The Truth About Comfort Cove

The thought reminded her of Emma Sanderson. Not too long ago, the Comfort Cove high-school teacher had said the same thing about her own mother regarding her little sister, Claire.

Lying flat on her back in panties and an extra large T-shirt, with the sheet pulled up to her ribs, Lucy stared wide-eyed into the darkness, her gaze pointing toward the ceiling she knew was up there.

She’d only known Emma Sanderson for a short time, and didn’t know her all that well. But the memory of the woman stuck with her. They had one thing in common: they were both the surviving daughter of a single mother, with a sister who’d been abducted. They’d both grown up with griefstricken mothers. They both had mothers who leaned on them unnaturally, relied on them almost exclusively, needed them to the point of emotional exhaustion.

Or maybe it was just Lucy who was exhausted. She closed her eyes and willed unconsciousness to follow. Since the night she’d broken

the taillight on Sloan Wakerby’s car, Lucy hadn’t slept worth a damn. She was tired.

Still, Emma was getting married. Lucy smiled in the darkness. In the midst of pain and sorrow, there was happiness. In the aftermath of tragedy, joy was still attainable.

Maybe she should quit the investigative profession and become a poet, she thought, staring at the ceiling again. No one lived or died because of a poem.

Emma had talked about writing her own wedding vows. Traditional promises didn’t run deep enough for her. Or fit her, either.

And how would Emma’s wedding fit Rose Sanderson, the mother who clung to her so voraciously? In some ways the day wouldn’t be easy.

Would Ramsey Miller attend the wedding? She’d never seen him outside of his professional capacity. Never even so much as had a drink with him.

Not that she needed to. She liked having a professional soul mate, of sorts. That was all.

He’d be in a suit, of course. In the handful of times she’d actually seen him, he’d never worn anything else. Pants, jacket, matching shirt and tie and shoes. That was Ramsey Miller.

If a woman were to have sex with him, she’d get to peel away all those layers…?.

Ramsey worked all hours of the day and night, but he was human. All man. Built just right in all the right places. It stood to reason that he had sex regularly with someone.

Not her.

With Lucy he was always in control.

But would he loosen up after a glass of champagne? Did he drink beer?

Or dance?

People danced at weddings. With their arms around their dance partners.

Ramsey’s shoulders were broad. His arms would be strong. And warm. His thighs rock solid.

It had been so long since Lucy had been held…?.

Why had she never put a night-light in her bedroom? They were in every other room in the house—softly illuminating her space so that she could see, the minute she walked into a room, that she was alone.

Would she always live alone? And maybe just have a lover?

Someone who was passionate about what he did? Who cared about outcomes? Someone who hurt for the babies who were lost?

Someone whose hands would caress her skin with the tenderness he kept hidden so deeply inside?

Someone who didn’t want to get married any time soon…

Sandy would be front and center if Lucy ever married. The thought was enough to make her stop thinking about weddings.

The fact that her phone was ringing helped, too.

Grabbing the cell phone from her nightstand, she expected to see either her work number or her mother’s number on the caller display.

It was neither. And if her caller had been reading her thoughts a few minutes earlier, she was going to just go ahead and die.