She nodded. “Yes. The way it should be. Thank you.” She lurched toward the door.

“Don’t do this,” Vaughn called after her. “Rachel, please . . .”

Then she was outside, stumbling through the early-morning darkness, Vaughn following close, Stratis at her side. The street was crowded with patrol cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Beyond the vehicles was a gathering crowd of onlookers.

Stratis directed her to his squad car.

“Let me drive you home, Rachel. Don’t cut me out like this,” Vaughn said, his voice strained, desperate. “Please, give me a chance to talk to you.”

With her hand on the passenger door of Stratis’s squad car, she met Vaughn’s gaze. “We’re out of chances. When I’m with you, my life falls apart. Bad things happen. Like when I leaned on my dad. You and me, we’re really over this time.”

She thought she might throw up, saying it. Mashing her lips together, she lowered into the seat and closed the door. When Stratis pulled away from the curb, she chanced a look out the rear window.

Vaughn was on his knees in the road, his head in his hands.

She closed her eyes and hugged herself tight. Her family was safe, the bad guys would never bother them again, and she was alone. From here on out, her life was family and alfalfa. When she felt lost, she’d have to find her own way out from under the feeling. No more waiting around for men to slay her monsters. No more leaning.

No more Vaughn.

* * *

It took all day long for Vaughn and his deputies to sort through the case against Elias Baltierra. Nathan Binderman and Torin Kirby spent the day at the Sorentino farm processing the scene. Damn near killed Vaughn to hold back from asking them how Rachel was faring.

When he’d found her at the Laundromat, all he’d wanted to do was hold her, to feel her breath and heat, and assure himself she was okay. But she’d pushed him away. On some levels, he understood her fear. Twice now, terrible events had happened after she’d been with him. But the hour he’d spent not knowing if she were alive or dead brought Vaughn’s priorities into stark focus.

Nothing mattered to him as much as Rachel. But proving to her that his love was worth facing her fears was an overwhelming proposition. He had no idea how to go about it. What he needed was some solid advice.

He pulled his squad car into his parents’ driveway around dinnertime, hoping he wasn’t interrupting their meal. He didn’t smell any tasty dinner aromas wafting over the front yard, so there was a good chance he’d timed it right.

He knocked on the kitchen door as he opened it. His mom looked up from dusting the window blinds. Dad was at the kitchen counter, tossing a nasty-looking salad.

With a wave to his dad, he went straight for Mom and snagged her in a hug. “What are you doing, cleaning the blinds? You already cleaned the house from top to bottom yesterday. You should be relaxing, maybe watching one of those daytime talk shows you tape, a glass of wine in your hand.”

She patted his arm. “I know, I know, but the house doesn’t feel clean yet. Maybe when I’m done with the living room I’ll take a break.”

It was no wonder the house felt unclean to her. The police had invaded her private space, pawed through her clothing, touched everything in the house. Every time he thought about it, his anger toward Meyer started winding up again.

“Why don’t you let me hire some cleaning people to come in and scour the place?”

She shrugged. “You already offered that, and it’s sweet of you, but the thought of more strangers in here doesn’t sit well with me.”

Vaughn hugged her tighter. “I’d do anything to go back and prevent what happened to you yesterday.”

She reached up and cradled his cheeks in her palms. “You already told me that too. What you’re forgetting is that my people are from Sicily. So I know how to handle hard times. It’s in my blood. I’m no weakling, honey. Don’t insult me like that.”

“Of course you’re not, Ma. I didn’t mean to imply—”

His dad clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Vaughn, here’s a lesson about dealing with women. Keep your head down and say I’m sorry. Don’t try to explain because you’ll only dig yourself deeper into a hole.”

He arched a brow at his dad, masking his pain with a grin. “You learn that the hard way, old man?”

Dad chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it. We’re having a salad for dinner, so I’m not even going to bother inviting you to stay.”

“Appreciate that. It looks terrible.” He pulled a face that made his mom smile and playfully slap his arm.

“How’s the investigation going on Monday’s shootout at the Sorentino property?” Dad asked.

“That investigation turned into a whole web of charges against Wallace Meyer Jr. and his cohorts. I handed the cases over to Nathan Binderman and Wesley Stratis about an hour ago.”

His dad narrowed his eyes. “I thought you wanted to stick it to Wallace Meyer.”

Vaughn rubbed his chin. “I’ve had a change of heart.” He hooked his thumb in the direction of the workshop. “I reshoed a horse a few days ago, so I’m low on No. 5 nails. Do you have any you could spare?”

His dad nodded, taking the hint. “Let’s go see.”

In the workshop, Vaughn settled onto a stool and opened the nail drawer. It was still neatly organized from the last time he’d visited. Dad set a bucket of nails in front of him. “My students made these. How about you see if any of them are salvageable?”

Vaughn grinned and dumped the contents onto the counter.

Dad motioned to the pile. “All right. Start talking.”

Good plan in theory, but Vaughn wasn’t sure where to start. He spread the nails out, considering. Things between him and Rachel had been so screwed up for so long that untangling the truth didn’t seem possible without starting at the beginning.

“I am . . .” He’d never said it aloud before, and it shocked him, how profound the statement felt, sitting there on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed and started again. “I am in love with Rachel Sorentino. I’ve been heading in that direction for quite a while, since my first year as a sheriff deputy, actually. But I didn’t think . . . Our lives weren’t compatible. I don’t know why I didn’t ask her out anyway, but it never seemed like the right time. Everything changed after her dad died.”

Leaving out the intimate details, he told the story, even the parts he was ashamed of. As he talked, he felt the weight of the secrets and lies lifting off his shoulders. Dad listened attentively, sorting nails right alongside Vaughn.

The hardest part of the story to tell—the part that had emotion squeezing his heart and gut, and his throat tickling with the need for a smoke—was that morning’s events. “She told me we were over for good, but I can’t lose her now. My gut’s telling me I should leave her alone until things calm down, but I don’t know if that’s the right move.”

With a huge sigh, Dad dumped the small pile of hopelessly irregular nails into the bucket. “The most important choice I ever made was to fight for your mother’s hand.”

That pulled Vaughn up short. “I thought you two fell in love right away.”

“Falling in love doesn’t necessarily make forging a life together easier.”

That was the damn truth. He laid two No. 5 nails side by side to compare the length, then tossed the short one in the bucket. His dad’s class had done a terrible job on the nails. Must be a beginner’s course.

“Your mother’s parents hated me. I was Irish, and from the wrong side of town, and your mother was an Italian girl from a wealthy family. Back then, those were impossible odds. I almost didn’t fight for her.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Dad shrugged. “I’m not a combative person. The Finocchiaros scared me to death. Your mother’s father and brothers are not small men, and they’ve got tempers that rival your nonna’s. It would’ve been easier to let her go, but I knew I’d never be as happy with someone else as I was with her. So I faced my fears, and I thank God every day I had the wherewithal to make that choice.”

“But I’m not the one who’s afraid. Rachel is.”

Dad scooped a handful of warped nails into the bucket. “That’s hogwash. Your whole life, you’ve been afraid of not measuring up. Measuring up to what, I don’t know. Some impossible standard you set for yourself. Even as a kid, in school or sports, you were always harder on yourself than anyone else was. Your mom and I didn’t need to get on you about homework, and we never had to give you a lecture on trying your best because you were born with this chip on your shoulder. We don’t know where it came from any more than we know where Gwen’s issues came from. Tell me that doesn’t come from a place of fear.”

Okay, no. His dad was the wisest person he knew, but he was way off. “That’s not true. I ran for sheriff. People who are afraid of not measuring up don’t stick their necks out like that.”

Dad picked a nail up and tapped the point on the counter. “They do if they’ve made it their life’s mission to prove that rich and well-connected people don’t deserve to hold all the power. You ran for sheriff because you wanted to prove you were a better man than Meyer.”

Vaughn’s hand stilled over the nails. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But what does that have to do with my situation with Rachel?”

“That’s easy. You’re terrified of not measuring up in her eyes, so you’re not even trying to prove yourself to her.”

Vaughn huffed. “I did try. I’ve been trying for a year and a half.”

“No, you haven’t. Not really. According to your story, whenever you had to choose between her or something else, you chose the something else. And when you’re around her, all you’re doing is haunting the corners of her life without really being a part of it. How’s Rachel supposed to think she can count on you when you don’t put her first and you’re never really there?”