Jake had died three months – to the day – after he’d fallen.

Pneumonia had settled in and after a couple weeks of fighting to breathe, he was just gone.

He’d held on an extra day until he’d had a chance to tell Carly goodbye. She’d been gone on a short trip to a kid’s hospital in San Francisco, trying to keep busy, but when she’d heard he wasn’t doing well, she’d cut it short.

He’d smiled the moment she’d walked into his room. She’d sat with him for hours that night, and the next morning, I found him still. He’d had a smile on his face then too.

At that moment, I finally understood some fraction of the agony I’d put Dale through when I’d killed his brother. When I realized Jake was gone, I’d sunk to the floor and cried.

One of the other bodyguards had come in a few minutes later. Ridley had turned out to be as much of an asshole as I’d originally thought, so much so that he’d actually started to make a snide remark, but then he’d seen Jake and raised the alarm.

I’d gotten myself upright and mostly in control by the time everybody else had gotten into the room.

But the ache hadn’t gone away. It still wasn’t gone, and it had been more than a month since it had happened.

And Carly wasn’t helping things.

She’d disappeared a week after the funeral, taking half the team with her. A half I wasn’t included in.

She seemed even more determined to ignore me and I was getting fed up.

Five days before Carly was due back, Ryan hunted me down, finding me outside my little cabin.

I could see the warm, gold glow spilling out of the windows of her house from where I stood at the water’s edge, throwing rocks into the water and trying not to think.

Any time I let my mind kick into gear, I found myself standing at the side of the bed, staring down at Jake’s lifeless face.

Cancer was a mean bitch. She shouldn’t have taken Jake. A guy like that, he should have lived until he was a hundred and eight. Should have gotten married, had a dozen kids, two dozen grandkids. Should’ve been there for Carly.

She should’ve taken me.

“You going to look at me or keep throwing rocks?” Ryan asked.

I threw another rock and then glanced at him. “I looked.” Then I grabbed up another handful from the ground.

“The way you’re going, Carly will need to have another truckload of those things brought out here,” Ryan said.

I just shrugged and listened to the splash.

“Jake’s will is being read next week. Right after Carly gets back in town.”

Splash. “So?”

“You’re going.”

“Figured. I assumed Carly has to go, and the guys who’d gone with her would need a bit of a break when they got back.” I shrugged.

“Ah. Well.” He shrugged. “Yeah. It’s just...aw, hell.” He blew out a breath. “Jake would’ve kicked my ass for this, but I figure you’ll do better if you’re prepared. You’re in it, kid.”

I’d had a rock left in my hand. My arm fell limp at my side at his words, the small stone falling to the ground. It hit my bare toe but I hardly noticed. “What?”

“You heard me.” Ryan rocked back on his heels, hands tucked into the back of the khakis he wore when he wasn’t officially working. Ryan, even when he wasn’t on the job, he looked like he was ready to be caught on camera. He wore a pair of khakis with a knife sharp crease and a linen shirt that opened at the throat. Clean, perfectly pressed, and presentable.

I was in a threadbare t-shirt I’d brought with me from Kentucky and a pair of jeans that already had a hole in the knee. You can take the boy out of Kentucky, but you can’t take Kentucky out of the boy. Even in my most expensive suit, I knew I didn’t belong with the rest of them.

Hands on my hips, I glared at him. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it.”

“What if he left you the solution to world peace?”

“Then give it to the world.”

Ryan stared at me for a long moment and then turned his head, staring out over the lake. “Bobby, you’re a stubborn son of a bitch, you know that?”

“Kiss my ass.” I grabbed another rock and threw it. It skipped four times.

Ryan picked up a rock and tried to make it skip. It sank instead. Scowling, he tried again. After he had another roaring failure, I picked up another small, flat stone and sent it skipping. Ryan tried again. After yet another flop, he looked at me.

I ignored him.

“You know you meant a lot to him.”

I went to throw another rock, then stopped. “I know that. He...” I cleared my throat, unable to say the words that would have been the whole truth. I stuck for the best I could do. “He was a good guy. One of the best.”

Ryan studied me for a moment, and then nodded. “It would be a kick in the face not to take the gift he wanted you to have. Don’t insult his memory, Bobby.” Then he turned and walked away.

Deflated, I sank to the ground.

Was there any way to even argue with that?

I stayed there until the sun was near the horizon, and only then did I force myself to my feet. I couldn’t, however, make my mind obey as easily as my body. My brain refused to let go of any of the chaos swirling around inside.

I was already living a life I didn’t think I had a right to. In the past six months, I’d made more money than I’d made in a few years before, and the clothes I had hanging in the closet in my place cost more than all of my previous wardrobe combined. Jake had actually apologized to me when he told me what I’d make a year. It won’t average out to five grand a week, kid.

I probably would’ve had a heart attack if it had.

All that money, just to be at Carly’s side, and I was getting more and more stupid over her. None of them knew that I would have given up what little I had just to be with her in the first place. But she’d still given me everything. What did I have that hadn’t come from her?

Now I had something else to figure out how to handle. What in the hell had Jake decided to give me anyway and why?

Hopefully it was something small, something easy for me to accept. One of the books he was always giving me to read. That would be nice. I could get behind even several of his books. Hell, I’d seen the library in his house once. He’d had a lot. Jake had a house, a nice one up in the mountains. When Carly hadn’t been traveling, Jake had off Fridays through Sundays and he’d always gone there.

I’d gone to see him a couple times and we’d gone hiking and fishing. Before. After, he hadn’t been able to go back. The house hadn’t been designed for somebody in a wheelchair, and he’d refused to have it updated, agreeing instead to let Carly set him up at the main house.

No reason to tear up the house when I’ll only be around a few more months.

I knew he’d just wanted a legit reason to spend as much time with Carly as he could.

I’d never go hiking with him again, never go fishing. Never discuss Mark Twain or Charles Dickens. Never argue over which was better, the movie or the book.

That knowledge slammed into me, and I stumbled right there in the middle of the wide path that led up to my house.

The visceral pain all but cut me off right at the knees. I’d never handled emotional pain well. Give me a hit to the face over this any day.

Feeling like I was going to be sick, I bent over, hands on my knees and tried to breathe through it.

The sound of a shoe scuffing over pavement had me jerking my head up, and I saw Ridley just as he came around the bend. Curling my lip, I sneered at him.

“What the fuck do you want?”

His block-like face had some sort of smug set to it that I already didn’t like, and without even thinking about it, I mentally braced myself. I’d gotten to know Ridley better in the past few months, and nothing had changed about my opinion of him.

He was a genius at electronics and could juggle schedules, work with outside security when we had to take Carly to all the events she attended, her various charities, functions and causes. Lately, that had also included a lot of visits to a publisher because she was writing a biography about her dad.