan Kincaid leaned her cheek into Edward’s hand. “I hadn’t remembered that. That’s a comfort to know they’ll be together again.” Wishing he had a handkerchief, Edward brushed away the new fall of tears. “Oh, Edward. I miss him so much.”

      Some comfort. His mother reached for him, caught him around the waist and hugged him tight. Edward reacted before he realized what the gesture might cost him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close as his brittle defenses crumbled and her grief and confusion and anger flowed into his. “Just cry it on out, Mom. Just cry it out.”

      Several minutes passed before her sobbing sounds became erratic sniffles and then softened into steadier, more even breaths. His shirtfront was damp and streaked with her makeup as she finally pulled away. Her face became lined with a frown of confusion as her fingers probed the front waistband of his slacks. “You’re not wearing your badge.”

      His KCPD badge was locked in a metal box with his guns, gathering dust on the back shelf of his closet until he could decide if he СКАЧАТЬ