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expression made her feel tongue-tied for the first time in her life. “Okay, ’bye.”
    She’d barely shut the door before he was tearing out of the parking lot. She stood helplessly staring after the story that could make her career, driving away.

Chapter 3
    A rare rain shower poured down his windshield the next day as Dane sat in his truck, his gaze on the small bungalow across the street. The humidity drew beads of sweat to the surface of his skin, and he reached for a bottle of water in the cup holder and guzzled the remaining lukewarm liquid. He clutched an envelope of cash in his shaking hands as he waited. The clock on the console read 8:34. Another few minutes.
    The same routine, twice a month, following payday. Each time was torture instead of relief.
    When the front door opened and a woman wearing a nurse’s uniform and a little boy carrying an Avengers backpack left the house, he lowered his head and swallowed hard as he felt the wave of guilt that washed over him every time he saw Marco Consuelos’s widow and ten-year-old son.
    He watched them climb into their vehicle and struggled with images from the past as they appeared in his mind. The night of the fight never too far from his thoughts, he allowed the haunting memory to take over.
    He’d accepted the matchup Xtreme Fight had offered him because he’d needed the money. His grandmother had passed away and he’d blown all of the money he’d saved from his previous MFL fight on the funeral arrangements. His sponsors were threatening to walk if he didn’t get inside the cage again soon . . .
    So he’d agreed to fight the thirty-nine-year-old middleweight fighter who matched his speed and strength. On paper, it was a good fight for him. Their records were even and they both preferred to stand and bang than take the battle to the mat. It should have been an easy payday.
    After the first-round bell, he’d walked out of the cage. Marco had been carried out on a stretcher, and, an hour later, pronounced dead. Dane had been taken to the police station, where he’d spent the most agonizing night of his life, which wasn’t an easy title to claim.
    As the older-model Toyota Tercel backed out of the driveway and passed his truck, he glanced in the rearview mirror, waiting until the car made its usual right at the corner stop sign before he opened his door and climbed out. Jogging across the wet pavement, drops of rain mixing with the sweat pooling on the thin fabric of his T-shirt, he made his way up the overgrown stone pathway to the front door. Opening the mailbox, he placed the envelope inside and covered it with the day before’s flyers.
    She’d find it. She always did. He wondered if she knew the money came from him. Not that it mattered. He didn’t do itfor any other reason than that he felt so damn guilty. He prayed the financial help he was trying to provide the family would ease his conscience a little. Enough to make looking into the mirror possible again. Enough to earn him one night of peaceful sleep. Enough to help him put his feet on the floor and start each new day.
    But why should he get that? The family wasn’t afforded the peace of mind, the saving from sorrow, or the reassurance of the future they’d once had.
    He
didn’t deserve shit.
    Sighing, he closed the mailbox and hurried back to his truck, the weight on his chest suffocating him—telling him what he already knew. No amount of money could bring Marco back, the thing the family needed and deserved the most.
    * * *
    â€œColby!”
    Colby jumped, her head snapping up from her desk as her eyes flew open. “Huh . . . what . . . I’m awake,” she said, quickly wiping a tiny pool of drool from the desk as she rushed to close her Internet browser.
    â€œWhy are you sleeping in here? This is the last place you should be
not
working—with a promotion on the line and