The Time in Between by Kristen Ashley
He threw an arm around my shoulders and turned me around to go back up the stairs, guiding me that way.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Suicide.”
I almost stopped on the steps but pressure on my shoulders from Coert made me keep going.
“Oh my God. I’m sorry. That’s terrible,” I whispered.
“It happens. And you can guarantee at least one this time of year.” His deep voice sounded both weary and world-weary.
To say the rigors of his job were not lost on me was an understatement. I’d been caught up in those rigors in a way that they couldn’t.
However, learning this knowledge, the full rigors of his job had been lost on me.
Until now.
“I don’t know what to say,” I told him, feeling powerless to help, even in finding the right words.
“It’s the job, Cady,” he said, now just sounding tired. “It’s actually the definition of the job. Bad shit happens, and that bad shit comes in a lot of forms, and then we wade in.”
We’d entered his room and he gave me a gentle shove toward the bed.
“Go back to bed. Gonna walk through the house, make sure all is good. I’ll be back.”
I felt my best course of action was to do as he asked (or, more accurately, told) so I went back to bed. I didn’t whistle for Midnight. I let her keep Coert company as he did what he had to do before he bedded down.
He came back, went right to the bathroom, and I saw the light go on before the door closed behind him (and Midnight).
He came out in the pajama bottoms he’d worn the night before that I’d put on the hooks on the back of his door and the bathroom light went out.
He and Midnight joined me in bed.
I turned to him immediately.
He pulled me into his arms the moment I did.
“What can I do?” I whispered.
“You can go back to sleep. I’m dog-tired, Cady. Need some shut-eye and an end to this day.”
Well, you couldn’t be clearer than that.
“Okay,” I replied, snuggling into him.
He pulled the covers farther up our shoulders, tucking them in, and then his arm came back around me and he fell slightly forward, pulling me under him, covering me and weaving his long legs in mine.
“Love you,” I said softly.
“Yeah,” he replied in the same vein, his arms giving me a squeeze. “Love you back.”
“’Night, honey.”
“’Night, Cady.”
I closed my eyes but I didn’t sleep. Not until I heard his breath even. Not until I spent some time marveling that he could fall asleep after what he had to have just gone through. Not until I spent more time processing the fact this wasn’t his first suicide, that murders happened everywhere, that his job of position and authority was a good one, a brave one, a necessary one.
But it was far from an easy one.
He did it. He laughed. He joked. He teased. He bought diamond necklaces. He called his daughter “cupcake.” He fell asleep with relative ease after a tough night.
He had this.
It wasn’t his job.
It was his life.
And he had me.
So I had to have it too.
And I had him.
So I would.
On that thought (or close to it), I fell asleep.
I opened my eyes when I felt Coert (and Midnight) move away from me in bed.
“Honey?” I called.
“Gotta hit the shower and get into the station. Sleep. I’ll call you later,” he murmured, halting his exit of the bed to lean in and give my temple a kiss.
When he was done kissing me, I turned my head and looked to his shadow in the dark.
“I’ll get up with you,” I told him.
“Unnecessary,” he told me.
“I’ll make you breakfast.”
“You can sleep, Cady.”
I looked beyond him to the alarm clock to see it was before six.
He’d had less than five hours of sleep.
I looked back to his shadow which had recommenced moving.
“I’ll make you breakfast.”
He stopped and I saw his head swing to me.
“You wanna do that, honey, okay,” he said quietly.
I was glad he didn’t fight me on it because he’d lose.
I threw the covers back, declaring, “I get the bathroom first.”
I took it first and walked out to a room that had the nightstand lights on, stopping to get a touch of the lips from Coert who walked into the bathroom after me.
I went to my bag, dug out the long cardigan I brought, the thick socks. I put them on and Midnight and I went downstairs. I let her out. I found the dog food Coert bought and put some in her bowl. I threw out her water and put out fresh. I made coffee. I let her in.
Then I got down to making Coert breakfast.
This was the good part of where Coert and I were in that moment (not that there were any bad parts, so I should call it the familiar part, which was one of the many good parts).
There was very little about him that I forgot.
Including what he liked to eat.
So I set about offering that, relishing in the old and the new. Getting back what we had and getting more, learning about each other again as we moved more deeply into what we were going to be.
Coert came down in a fresh sheriff shirt (a dark-brown thermal under it today), his hair still wet from a shower, and he came to me first. After I got a hard, brief kiss, he went to the coffee. Then he walked to the front door (with Midnight). Man and dog came back with the newspaper (though man was holding it).
“Lunch today?” he asked, his eyes roaming me from feet in socks to messy bedhead tamed only slightly by a ponytail holder twisted in a shock of hair on top of my head.
“Can you do that?” I asked back.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then yes.”
He gave me a small grin and went to the stool at the end of the island to spread out his newspaper.
“Takin’ you and your family to Tink’s tomorrow night when we got Janie back,” he said.
“We” got Janie back.
Lovely.
And having Janie back.
Lovelier.
I turned from skillet to him. “Tink’s?”
“Tinker’s. Burger joint. Place is a pit. But it has the best burgers in three counties, and I’ve done my research on that.”
I smiled at him and went back to cooking the sausage patties. “That’s going to work because everyone likes burgers and the more atmosphere a place has, the better it is.”
“The atmosphere might be toxic at Tink’s but you’ll be salivating while sucking it in. The Health Department probably passes them because the smell of their burgers and fries has permeated the wood and the inspector can’t think, he’s so rabid to bite into a burger.”
I started laughing softly as I moved the patties around in the skillet then went to toast the bread.
“You don’t have to cook for me, Cady.”
I pushed the lever down on the toaster and looked to him. “If you expected it, I wouldn’t. I’d tell you to kiss my behind. Since you don’t, I’ll do it whenever I want.”
Like every day I had the opportunity.
Because I liked cooking.
But more, because I’d spent half a lifetime wanting to take care of Coert Yeager and now that I had my chance, I wasn’t missing any of it.
I didn’t share all of that with Coert but I knew he got it when he asked gently, “Running to catch up?”
“As fast as I can.”
That got me a sweet smile that I liked a lot so I took it in before I went back to the sausage patties and turned them.
I finished the meal and prepared the plates, mine with one less fried egg on toast (but not one less sausage patty because . . . sausage, enough said). I set Coert’s plate beside his paper, mine in front of the empty stool nex
I gave him a refresh, did the same with my own, put the pot back and then took my place next to him.
I was swallowing my second bite when Coert muttered, “Weird.”
I turned my head to him. “Weird what?”
“Don’t get pissed, honey, but little girls dream of mermaids and princess castles and knights in shining armor and I know this ’cause I got a little girl and it is just what it is. And little boys, they dream of flying to the moon and being a cowboy or bein’ a cop and catching bad guys and I know that because I was a little boy. But it’s weird because they got it all wrong and the trouble with that is that sometimes, even after they grow up, they don’t realize they’re never getting it right.”
“Getting what right?” I asked.
“This morning, with her, having coffee,” he said as answer.
I felt my breath suspend in my throat so it was difficult saying, “What?”
“That’s a quote,” he shared.
“A quote from what?”
“A quote of what Johnny Cash said when he was asked to describe paradise.”
My chest caught fire with the effort to keep breathing.
“Coert,” I whispered.
“For me, it includes breakfast but only ’cause she made it for me.”
“Oh my God, you’re going to make me cry.”
He turned to me, curled a hand around the side of my neck and pulled me to him as he dipped down to me.
“I missed your smell. I missed those green eyes. I missed holding hands with you. And I missed just having coffee with you. When I met you, I was in a place I was too old to dream of flying to the moon. I thought I’d made my dream happen by becoming a cop. But I was too caught up in what I wanted out of my career to take time to think about what I really should be thinking about. What my version of paradise would be and how to work towards that. And a job is only a small part of it. We had a version of paradise, but this here? This is the real thing.”
I was breathing heavily so I could only reply quietly, “Definitely going to make me cry.”
I saw his eyes smile then I felt his lips press against mine and then he let me go.
He turned to his plate.
I drew deep breaths into my nose and turned back to mine.
“Dispatch knows when I got Janie I can’t leave but they keep me informed. When I don’t, I have a lot of late nights, Cady. And people are people. They do bad things. They do sad things. So that happens a lot too,” he said carefully.
He was sharing. Warning me this was him. This was his life. Last night would not be rare. I had to know what I was in for.
And I had to deal with it.
I kept my eyes aimed to my plate. “I can handle it.”
“Okay, honey.”
Just that, Okay, honey.
He believed in me.
And we were done.
I didn’t feel like crying anymore.
We ate. We talked about getting sandwiches from Wayfarer’s deli and taking them to his office so he could show me around, introduce me to the crew that was at the station, start the process of sharing the woman in the sheriff’s life with the men he worked with.
Running to catch up.
He also told me he’d be at the lighthouse around five thirty to have dinner and hang with the family.
I kissed him at the door to the garage and that one we made a long one. But once he’d walked through it, I didn’t stand in it to watch him pull out because it was too cold.
I did the dishes. I took a shower in his shower and got ready to face the day there. I left what I could leave because I was spending the night again and packed what needed to go home.
I took my bag out to my car in his garage and Midnight and I got in. I hit the remote Coert had given me at lunch the day before and started the Jag before I pulled out my phone.
I engaged it. I went to the texts. I went to Coert’s string.
And I typed in, This morning, the bed moved, I opened my eyes, and I was with him.
I sent the text, reversed out, closed the door and headed home.
At the second sign where I had to stop, my phone binged.
I grabbed it.
Paradise, he’d texted.
My version, I texted back.
I was at a stoplight when I glanced at the text that came in while I was driving.
I was talking about waking up with you.
My heart turned over.
We’re being gushy, I replied.
I was in my garage when I read his next, I don’t give a fuck.
I sent a Bitmoji of me with a big smile on my face and two thumbs up.
Then I sent a Bitmoji of me with big smile, eyes closed, suspended in the air with chest arched out and a stream of pink with sparkles coming out of my chest with Love You the Most in purple streaming through the pink.
Midnight and I got out of the car. I grabbed my bag and I was opening the door to let her in the lighthouse, hearing greetings and also the bing of another text.
Christ, you’re a goof.
“But you still love me,” I whispered to the phone.
But I sent him the Big Time Bitmoji.
And then I followed Midnight into the lighthouse, doing it smiling.
I was driving into town to meet Coert at Wayfarer’s to get sandwiches.
He was already at the deli. I’d texted him my order.
My mind was on him. On having lunch with him. Dinner with him. Hoping that nothing happened that night to call him away, and not just because I wanted more time with him, but because I didn’t want him to have to deal with whatever bad or sad it would be.
My mind was also on Verity, who had finally shared with me (privately, something she’d been holding to herself even if Kath had approached several times to find out what was wrong) that she’d been crushed when Elijah had told her before he’d gone to Bangor that they weren’t “going there.”
The “there” he was referring to was after he set her away when she’d made a pass at him in his apartment when she’d gone to visit him with the intent of making said pass while he was packing before he left.
This was, I was sure, incredibly humiliating.
This was, as Verity described, done in a sweet and gentle way that only made her want Elijah more.
Which was why, now that Elijah was coming home that day from his holiday with his parents, she was in a dither.
Because she couldn’t wait to see him.
And she never wanted to see him again.
I felt for her but he lived there and she was staying there, and although he had to go back to work the next day, Elijah had already been adopted as a member of the family.
It would be difficult to avoid him.
I was wracking my brain to find ways I could assist her to do this as I finished parking, turned off the car, got out, beeped the locks and started toward Wayfarer’s when my phone rang.
I pulled it out, saw the number was local, but not one programmed in. I still took the call.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Yes, hello, Cady Moreland?”
“This is Cady Moreland. Who am I speaking to?”
“I’m Terry Baginski. I’m Boston Stone’s attorney.”
Attorney?
Why was an attorney calling me?
On a Sunday?
My step on the sidewalk faltered as I asked, “Sorry?”
“Terry Baginski,” she said impatiently like I was wasting her time, not like she’d phoned me out of the blue on a Sunday. “Attorney for Boston Stone. You haven’t been returning his calls.”
“Um . . . no. I haven’t. I don’t know Mr. Stone, and every time one of his people call they don’t explain what the call refers to,” I shared as I pushed through the doors to Wayfarer’s, smiling at someone coming out.
“Well, allow me to share what he’s referring to,” she replied cu
I was rounding the cash registers, the deli in sight—or more importantly, Coert in his jeans, boots, sheriff shirt and shiny, handsome sheriff jacket with a wool muffler looped around his neck, something that highlighted his strong jaw in sight—when I stopped dead and looked at my feet.
“What did you say?”
“He’d like to make an offer on the lighthouse and its surrounding property.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He’d like to buy them,” she told me like I was a dim bulb.
“I understand that,” I snapped. “I don’t understand why he’d approach me about a property he knows I purchased in order to invest heavily in renovating so I can live there.”
Coert’s deep voice said low, “Cady.”
I lifted my eyes to him as I listened to the woman speak in my ear.
“He wants to build a resort there.”
“A resort?” I asked, staring in Coert’s eyes.
He lifted a brow.
“A resort-type area,” the woman said. “An exclusive inn and spa with surrounding cottages that includes a fine-dining restaurant within the lighthouse itself.”
I nearly choked.
“So I’d like to make an appointment for you and me and Mr. Stone to discuss this offer,” she declared.
“He can’t build a resort-type area with an inn and surrounding cottages and a restaurant at the lighthouse,” I shared sharply, and doing it watched Coert’s face turn stunned then hard. “First,” I went on, “because it’s my home and second, because there are riders on the deed that disallow building on that property.”
“This is why he has an attorney, namely me,” she retorted.
Why was this woman being so rude?
She was calling me on a Sunday to say some unknown man wanted to buy my home.
“Well, if he wishes to waste his money paying your—” I began.
She didn’t let me finish. “And those riders are enforced by Magdalene’s City Council. However, rezoning of the lands outside the lighthouse a year ago placed it in a precarious position considering only a slim line of coastal path and the lighthouse are within Magdalene city limits, which makes no zoning sense. And Mr. Stone, as well as a number of members of the Magdalene Club, sit on the board that governs the unincorporated land surrounding the lighthouse, and there’s strong support not only to press forward rezoning all of that land but also to then null the riders so the area immediately around the lighthouse can be developed.”