so I tried to learn back everything I’d missed. I tried to keep my fingers on every pulse around here so if one day Cole said you know what? I want to see what else is out there, we’d have things covered here.
“But Ma, this ranch is in his blood, too. He’s not going anywhere, either, and I thank God for that. We missed ten good years together as a family, and nothing would make me happier than for us all to live here, run this business, and pass it on to the next generation when it’s time.”
Ma glared at him. “You could have started with that part, you know, instead of giving your poor ma a heart attack that one or both of you was heading off with your stuff packed in the trunk.”
Cole laughed quietly. “Not going anywhere, Ma.”
She took a deep, relieved breath. “Okay, then. What do we do? How do we make this work for everybody? I’m keeping the kitchen, if that’s on the list.”
Decker smiled. “You keep the kitchen. We can’t cook, remember?”
Then he walked back around the desk and scooped his clock and lamp and a couple of pictures into the box he’d been loading with papers. “Cole, if it’s all right with you, I’m clearing out of this office. This desk should belong to the person running Whisper Creek, and as of today, I think that oughta be you.”
“Ahem.” Ma cleared her throat.
“With Ma’s full input on all important decisions, yadda yadda.”
Ma nodded. “Thank you.”
Cole looked from one to the other of them. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.” Decker looked out the window. “You don’t need my help. You’ve been doing it for years, and you know a hell of a lot more about it than I do. I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll still help out however and whenever I can, but I’m officially handing all reins to you. You make the decisions, you steer the ship.”
“Holy hell, Decker. When I said we needed to talk about who does what, I didn’t mean you needed to clear out your desk and give me the proverbial keys to the office.”
Ma stood up. “It’s the right thing. We all know it. And damn, I’m the luckiest woman alive, having the two of you.” She grabbed both of them into a fierce hug.
“But there’s a lot more to it than this.” Cole shook his head, mystified. “We have a lot to talk about. It’s not this simple.”
“ ’Course it isn’t,” Ma said as she sat back down. “Okay, let’s figure this out.”
Just then Kyla burst through the French doors, holding up her phone. “Has anybody talked to Jess?”
Cole whipped his head around. “Why?”
“Because she’s gone.”
Chapter 28
Jess took a deep breath as she turned her rental car into the parking lot of the Smugglers’ Gully Police Department the next morning. On her way from the airport, she’d stopped at Walmart to buy a change of clothes, and she’d put them on in a rest area stall, then picked the rest of the hay from her hair.
She parked carefully, trying to swallow as her freezing hands shook on the wheel. It was ninety degrees in the shade here in South Carolina, but she felt like she needed a fleece. All the way here, she’d rehearsed what she would say, and at the rest area, she’d looked up attorneys in the phone book, writing three down on the little pad in her purse in case she needed to call one from a cell.
It was a huge risk to take, and she knew it, but she also knew that if she didn’t come clean, Billy’s crime was going to eat at her for the rest of her life. Yes, Mack might have come out of the incident with only a shoulder injury, but that didn’t excuse her silence for all this time. She needed to tell the police what she knew, and then she needed to accept whatever punishment went with that.
After that, she’d figure out how to deal with Roxie and Luanne.
If nothing else, her disastrous conversation with Cole last night had clarified one thing: she couldn’t move forward—not with this hanging in her background. The guilt of it had been eating at her for years, and until she dealt with it, she was never going to feel free to live her life—or share it with anyone else.
She took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, closing the door behind her as she placed her purse carefully on her