After we left breakfast, Heath shot me a text saying the cops were getting ready to release the crime scene that was my parents’ house, so I’d hauled ass over there to start my own investigation before it was corrupted. I put in a call to an old friend who owned a barricade company, and he agreed to bring over enough metal construction fencing to surround the entire property and lock it up. Any assholes who thought they’d go searching for scrap metal or anything else of value would be blocked.

That began my day of digging through rubble and looking for evidence that the crime scene unit might have missed. I couldn’t decide if it was working in my favor that they’d missed a few pieces of the wiring and device, or whether they were screwing my family by not being better at their jobs. When it came down to it, I didn’t trust anyone to solve this case except for me, so I was going to take it as a positive.

Evidence collected in my own baggies and the fence in place around the yard, locked up, and security lights armed, I babysat the glass installers at the Sampsons’ house next door to make sure Mr. Sampson would be able to move back into his house sooner rather than later. That was, if Heath and Ari decided he could live on his own.

Either way, I was doing my part to hopefully make their lives easier.

Once that was finished, I shot Heath a text to let him know it was done. He didn’t reply.

As I looked up at the two windows I knew belonged to Ari’s childhood bedroom, I remembered seeing her face in them more than once over the years, watching me, even though she didn’t know I saw her.

She’d thought she was invisible to me, but she’d been dead wrong. It was always the opposite. I’d been as hyperaware of her as you tended to be of something you couldn’t have.

Breakfast with Heath had changed that.

Now, how am I going to make her mine?

More than ever before, I understood completely that life was short. You got one ride, and you didn’t know when your number was going to be up.

If this was my only shot with Ari, I wasn’t going to screw it up.

I cursed when I realized it was already four o’clock by the time I pulled away from my parents’ street. I thought about calling her, but what I needed to tell her had to be said in person.

Turning my Jeep in the direction of my hotel, I worked out a game plan.

All right, Red. I hope you’re ready for this, because I sure as hell am.

---

Fifty-five minutes later, wearing a white dress shirt I’d pressed with my crappy hotel-provided iron and black dress pants, I stood on the front steps of Ariel Sampson’s massive digs. It wasn’t like I needed a reminder about just how different our situations were in life right now, but I got it anyway.

Still, we had something that spanned the differences—history, and years of it.

I waited after I rang the bell, finally hearing footsteps padding toward the front door. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see when Ari opened it, but the smile that stretched across her face when she saw me told me everything I needed to know.

I’ll take her any way I can get her.

Her chin lifted as she took me in. “I was wondering if I’d ever hear from you again.”

I stepped forward and pulled her against me, one hand wrapped around her hip and the other speared into her hair. I closed my lips over hers and kissed her the way I’d always wanted to—with nothing hanging over us. No guilt, no barriers, no hesitation.

Just me and Ari.

Exactly the way I wanted it.