“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I pushed him away and jumped to my feet. “You love me, but you won’t tell me what drove you away in the first place and I’m just supposed to accept that? Is this another one of your games, Asa? Because if it is, you’re going to lose big-time.”

“No games, Red. Just me, you, and a secret you’re going to have to live with if you want us to be together. Believe me, I totally get it if you can’t do it.”

“Why do you always make me want to love and hate you at the same time?”

“It’s part of my charm.” A tiny grin pulled at the corner of his mouth and I shoved my hands through my hair in frustration.

“I’m a cop. I don’t do secrets.”

He reached out and pulled me to his chest. I was finally wrapped in the hug I had been longing for ever since he walked out of the door at my mother’s place.

“I know. That’s why this situation between us is impossible.” He rubbed his cheek against the top of my head and then let me go. “Being with you gave me something I never had before.”

“What’s that?”

“Something to sacrifice. I never wanted anything or anyone as badly as I want you for my own, Royal. If I have to sacrifice you for your own good, then that’s what I’ll do.”

He was talking in riddles and it was all so frustrating I wanted to scream. “I don’t think I can go down this road with you, Asa.”

I saw the light in his eyes dim but the tiny smile on his mouth never wavered. “I didn’t think you could. I really do love you.”

“I love you, too.”

We just stared at each other, him silently begging me to accept his terms and me pleading with him to just open the vault and let me know whatever it was he was hiding. It was obvious neither one of us was going to give. After about five minutes I turned on my heel and headed for the front door, all the while praying he was going to call me back.

He didn’t.

CHAPTER 19

Asa

Waking Rome up at the crack of dawn to explain the craziness that had gone down my first night back at work proved to be the easy part. Talking to Brite and Darcy about Avett’s involvement was much more difficult. Darcy was all for bailing the girl out of jail as quickly as possible, while Brite was so furious with her and her poor judgment he wanted to let her sit and stew. Either direction they finally went in, I gave them the name of the lawyer that had helped me out when I ended up in hot water last year, and wished them luck. The guy cost a small fortune, but he had the reputation of being a ruthless opponent in the Denver court system, and I knew eventually Brite was going to want to wade in to save his little girl. If anyone could sort out the mess Avett had made of her life, it was Quaid Jackson.

Rome decided to shut the Bar down for a few days so that it could get set back to rights and so that I could have a few days to get my head back on right. I needed the time more to handle Royal walking away for good than I did to process having a gun shoved in my face for the second time while working at the Bar. I didn’t tell Rome that, though; instead I asked him if I could come over one night. While Cora made dinner and RJ ran around banging pots and pans in the kitchen, I wrote him a check for a hundred grand and told him I wanted to be his business partner.

There was a moment of silence and I could see him debating if he wanted the check or not when Cora leaned out of the kitchen and hollered, “Take the money, Rome.”

That shook Rome loose of whatever he was turning over in his head and he took the check and shook my hand. For the first time in my entire adult life I had endless, legitimate opportunities laid out in front of me and I almost didn’t know what to do with all that good fortune. The feeling of being satisfied and situated only lasted as long as it took me to go home to an empty apartment and a silent phone.

Weeks passed with no word or no sight of Royal. I went back to work. I asked Wheeler to work on the Nova, and I even started looking for a new place to live. I looked at a few condos and town houses but none of it felt right. It took me a minute to realize I didn’t want to move into something temporary. I wanted a home, but I didn’t want to live there alone. The more time that passed, the more it solidified the fact that sometimes love really wasn’t enough.

Ayden called me once a week to check up on me. It was nice that our calls no longer consisted of her being panicked and worried about what kind of trouble I was going to get myself into. Now she just wanted to make sure I was still moving forward, even with a broken heart. She told me to just cave and tell Royal the truth, to which I answered repeatedly that the only person that benefited from being honest was me. Yeah, I could get my girl back if I spilled the beans about all the ways her mom was fucked up, but I would alienate a mother from her daughter and I refused to put Royal through that kind of turmoil. She didn’t need to be up close and personal with the kind of heartache that would follow if she realized just how far off the deep end her mother had gone. Plus I was intimately familiar with the fact that a truly screwed-up person could do really good things with a second chance, if they took it. Maybe Roslyn would be one of them. For Royal’s sake I really hoped her mother would take the opportunity she had been given and do something with it. She was another one that my sister would say just needed to let herself be loved and stop purposely sabotaging her own happiness.

Eventually Ayden let it drop and decided to focus on all the good things I had going on instead. When I told her I wanted to look at buying a house in the Baker neighborhood, where the Bar was located, it almost brought her to tears.

“I wasn’t going to question anything you decided to do with all that money, Asa. But I have to tell you that it makes me ridiculously happy that you’re planting some roots with it.”

The idea of roots, of something permanent here in Colorado, was so strange. It felt right and it was a way to show her, to prove to anyone that questioned it, that I was officially awake and making every moment I had right now count.

“I’ll make sure I find a place big enough for you and Jet to stay when you come visit.”

She snorted at me. “Me, Jet, and this baby we just found out we’re having.”

I almost dropped the phone because she said it so nonchalantly. “You’re pregnant?”

Ayden laughed a little bit and I could almost see her pacing back and forth chewing on her lip as she confirmed the fact. “Yeah. It’s still really early on, probably too early to tell anyone, but I can’t keep it to myself, ya know?” She was giving me her secret just like I had given her mine.