He tapped a finger to the tip of her nose. “And I don’t?”

  “Not just emotional baggage. Until earlier this year, I was in debt. Big debt. When my bakery closed, I filed for bankruptcy and that took care of some of the bills, but not all of them. I’m barely in the black, and my credit’s shot to hell.”

  He scoffed good-naturedly. “I can trump you on that kind of baggage, too. My undergraduate and med-school loans are astronomical. And I’ve got three more years of residency before I can start my own practice and begin paying it back. Now, that’s what I call debt.”

  Still grinning, she rested her cheek on his chest, and he contented himself with stroking her hair. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

  “Perfect for each other, I’d say.” There was one piece of himself he hadn’t shared with her yet. She’d had the courage to tell him about her most profound hurt, and he needed to offer her his in return. “Could we sit down? There’s something about myself, my past, I want you to know. Something I’ve never talked about with anyone before.”

  His heart slammed against his ribs as he led her to the sofa. They sat side by side, holding hands. Kate was quiet, waiting patiently, while Levi struggled to figure out where to begin. This was the scariest thing he’d ever done, the most vulnerable he’d ever made himself. But he wanted Kate to know everything about him, even the darkest parts.

  “I was in a car accident.” Saying the words felt like pouring dozens of spiders over his skin. He’d never spoken of this to a single soul except the police, insurance adjusters and hospital workers.

  He tried to maintain eye contact with Kate, but his gaze slid away, lost in memory. All he could see was the darkness of that night so long ago. “After my mother’s funeral, my grief came out as rage.” He shook his head. “She was the only person I’d ever loved and she was gone. A drug overdose. I blamed myself for being away at college and not being there for her. She was lonely and I was off chasing a dream.

  “Jethro didn’t attend her funeral but Catherine, Amanda and Gabriella did. They tried to express their condolences to me afterward, but I couldn’t take the gesture as the kindness it was because I was so wrapped up in my pain and anger. We argued in the parking lot of the funeral home and I left. I shouldn’t have been driving because I was too upset to think rationally and there was a terrible storm going on. The worst storm of the decade, I learned later.”

  A look of pure horror crossed Kate’s face. She let go of his hands. “How long ago?”

  “Six years.”

  She backed up until she’d hit the arm of the sofa, putting space between them, as if he was a wild and dangerous animal. As if she was afraid of him. He didn’t understand—he hadn’t even gotten to the bad part yet. “Kate, I’m trying to tell you this, and I’ve never told anyone. I need you to...” He huffed and held out his hand for her. “Come sit with me, please.”

  But she’d gone completely pale, ghostly. Her eyes were wide with shock. “What month?”

  He curled his fingers in. The emptiness of her denial to hold his hand was excruciating. “April.”

  She clamped a hand on her chin. “You were on Route Nine from Dead to Laramie?”

  “Yes, and that’s all I remember.” He stared at the ground beyond his knees. “It was dark and rainy, and I couldn’t stop the grief about my mom and the rage from the fight with my half sisters. I felt like I was drowning in feeling. I remember I was listening to music and this sad song came on and I cussed at the radio. That’s the last thing I remember about that night.

  “I woke up a week later in the hospital. My leg and ribs were broken and my lung was punctured. The doctors told me I’d been in a car accident but that was all they knew. I couldn’t shake the idea that there was something they weren’t telling me. I had this sinking feeling that I’d done something wrong. That’s when the nightmares started. About the others.”

  She flattened her back against the arm of the sofa. “The others?” she whispered.

  “In the dream it’s dark and rainy. I see headlights coming at me, and I can hear a woman screaming, then everything turns red, and the body of a man slams onto my windshield. That’s when I wake up.”

  He chanced a look at Kate. Tears streamed over her cheeks.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so sad. I’m okay now. Will you please come sit close to me?” She shook her head. He swallowed and returned his gaze to his hands. If he was ever going to get it all out and come clean to her so they could move on together, he was going to have to plow straight through to the end. “Anyway, after I was released from the hospital and rehab center, I spent the next two years trying to piece together the details and find out if there’d actually been others involved in the crash or if that was only in my head.

  “The police were vague and the insurance company wouldn’t release any information. One time the claims investigator mentioned another car and I pressed for details, but he wouldn’t say any more, telling me it was a matter of legalities about privacy. I finally convinced someone at the police precinct in Dead to give me a copy of the police report on the accident but it was missing.

  “The trail went cold and all I had left was this nagging feeling that I’d messed up someone else’s life and no one would tell me so I could make amends. That’s why I chose to become a doctor. To help people and make peace with the parts of my life I can’t remember. And it worked for the most part because the nightmares barely happened after I enrolled in med school.”

  He paused his story to study Kate. Her emotional state was deteriorating. Concerns about her possible concussion and the ordeal she’d suffered trumped any retelling about his past. He slid over to her. “Are you okay? Is the bump on your head bothering you?”

  He reached for her, but she recoiled and shot to her feet. “Don’t touch me.”

  He staggered back in shock, blinking. “What? How can you judge me like that? You know me. I would never have hurt someone on purpose. I’ve spent the last six years trying to make up for whatever happened that night.”

  She walked to the fireplace and stared vacantly into it, her lips contorted in the beginning of a sob that she choked back.

  “Why are you reacting like this, Kate? Is there something I’m missing? Help me out here.”

  She turned to face him again. “Six years ago in April, I was driving out of Dead with William on Route Nine.”

  His stomach dropped. “I don’t understand.”

  “A tree fell in the road and I swerved.” Her cheeks were wet with tears, her voice tight and thin. She clutched the baby blanket like a lifeline. “I swerved and spun out and another car hit us. William was ejected. I was trapped and disoriented. Our car was on fire and I had to save Olive, so I found a way out and started to run, but I fell into the darkness off the side of the road.”

  That couldn’t be right. It was too fantastical to believe. “William and Olive were killed in a car accident? Six years ago on the same highway my car accident was on?” Around him, the room started to spin. He cradled his head in his hands. “Wait—you think your car was the one I hit? That’s impossible.”

  She was shaking from head to toe. “April seventeenth, eight miles east of Dead on Route Nine to Laramie. At seven-forty-five at night.”

  The room wouldn’t slow down. He felt as if his spirit was drifting out of his body. “No. No way. It can’t be.” He dropped to his knees before her. “Please tell me it wasn’t your car I hit. Tell me you weren’t driving a red two-door, like in my nightmare?”

  Nodding, she clamped a hand over her mouth and wilted against the wall near the door. Levi couldn’t reach for her. He couldn’t do anything but kneel in place, horrified at himself and at life. If he moved one millimeter, he was going to throw up.

  “The emergency crews, they helped the other car first,” she said. “They left William alone too long, and I couldn’t climb the hill I’d fallen down because it was wet and dark and my body hurt so badly I couldn’t breathe.”

  “I hit your car?” He fell forward to his hands and knees. “I can’t... I don’t... Help me understand how. You didn’t live in Dead back then. What were you doing there?”

  “We’d been in town for a church festival. I was selling cupcakes and pastries, trying to drum up some business for my bakery.”

  He’d seen that festival down the street from his mother’s funeral. He remembered it because at the time he’d thought, how could anyone celebrate on the worst day of Levi’s life? How could the world go on while he stood there in pain with his only family gone?

  Her face crumpled. “You killed my husband. My baby.”

  Bile rose in his throat. “Kate, please. I didn’t know.”

  But she was already inching sideways to the door. “You got the only ambulance and all the attention of the paramedics, and we were left to wait for backup. You said you were nothing like the Coltons, and that you’d never used your name for power, but that’s exactly what happened. You’re no better than Jethro.”

  He jumped to his feet as she whirled and ran.

  Levi felt the sickness coming up and stumbled to the bathroom, heaving violently until his stomach had no more to give. Bent over the toilet, he had only one thought—he’d ruined the life of the only woman he’d ever loved.

  He washed his face and stood, numb. If he’d been given preferential treatment because he was a Colton, his worst fear would be realized. No matter what he did or how hard he tried, he couldn’t escape the fate of having cursed blood running through his veins. Though it was too late to right the wrongs done to Kate or turn back time, she deserved to know the truth and so did he.

  He strode from the bathroom and out of the suite, barreling through the house on a collision course with the only man capable and heartless enough to cover up an incident that big.

  * * *

  Kate’s car had collided with a Colton. It all made sense now. No wonder she and William hadn’t been given first shot at the ambulance and why no one had ever been made to pay for the crime. Worse, she’d gone and fallen in love with the person who had a hand in destroying everything she held dear.

  Blindly, she ran through the house toward the front door, not knowing where she was headed, paying no mind to the darkness of the house. But the farther she ran, the less she believed the words she’d spoken to Levi in anger. The more she considered the details, the less convinced she was about his guilt. How could she be angry with him if he hadn’t known what he’d done? He’d been in the throes of his own grief when he crashed into her car, and she knew firsthand how devastating and all-consuming grief could be.

  She froze. Maybe the crash and cover-up weren’t as cut-and-dried as she’d initially thought. Her car had been nearer to the tree. If not for the buffer it had provided, would Levi have plowed into the tree and died? That would have been as awful a tragedy as William’s death.

  She looked around. She was standing in the foyer, alone. The clock read half-past midnight. The only sound was the grandfather clock ticking the seconds away in the hall. Regret flooded through her. Levi had opened his heart to her with his darkest secret, and she’d treated him like a monster for it. She owed him an apology along with her forgiveness about his role in the car crash. But how could she forgive him for his role when she’d never really forgiven herself for hers?

  Looking at it now, it was tough to feel an overabundance of anger, even toward Mr. Colton. He hadn’t caused the accident, and though Levi had been given preferential treatment by the paramedics, she had no way of knowing if William had died instantaneously or if medical treatment could have saved him. She could waste the rest of her life on what-ifs and vengeance and justice.

  She leaned a shoulder against the closed front door. Perhaps the better perspective was this—did she really want to waste one more day caught up in blame and bitterness, hating an old man who lay dying? After all, Jethro Colton would answer to a higher power for his crimes soon enough.

  Her gaze traveled to the grand staircase. Upstairs was a man who loved her, and he was one of the best, most decent men she’d ever met. He wanted to build a life with her, and, more importantly, he made her the happiest she’d ever been. She’d be a fool not to grab hold of his hand and hang on forever, but to do so, she needed to forgive herself for being at the wheel during the accident and put the past behind her. There was only one way she could think to do it.

  With a deep breath, she straightened and opened the door to the darkness. It was time to look her greatest nemesis in the face—not Mother Nature and not darkness, but her fear of all the many things that were out of her control.

  On sure legs, she strode into the night. The wind whipped the ashes around her face. On a nearby ridge, the flames of the wildfire were visible. She walked over the grounds, toward the forest and the unknown.

  She wanted to stand in absolute darkness for a minute with the knowledge that she was okay. It was folly to believe sinister things were lurking in every shadow, waiting to get her. And even if there were, she was done fearing them. Bad things happened to good people all the time, but rather than be paralyzed by possibilities, she wanted to have the strength to live her life out loud.

  She fixed a picture of Levi in her head and looked at the fire that danced in the distance beyond the firebreak, but still close enough that she could make out individual fingers of flame licking the sky.

  Her heart pounded, but her hands were steady and her mind was calm. She’d never felt so alive.

  “You’re not going to hold me back anymore,” she shouted at Mother Nature. “Living isn’t about money, and it’s not about a job. It’s about love. You stole it from me.” With every word she felt stronger, braver. “You took everything that mattered to me, and I’ve been hiding here waiting to stop being afraid of you and afraid of myself. I’m done with that. I’m in love with Levi Colton, and you’re not going to hold me back. I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

  She fell forward, bracing her hands on her knees, and let loose with a cathartic laugh-cry.

  Eventually, her tears and laughter subsided, making her aware that the knot on her head throbbed, which was weird because the incident in the stairwell felt like ancient history.

  Hands on hips, she took stock of her surroundings. The stable was to her left. Horses had always been good at clearing her mind, and she knew a few workhorses had yet to be evacuated. She snagged a lantern from a nail on the stable wall and pushed the door open. It gave way with a creak. In the soft glow of the lantern, she counted only two horses poking their heads over the tops of their stalls, curious about the midnight visitor.

  She walked to the nearest horse and held her hand out for it to sniff. Behind her, the stable door creaked again. If that was Levi, she’d tell him how sorry she was for what she’d said. She’d beg forgiveness and fight for their future together.

  Smiling, she pivoted toward the door. “Levi, I...” But it wasn’t Levi. “Agnes, what are you doing here?”

  Chapter 17

  Levi flung the door open to Jethro’s suite, not caring in the least that it was the middle of the night and he was probably waking up half the house. The magnitude of his fury was too profound to temper.

  Catherine bolted to a seated position on a coat in the sitting room. “Levi? Is that you?” She rubbed her eyes. “Are you here to check on Dad? He’s had a rough night with coughing. That ash really got in his lungs.”

  Levi barely slowed down as he passed by her on his way to Jethro’s room. He punched the light switch on the wall, and it took a second to register that the electricity hadn’t yet been restored to the house. He flung the curtains wide to the night. The moon was shrouded by clouds dense with fire pollutants, but afforded enough light for him to find the lantern on the dresser and turn it on.

  “What’s going on?” Jethro rasped.

  Levi rounded on him. “I’m here to get some answers.”

  “Now?” Catherine asked, rushing into the room. “It’s the middle of the night. What’s gotten into you?”

  “Answers about what?” Jethro grunted. He scooted his head higher against the headboard.

  “About your crimes, old man.”

  Jethro gave a wheezy laugh. “Which ones?”

  Catherine bullied her way between Levi and the bed, shielding Jethro from view. “I don’t know what’s happened, but now’s not the time for this. Dad’s worn-out. Let him rest.”

  “Catherine, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m not waiting until it’s convenient for Jethro to get the answers I need. How about you give us some privacy? This is between me and my father.”

  Catherine crossed her arms over her chest. “Not a chance.”

  “Fine. Listen in. You might as well know the whole story.” He walked to the other side of the bed.

  Jethro pushed the rest of the way to a seated position, scowling. “Out with it, then. I don’t have all night.”

  Levi drew a deep breath. “Six years ago, the night of my mother’s funeral, I was in a car accident.”

  “You were?” Catherine said.

  Levi ignored her and continued. “I don’t remember any of it, but I woke up a week later in the hospital, and nobody could tell me the details about what had happened. Ever since, I’ve had nightmares.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re a sissy.”

  “Shut up and let me finish. I had nightmares about hitting another car and killing the people inside. When I went to the Dead Police Department to read the accident report, nobody could find it. Guess why?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Levi’s hands curled into fists. The sarcasm was getting old. “You’re going to play dumb?”

  Jethro’s scowl morphed into a hard smile. “I’ve been accused of a lot of misdeeds in my life, but playing dumb isn’t one of them.”

 

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