It was weird. Getting ready for work whenever Rach was home usually consisted of me trying to get ready, and her doing everything to make sure I had fewer clothes on ten minutes later than when I’d begun. Now that she was back, I hadn’t expected it to go back to that immediately. But she shut herself in the closet when she changed and always seemed to walk out of the bedroom whenever I was doing the same. And it’d been close to three weeks since she’d come home.
I stopped near the end of the hall and leaned a shoulder against the wall as I watched her. She was sitting on the far end of one of the couches, her legs up in that way that she always seemed to sit now, and was staring off into the backyard. Her journal was resting in between her knees and her chest, a pen in her hand like she’d forgotten she was writing again.
This happened a lot now too. She wrote more than she used to, and even when she wasn’t writing, there were times when she would suddenly stop whatever she was doing and just stare off . . . usually outdoors. I didn’t ask what she was thinking about, or what she was remembering, because it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out. I just usually tried to let her be alone in her thoughts during those times.
With all that said, though, she was getting better all the time, and I was so damn proud of her. After that second day home, when she’d walked into the living room with her engagement ring back on, we’d slowly been working on everything. Neither of us mentioned the fact that she put it on, but I’m positive I hadn’t stopped smiling like a lunatic for hours after.
We’d worked on her fear and anxiety, as well as my jealousy issues and insecurities over Trent. But most of all, we’d just worked on being us again. She hadn’t cried since her second shower, as far as I knew; and after a long talk about how she’d felt like she didn’t know the man who’d come to rescue her . . . she slowly went back to calling me Kash again. As I’d seen that second day, my bitchy Rachel was still there, and her attitude was slowly coming out more and more. I’d gone back to treating her like I always had from day one, and she’d gone back to teasing and fighting with me again, as well as smiling a little more every day.
Though she didn’t ask about him, she knew that I’d made sure Trent was put in an isolation cell so that no one could get to him except for the guards, and I knew she only didn’t mention him for my benefit. Because every night, in her sleep, she’d whisper his name. Sometimes her voice was laced with fear or agony, and sometimes it was as if he were standing right there . . . but it never failed. Though we were working on us, and I knew without a doubt that she loved me, there was always that nagging thought of what her real thoughts of him were. Even still, Mason and I had been working for the last few weeks on getting him moved somewhere else for his safety, but since Rachel didn’t bring him up, I wasn’t sure how to bring that up to her . . . especially when there was the chance we wouldn’t succeed.
I held her every night in our bed, and took any opportunity to kiss the top of her head, forehead, cheeks, and neck . . . but we still hadn’t kissed since that second morning. There were lingering touches from her, brushes here and there; and when I would hold her in my arms, her eyes would search mine as her fingers gently trailed over my face and through my hair. It was the sweetest form of agony I’d ever endured.
I pushed off the wall, and Trip lifted his head as he watched me make my way toward him and Rachel. He’d come back home a few days ago and hadn’t left Rachel’s side since. Scratching his head when I got close, I tried not to shake my own when I got directly next to Rachel and she still hadn’t realized I was here.
She jumped a little when I cupped one of her cheeks in my hands but smiled and pressed her fingers gently into my chest when she looked up at me.
“Gotta go to work, Sour Patch.”
Her lips twitched, and her fingers trailed up the side of my neck and into my hair. “Be safe.”
I leaned in and kissed her neck, and then closer to her ear before whispering, “Always. I love you, Rachel.”
“Love you too.”
I’d barely gotten out the door before my phone was blaring the department’s ringtone. Looking down, I saw CHIEF on the screen and double-checked the time to make sure I wasn’t running late before answering.
“Yes, sir?”
“You headed toward the office, or do you have something that has you going straight to the streets?”
“I believe Gates and I are both going into the office first. There isn’t much we had planned out today.”
“Good, can you come see me as soon as you get in? I have something I need to talk to you about.”
I paused just a few feet from the driveway and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. “Both of us?”
“Just you.”
Shit. “Uh, of course. I’m leaving right now.”
“See you soon.”
I threw my leg over my Harley and tried not to overthink what I could be called in for. I’d gone against the department to find Rachel, and Mason and I had both already had three meetings with Chief and some of the detectives who had worked the case regarding that. Everyone had agreed that we wouldn’t be suspended or punished, but that still didn’t ease the fear of being called in to talk to Chief.
As soon as I was sitting in front of him, the fear left and was replaced by confusion when he placed a journal in an evidence bag on the desk.
“This was recovered from the building where they had been holding your fiancée.”
Rachel’s mention of writing to me floated through my mind, and I gripped the arms of the chair so I wouldn’t grab for it.
“It’s up to you if you tell her that we had to go through every entry in order to gain more information about the situation, but there’s nothing here for us. Nothing more than what she told the detectives when they interviewed her, and most are letters to loved ones about her fears. So I’m handing it over to you. She wrote a lot to you, but you know your fiancée, so it’s your call on whether you think you should read it or not. As well as if you should give it back to her. She might not want to have that reminder.”
Of course I want to fucking read it. “Thank you, Chief. I appreciate it. Was there anything else you needed to speak to me about?”
“One last thing now that we’re alone, Ryan. Completely off the record, and I’ll deny it if you repeat it.”
My lips twitched and I crossed my arms over my chest. Chief’s off-the-record-speeches were usually him venting about someone in the department, or his in-laws coming for a visit. And for the most part, they were funny as shit. The rest of the tension in my body melted away and I relaxed into the chair as I waited for him to begin.
“I don’t blame you for what you did. If it had been my wife, or any of my kids, I would have done whatever it took to find them and get them back. The moment you got into the police department, I made the decision to pull you off patrol and put you in the worst situations imaginable by having you as an undercover narcotics officer. The things you and Gates had to go through there, and what you had to do to survive with those people, has made you both the incredible detectives you are today. Unfortunately for me, and some of our other detectives, it made it so that you don’t feel the need to follow the law sometimes. They don’t understand, because they’ve all had to follow the law, but to be honest, we can’t ask for much else after what the both of you did for us over the course of those years. I guess I just want you to know that I think you did what you had to as a man. As one of my officers, I will always stand behind you for what you’ve done for our department, and our city.”
Completely unexpected. Mason and I had gotten off free, but Chief still hadn’t looked happy with either one of us during our previous meetings. I sat there speechless until Chief stood and offered out his hand. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”