He bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Sullivans stick together. That includes you, Harry.”

“She was never one of us.”

A quiet man with quiet ways, he unfolded himself from the chair to go sit by his mother-in-law. She patted his hand.

“You never liked her much, did you, Harry?”

“I never liked her at all, but Aidan loved her. You can’t choose family, Rosemary my own. I just got lucky with the bulk of mine. There now.”

He put an arm around her when Rosemary turned her face to his shoulder and finally wept.

Aidan walked off the sick, walked off at least the top notes of his rage. For Cate’s sake, he reminded himself as he kept walking, kept breathing in the cool, salty air, for her sake he had to find his calm, find his steady.

But beneath it, that rage lived, a feral animal that craved blood. He feared it would live and crave forever.

And under that, even under the snarling and pacing of that beast, lay the shattered pieces of his heart.

He’d loved Charlotte with all of that heart.

How could he have not seen? How could he have not known the grasping, selfish, immoral woman beneath the facade? Even, he had to admit, when that facade had thinned and he’d gotten glimpses, he’d dismissed them.

He’d loved her, trusted her. He’d made a child with her, and she’d risked that child, used that child, betrayed that child.

He would never forgive her for it. He’d never forgive himself.

But when he went back inside, he’d coated on layers of that calm and steady. Coated them thick so they couldn’t crack—not even when he went in through the back and saw Cate burrowed against his father.

His eyes met Hugh’s over Cate’s head.

“I think Cate and I need to talk.”

“Sure you do.” Hugh drew Cate back, smiled at her. “Everything’s going to be all right. All right can take a little time, but we’ll get there.”

He gave her a last squeeze, then left them alone.

“How about we sit and talk in the library? Just you and me?”

When he held out a hand, she took it with such unquestioning trust, his heart broke just a little more.

Because he wanted privacy for both of them, he took her the long way around, through the formal dining room, past the conservatory, around what they called the music room, and into the library.

Its windows faced the hills, the gardens, gave glimpses of a little orchard. They, with the pale winter sun drifting in, offered a quieter view than the roll of sea. Under a coffered ceiling of mocha and cream, shelves of books, of bound scripts, lined the walls. The chestnut floor gleamed under an Aubusson carpet of elegantly faded greens and roses. He knew his grandmother sometimes sat at the antique library table shipped from Dublin to write actual letters and notes.

He pulled the double pocket doors shut, guided Cate to the big leather sofa. Before he sat, he lit the fire.

Then he sat beside her, took her face in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Daddy—”

“I have to say this, then I’ll listen to whatever you need to say. I’m so sorry, Catey, my Cate. I didn’t keep you safe, I didn’t protect you. You’re everything to me, and I promise you I won’t ever fail you again.”

“You didn’t. She—”

“But I did. Never again. Nothing and no one is as important to me as you. Nothing and no one ever will be.” He kissed her forehead, and found saying the words to her helped settle him.

“I knew it was her when I was in that room. She told me where to hide. She took me there and showed me, so I knew. But only inside because . . .”

“She’s your mother.”

“Why doesn’t she love me?”

“I don’t know. But I do, Cate.”

“Does . . . does she have to live with us?”

“No, and she won’t. Ever.” It carved at him again, the shaky breath of relief his little girl let out.

“Do we have to live where we did? I don’t want to go back there anymore, and live where she did. I don’t—”

“Then we won’t. I think, for now, we could live with Grandpa and G-Lil. Until we find a place for just you and me.”

Hope, sweet and bright, lit her face. “Really?”

He made himself smile. “Sullivans stick together, right?”

She didn’t smile back, and her voice trembled. “Do I have to see her? Do I have to talk to her? Do I—”

“No.” He prayed he could make that the truth.

Her eyes, so blue, and now so robbed of innocence, looked into his. “She let them scare me, and hurt me. And I know what ‘lover’ means. She scared you, too, she hurt you, too. She doesn’t love us, and I don’t ever want to see her again. She’s not really my mother, because mothers don’t do that.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I don’t feel sad about it,” she claimed, even as tears started to roll. “I don’t care. I don’t love her either, so I don’t care.”

He said nothing; he understood completely. He felt exactly the same. Torn to bits, desperate not to care. So he just gathered her close, let her cry it out, cry herself to sleep.

And while she slept, he sat alone with her, watching the fire.

CHAPTER SIX

Deputy Michaela Wilson had pursued and accepted the job in Big Sur because she wanted a change, because she wanted community. And, though she wouldn’t admit it, because the man she’d lived with for two years, the man she thought she’d live with for the rest of her life, decided that being with a cop equaled too many complications.

She, a woman who believed to the marrow in law, order, rules, procedure, in justice, could admit she’d put the job ahead of their relationship more than once.

But to Michaela, that was the job.

She’d been an urbanite all her life, so the change of locations, of culture, of pace equaled an enormous personal challenge.

She’d wanted just that.

She wouldn’t deny that her first few weeks had tested her. She wouldn’t deny she thought of Red Buckman as Sheriff Dude. The man had a bikini-clad (well-endowed) woman riding a wave tattooed on his biceps.

He often wore an earring. Not to mention the hair.

All that added into the too laid back, in her opinion, too unbuttoned, and—she’d thought—too damn slow.

It wasn’t an easy matter for Michaela Lee Wilson to admit a mistake, especially one of judgment. But in the past eighteen hours or so, she’d had to admit this one.

He might look like a middle-aged surfer, but he was all cop.

She got another good dose of that cop when they sat in interview with Charlotte Dupont and her high-priced lawyer.

She didn’t know much about Charles Anthony Scarpetti, but she knew he’d flown up from L.A. in his private jet, wearing his sharp suit and Gucci shoes. And she knew—because Red had warned her—Scarpetti was the type who’d play to the media and pop up on Larry King.

Red sat placidly while Scarpetti pontificated in his slick lawyer way about motions for dismissal, about harassment, intimidation, filing for full custody of the minor child, spousal abuse.

Apparently he had a lot of rabbits in his lawyer hat. Red just let them hop around awhile.