Caroline smiled. “Thanks, Shane.”

They walked him out and she went back in to grab her purse. She hugged Shep. “It’s gonna be okay. Call me if you need me.”

Shep looked between Caroline and Royal. “I hate this.”

“If I’m right, this will be the beginning of the end of this whole thing.”

“No not that. Though yeah, that’s bad too. I mean the family. I mean the way this has gone down and you’ve been dumped on.”

She hugged him again. “It was worth it. And I have you back in my life. You gotta take your victories where you can.”

She turned her back on her grandparents, and Royal escorted her out.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Are you all right?” Royal asked her as he helped her into the car.

“Not really, no.”

“You mad that I punched Garrett?”

“Nope. He needed punching. Thank you for punching him.”

“I’m sorry your grandparents are horrible people and your sister is a useless whiner.”

That made her laugh.

She reached out and he took her hand.

“I can’t think about it right now. Okay? I can’t think about it or talk about it. Warrants being argued over. They could say no. If they do, he can bring him in to talk. But a career criminal knows his rights, trust me on that, so even if they bring him in, he’ll talk but he won’t tell them anything. And then he knows we’re on to him. We lose our edge. He can run.”

“Do you want to keep not talking about it? Like how it doesn’t matter because you have literally shed blood for this. This is going to happen. I can feel it. You have put so much into this. Years and years of your life. If anyone has the will and the persistence to make something like this happen successfully, you do.”

He took her home and they had sweaty sex and she pushed all the stuff she needed to deal with really far away because she just couldn’t do it that night.

He slept, and she got herself snuggled into him and closed her eyes.

And when she woke up again, it was to the sound of her phone ringing. A bleary look at the phone told her it was four in the morning. She grabbed it quickly; the ID told her it was Petal PD.

“Caroline Mendoza.”

Royal turned one of the bedside lamps on.

“I just got back from Porter. I desperately need to sleep but before I do that, I wanted to call to let you know what happened. Hicks is in custody. For first-degree murder.”

“What?”

“It took a few hours to get the warrants, but we got them and my friend in Porter served them with me. Hicks opened the door bitching about being woken up, and then he saw it was us and he ran for it. We chased him six blocks and took him down. We took him back to his place, and we walked inside where some of Porter PD were executing the search warrant. Anyway, there was enough there that we tossed him in the back of a cruiser and down to the station for processing. We charged him on stalking and got him in a room and my God. He just opened his mouth and started talking. First about you and then about your mother. He confessed. Without any prompting on our part.”

“I don’t… What the hell is going on? He confessed to killing my mother?”

“Caroline, I have seen a lot tonight, and I know you’re eager to know all the details, but I want to come out there to you and tell you everything face to face. I want to shower, sleep for a few hours and then hug my wife and son. Can I come out to the ranch at ten?”

“Yes, yes. Come on out then. Thank you.” She put her phone down and turned to Royal. “They arrested Hicks on the stalking charge, but they also charged him with first-degree murder. Shane says he confessed after whatever they found in his apartment but wouldn’t say what it was. Now I’m freaked and imagining things like heads in aquariums or zombies on leashes. He didn’t tell me the whole story but he’s going to sleep a few hours, he just got back. And then he’s coming out here at ten so I’ll let Shep know when it’s a more appropriate time to call a seventeen-year-old.”

“Come back to bed. Rest for a bit.”

She cuddled with him a while but couldn’t go back to sleep. He couldn’t either so he headed out to work. She’d work from home until Shane came by.

Before she got started though, she made all the calls she needed to make and ended up spending an hour on the phone with her uncle.

She didn’t have as much time to work before she had to stop and get ready for Shane to come over, but it was worth it. She’d missed her uncle more than she’d thought she did. Hearing his voice made her smile, and after she’d briefed him about the situation with Hicks, she ended up spending far more time telling him about Royal and her growing feelings for him.

It had kept her busy, and prevented her from thinking too deeply on anything but putting one foot in front of the other.

Royal came looking handsome and all cleaned up while she’d been making a fresh pot of coffee, and they’d just poured two cups when there was the sound of a car approaching the house.

Royal stilled. “We’ll both go to the door.”

Nodding, she took his hand, and they walked to the front and peeked out before opening up and stepping onto the porch.

It wasn’t Shane, but Shep who’d approached and parked. The words sending him back to school were on her tongue until her grandfather got out as well.

Fuck. She didn’t have the reserves to deal with another fight with her grandparents.