21. Knox

Despite the heatthat stuck around all night in the middle of the Texas summer, a chill swept over me as I walked outside.

I’d taken my chance with Larkin. I’d laid my heart on the line. I’d told her exactly what I hoped we could become. And she’d walked away.

My heart ached from her rejection, from singing my mom’s song to Emily, wondering if I would ever be able to sing that song again to her, to my own family, and keep my mom’s memory alive.

I knew I couldn’t go home. Couldn’t see the kitchen where I’d felt her, moments away from giving into me. Couldn’t see the couch where I’d sat with the children, dangerously imagining what it would feel like to one day call them my own. To have Larkin sitting on the couch with us. Couldn’t walk past the first guest room with the bunk bed Larkin told me Emily would love, where her daughter had read so sweetly to Jackson.

But my dad went to bed early, and Fletcher had a family of his own to worry about. So I went to see the one guy I knew would be awake. He might not be alone, but damn it, I needed him.

I’d never felt this out of control, not since I was a teenager making every possible mistake. But I was grown now with a job I cared about. I couldn’t go down that road again, no matter how tempting it looked with everything I wished for walking away from me.

I got in my truck, firing it up and driving away from our sleepy little street. It took all of a few minutes to get to Hayes’s garage. Sometimes he stayed after hours to work on projects when he knew someone really needed their vehicle back quickly.

But the only light on was the security light casting an eerie glow over the large cement parking lot. Heaving a sigh, I continued on my way to his house on the outskirts of town. He lived in a two-bedroom house and kept the guest bedroom filled with extra parts. Not because he didn’t have room at the shop but because when you had an extra room, “women got ideas.”

Now that I was pulling into his gravel driveway, an extra car parked behind his that I didn’t recognize, I wondered why I’d come here at all. Hayes was terrible with women. Or too good, depending on how you looked at it.

But he was here, and judging by the lights on in his front window, he was awake.

So I got out of my truck and walked to the front door, banging on the wooden surface. He didn’t reply, so I got out my phone and called him. After a few rings, he picked up, and I heard giggling in the background.

“Is that you outside? I’m kinda busy here.”

More giggling.

If I wasn’t so upset about Larkin, I might have rolled my eyes. “I need you.”

His voice turned serious. “Be right out.”

A little of the tension in my chest eased. People could say all they wanted about Hayes, but one thing I knew about him—he’d always be there when I needed him, no matter what.

Within a few minutes, the front door opened, and a woman a few years younger than him stepped outside, wearing a dress and flip-flops. Her hair was messy, and her cheeks flushed as she gave me a sheepish smile. “Officer Madigan.”

“Mindy,” I replied, tipping my chin.

She walked out to her car, and Hayes, dressed in shorts and nothing else, opened the door the rest of the way. “Come on in, cockblocker.”

I gave him a wry smile, following him into the place. His living room was neat as usual, but there was a bottle of wine out on the table and a charcuterie board that had been picked through.

“You must like this one.” I gestured toward the table. “Wining and dining her.”

He smirked. “I find they have more energy for activities if you feed them first.”

Now I did roll my eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

With a shrug, he walked to the fridge, showing his back covered in tattoos. “Want a beer?”

I shook my head. The last thing I needed was something clouding my judgement.

He got one out for himself and tossed me a bottle of water. “What’s going on?” I caught the bottle, and he walked to his living room, sitting back on the caramel-colored leather couch. He tugged a blanket over his lap and put his feet on the table. “My evening is suddenly free.”

My adrenaline was still pounding, emotions already all over the place as I went and sat on his big chair, back straight like I was ready to run, to take off at any time like my body was begging me to do. Run. Escape this pain that was far too strong to be logical.

“I told Larkin how I feel.”

Hayes frowned. “It didn’t go well? I saw the way she looked at you at the barbecue.”

That was enough to surprise me. “What do you mean?”

“For being a human lie detector, you’re shit at seeing when someone’s into you.” He tipped back his beer bottle, taking a drink. The cold of my own water bottle was seeping into my hands. I set it on the floor next to my foot.

“Tell me what you’re getting at, Hayes.”

He shook his head. “Let’s just say if you were a virgin, her eyes would have popped your cherry.”

I threw a pillow at him.

He chuckled, setting it behind him and leaning back again. “The point is, she’s into you.”

“If she was into me, she wouldn’t have turned me down,” I said. “And I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to live next door and see her dating other guys without losing my damn mind.” I got up, unable to sit still anymore, and paced his living room in front of his giant TV.

Hayes leaned forward, setting his beer on the coffee table. “Knox, you see everything as black and white. Just because she’s not ready yet for a relationship doesn’t mean that she never will be. You gotta give her time. She’s fresh out of a divorce, and from what I’ve heard, it was not pretty. He cheated on her, while she was on bedrest. Lied about it. And then she found out about it when his mistress stopped by the house when she was supposed to meet him at a hotel.”

My jaw dropped, and I sat back onto the couch, unable to stand. “How did you know that?”

Hayes shook his head. “How does anyone not know something in this damn town. I overheard a couple of my guys talking about it. Sure, it’s a rumor, but if it’s even halfway true, she’s been through it.”

I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. I just pictured Larkin, the woman I was so quickly falling for, going through that. It made me want to punch her ex and then hold her and make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again.

Hayes said, “People don’t take down their walls because someone is nice. Plenty of shitty people look nice at first. If she had a wall a mile high, I wouldn’t blame her. The only way to earn the trust of someone who’s been burned is to show them who you are, and each action you make will take down that wall, brick by brick.”

His words washed over me, and I stared at my brother, shocked. He definitely didn’t act like the philosophical one of us. “Where did you come from?” I asked.

He smirked. “Spend enough time with women and you learn a thing or two, whether you want to or not.”

I rolled my eyes at him again. “Thanks, Hayes. I needed this.”

“Of course. Now get out.”

“What?”

He stood up. “Mindy might still be awake for round two.”

That was so Hayes. I gave him a half hug, and then went outside, by some miracle, feeling better than I had when I walked in.

I knew what I was going to do.

I was going to prove myself to Larkin, brick by brick.