“Hey Ma, I’m here.” I used my key to enter the apartment I bought for her on Lake Shore Drive a few years back, looking around with a smile. It didn’t matter how much money I made, how much I gave to her to spend, she had this million-dollar penthouse decorated similarly to the ranch house she’d raised me and my brother Grady in Calumet City, a small town about thirty minutes outside Chicago. Bright colors and rustic furnishings were odd to see in this space, but it always felt like home to me.

“Colt! I’m so glad you’re here.” My mother, Claudia Sharpe, rushed in and wrapped her arms around me like she hadn’t seen me five days ago. “How are you sweetheart?” Head tilted to the side so her brown shoulder length hair shot through with grey swung around her face. Familiar blue eyes stared at me. “I’ve invited some guests for dinner.”

I groaned. “Ma you promised, no more matchmaking.” She’d spent the past year putting women in front of me, hoping to marry me off to give her some grandchildren. Since Grady was still working off book for Uncle Sam, it was up to me in her eyes.

“I’m not matchmaking, and you’re grumpy. Have a beer,” she told me at the same time she set a bottle of IPA in front of me. “Sharon Martinson, well Cavanaugh now, lives in the other apartment on this floor.”

I frowned. “Since when?” That apartment has been rented for nearly a year.

Ma’s blue eyes looked far too innocent. “About a year ago, but we’ve grown close over the past few months, as mothers of children with dangerous jobs,” she gave me a pointed look that was filled with worry and fear. “Anyway Jaya was shot, and she’s had a hard time so we’ve been chatting and I invited her.”

I didn’t hear much else of what she’d said after hearing that Jaya had been shot. Jaya Martinson was the only girl I ever loved, but I’d broken her heart. It was a lifetime ago but hearing her name again, hearing that I could have lost her without knowing it made it feel like yesterday.

“Is Jaya okay?”

Ma sighed and grabbed my beer, taking a long sip. “Her body is healing apparently, but Sharon is worried.”

Damn I was worried too. “How did she get shot?”

The doorbell interrupted her answer and I groaned, standing and glancing at the table set for…four? “Come in, how are you?” The answer was low and muffled but my eyes were glued to the doorway as an uneasy feeling settled over me. Then Miss Martinson was in the doorway, looking just as I remembered her only older. “Miss Martinson, you’re looking more beautiful than ever.”

She smiled, delicate features so similar to Jaya’s it made my heart squeeze.

“Colt what a handsome man you’ve grown into. Big too,” she said and squeezed me into the same hug she had when I was a boy. She pulled back and gave me a sympathetic smile I didn’t understand. “You remember Jaya, don’t you?”

What? I looked up and slammed into green eyes that often invaded my dreams. She was even more beautiful now than the last time I saw her. She’d filled out, her body was now that of a woman, soft and supple but strong.

“Jaya,” I whispered.

She was frozen, shock and anger and hurt flashed before her expression went blank. “Excuse me,” she whispered and turned, skirting around Ma and slamming the door behind her.

“Dammit! I’ll be right back.” Sharon put her hand on my chest to stop me.

“Let her be Colt. We should have told her he’d be here,” she said to Ma. “It was too big of a shock after everything.”

I’d noticed the sling she still wore, the pale set of her skin and the purple crescents under her blank green eyes. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Sharon guided me to the long red sofa that was the centerpiece of the living room and told me all about the murder investigation that had come to a head in the middle of a domestic violence call. “She took two bullets to the shoulder and decided to leave Miami PD. She didn’t give me details but I’m sure there’s more to it than that. She came back a month ago.”

One month, and Ma knew. She’d kept it from me. “I should go after her.”

“Don’t,” Sharon said softly. “She’ll come back, but she’s needs to regroup.”

I wasn’t so sure but plenty of years had passed, and she knew Jaya better than I did.

***

“I can’t believe we got stuck with dish duty.” I had a feeling the mothers were still trying to play matchmaker, but judging by Jaya’s demeanor since she returned, I didn’t think I’d ever get her to crack a smile.

“Mostly you since I can’t do much right now.” She pointed to the sling with a blank look as she rinsed and put another plate away.

“Jaya I’m sorry about what happened, to you and your partner.”

She stiffened at my touch, and a flash of anger surfaced, but she quickly hid it. “It’s fine. Jeffries won’t be a cop anymore, but at least he’s alive.”

“What will you do now?”

She gave a one shoulder shrug like it was no big deal even though we both knew it was. “No idea. I’ll figure it out though.” Of course she would, there wasn’t a single person I knew stronger or more independent than Jaya.

“I have no doubt about that Jaya. If you’re interested I could use your skills.”

She scoffed, giving me a sideways look that took me back to our childhood. She’d given me that look thousands of times over the years. “Well, as you can see, I’m not capable of doing anything, never mind any kind of security so, no thank you.” My surprise must have shown because she explained, “My mother told me what you were up to before convincing me you wouldn’t be here tonight.”

Ouch. I guess that answered the question of if she still hated me. “Would you have come if you’d known I would be here?”

“No.”

Unequivocal. That stung but I couldn’t believe after all these years she still felt that way. “You still hate me?”

She shook her head, long wheat blond lashes fanned as she blinked, drawing my attention to the freckles she’d always hated, but were now more pronounced from her years in the Miami sun.

“I don’t hate you Colt, but seeing you brings back a lot of memories I’d rather forget.”

Memories. We had a lifetime of memories together starting from first grade and she wanted to forget them. All. Playing kickball in the street, catching lightning bugs in jars. Our first clumsy kiss in the dark movie theater, and our even clumsier attempt at making love for the first time. Memories I treasured, cherished. And she wanted to forget them? I couldn’t let that stand.

“You want to forget a lifetime together because I joined the Navy? That’s real mature Jaya.” It wasn’t just that I left, I knew that. It was how I’d done it.

She sucked in a breath that should have warned me, but I couldn’t have known it would set her off. “You didn’t just leave Colt. You left me without talking about it, without preparing me. In the middle of the semester you tell me you’re leaving in five minutes for recruit training. Then you didn’t call or write like you said you would!” She flung the towel at my feet and took a few steps away as though she couldn’t even stand being near me.

“I was busy,” I tried to explain, but she talked over me.

“Then I sent you an email about six weeks later, to let you know…, it doesn’t even matter Colt, just please spare me your fucking revisionist history!” With one hard shove at my chest as I inched closer, she turned around pushing through the barrier of our stunned mothers. “Thank you for dinner Mrs. Sharpe,” she called out as she continued through the apartment and out the door.

I glared at the older women I’d known nearly all my life, looking shocked at the ferocity of her outburst.

“What the hell was that about?” I may be the obtuse male in the room, but there was more to it than what she told me just now. She’d nearly blurted out whatever it was, but clearly she didn’t care enough to share.

Both women stepped forward and laid a hand on me but Sharon spoke first. “Don’t be upset with Claudia. We knew there had to be a reason you never reached out to her, but Jaya wouldn’t hear of it. She was heartbroken, her trust had been destroyed. She assumed you didn’t care and didn’t love her and she wanted to hear nothing more of you.”

Shit! Jaya hated me so much she didn’t care if anything happened to me while I was off serving our country.

“I never got any emails from her. Not one.” I assumed she’d cut me out for cutting her out of the decision I’d made about my future. Truthfully it was supposed to be our future but in my naiveté, I figured she would eventually get over it.

Apparently she hadn’t.

“We figured that honey,” Sharon soothed while Ma stood frozen with tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry Colt but I didn’t want to add anything that might distract you. I wanted you safe while you served our country. I never believed you didn’t care but…,” Her shoulders shook with tears and Sharon enveloped Ma in her arms.

“We all did what we thought was best and we can’t change it now.”

I knew they were right, but it didn’t make me feel any damn better about any of it. She wanted nothing to do with me and I felt like everyone knew the full story except me. They were all a little too understanding. A bit too damn sad about high school sweethearts who’d broken up. I figured I owed her for leaving and hurting her the way I had, but she owed me too dammit.

I would give Jaya a few days to cool down but we weren’t done. Not by a longshot.