“She’s been doing that every week, forever.”

“Yeah.” Keara blew out a breath. “I’m going to talk to her. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’ll do it.”

“No. I will. I’m her niece.”

“But you just got here. I’ve been around a long time, and I’ll be around long after you’ve gone back to LA.”

She said nothing. He was right, but somehow his words wounded. As when she’d arrived, when he’d made her feel guilty for not visiting Maeve, but now his low opinion of her didn’t just annoy her, it hurt. She pushed away from him, but he caught hold of her and dragged her back. He tipped her chin up.

“I’m sorry,” he said seriously. “I wasn’t trying to be rude. But it’s the truth.”

“I know.” She took a breath. “But I’m her family and I’ll talk to her.”

He studied her face, eyes gentle, and then nodded. “Okay. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“I will.”

He pulled her back down onto his chest and stroked her bare back. “I’m here to help,” he said.

She sighed. “I know you are, Shane, but I’m a big girl.”

“With a few problems right now.”

“Okay, yeah. Hell, I don’t know how I think I’m going to help Maeve when I can’t get my own life together.”

“You will.” He stroked her hair and the gentle tug on her scalp sent tingles skittering down her spine.

“I don’t know. The thing is, I don’t think I deserve to be happy.”

His hand stilled. “What? Why would you say that?”

“Because of what I did. The things I did, the mess I made. And…” She swallowed through a constricted throat. “Never mind.”

“Tell me. It can’t be that bad. It’s not like you’re a murderer or something.”

“Yes, I am.”

Shane couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. She had to be joking.

“Don’t be crazy,” he said roughly, tugging her hair so she had to lift her head to look at him. He rolled her over onto her back and moved over her.

“I’m serious,” she said, eyes closed. “I might as well have killed him.”

“Killed who?” What the hell was she talking about? His mind went to the accident, but there’d been nobody else involved in that.

“Gary. The man who robbed the bank.”

Shane frowned. He’d read the reports, knew the unfortunate outcome of that incident. How the perp had been shot by the SWAT team, coming out of the bank, Keara held in front of him with her hands up.

“How could that be your fault? Jesus, Keara, he held a gun on you.”

“Yes, but…” A tear slid from the outer corner of her eye, a silvery trail in the muted light of her bedroom. “Oh God. I don’t want to tell you about this.”

“Why not? Keara, if it’s bothering you, it’ll help.”

“You’ll hate me.”

“I won’t hate you. Look at me.” Her touched her chin. “Keara, look at me.”

Her eyes opened, luminous with tears.

“I hate myself,” she whispered.

He shook his head, but waited. Finally she spoke, her voice low and choked.

“Gary worked for the bank.”

“Yes.” He’d read that the perp had been a former employee of the bank.

“I fired him.”

“Oh.”

“A couple of months before that. I’d been working my tail off since I started managing that branch, trying to come up with ways to cut costs. They wanted me to turn things around at that branch. It was in trouble when I got there, but it’s an important branch to the bank and they wanted someone who could improve performance. I was so happy to have that challenge, and they said if I did well, I’d be moved into executive management.”

Shane’s body tensed.

“They wanted to cut a lot of positions. Twenty. Maybe more. I really didn’t want to let that many people go, so I worked hard to find other ways of saving money. But even so, at the end of the day I had to cut positions. There was no other way. I managed to get it down to eight. And Gary was one of them.”

“That must have been hard for you to do.”

“That’s the awful part,” she replied, a sob catching her voice. “It wasn’t that hard. I didn’t know Gary. He was the head of security and he made the most money, so he had to go. I barely talked to him other than good morning every day. Same with the others I fired. I made my decisions based on sound business rationale. I didn’t think about the people behind the positions.”

Shane was silent. He understood what she was saying. He empathized. Hell, he had to make tough business decisions, too. Resources were scarce in a small-town police force. He knew what it was like.

“What happened?” he asked. “With Gary. Why’d he do that? He was that pissed off about being fired?”

“No.” Anguish roughened her voice. “Well yeah, he was angry, for sure. Angry at me. Because his wife had Alzheimer’s.”

Jesus Christ.

“She was in a home. A very expensive home. He had no job, his severance was gone, and he couldn’t find another job. At his age, it’s not that easy, and the economy is crappy right now. He was desperate. He…” More tears pooled and dripped down her face and she could hardly talk. Now Shane was sorry he’d made her talk about this.

“It’s okay.” He stroked her hair back from her forehead. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want.”

“Oh sure, now you let me off the hook.” A glimmer of a smile touched her mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m getting all emotional.”

“It’s okay.”

“He loved his wife,” she choked out. “He talked to her on the phone. In front of me. I heard him talk to her and I thought I was going to die. He’d looked after her their whole life together and he loved her so much, and I was the one who had taken away his ability to look after her.” Tears poured now and her voice wavered. “You have no idea how I felt, hearing that, knowing it was all my fault. Whatever happened at that damn bank that day—even if he’d lived, he would’ve gone to jail—his life was ruined and it was all my fault.”

“Oh Jesus.” Shane groaned and scooped her up into his arms. He turned and settled back against the headboard of the bed, with Keara on his lap, sobbing and drenching his chest with tears.

“I will never forget that,” she cried. “And Gary told me how the others at the bank saw me. An axe-woman who didn’t care about her staff, only cared about making the numbers, climbing the corporate ladder.”

Shane rolled his lips in because in fact, that did sound like her description of herself. “Keara.”

“It’s true!” She lifted a tear-streaked face. “That is what I was like! One of the guys I fired had just had a baby. She was born premature and had lots of problems, expensive problems. I didn’t even know that. I mean, I knew he’d had a baby, but I didn’t think of that, I just canned him.”

“Business decisions don’t always have room for things like that,” Shane said carefully. “It’d be nice to not ever have to fire anyone or cut staff, but that’s the way the world is. I’m sure you made the best decisions you could.”

“I did. But I hate myself for it. And…” She swallowed convulsively. “I don’t know if I can ever do that again.”

“Do…what?” He was almost afraid to ask.

“Make tough decisions like that. I’m afraid I’ll always be second-guessing myself, taking things into consideration that I shouldn’t be. How can I be an effective manager if I’m too wishy-washy to make decisions? I was almost ready to go back to work, and when I went to visit the bank I had a meltdown.”

He watched her, unsure of what to say.

“They told me I had a panic attack. First time in my life. I didn’t believe them, but every time I think about going back to work, I get this funny, tight feeling in my stomach. It’s fear, Shane. I’m terrified. And it’s not just because of being held at gunpoint and thinking I was going to die. It’s the guilt.”

God. His chest ached for her and he wished he could do something—anything—to make things better for her. Tenderness and warmth filled him and he drew her back down to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “Go ahead, cry,” he murmured against her hair. “Get it all out.”