Read Yours to Hold: Ribbon Ridge Book Two for Free Online Page B

the family.”
    “Good, because I couldn’t tell you that.” Part of her wanted to let him know that Alex had admired him and looked up to him, even when everyone else had seemed to write him off. She looked at him askance and wondered how he dealt with his family. He didn’t seem depressed or maladjusted. Maybe their opinion didn’t matter to him. Families were a tricky business—something she knew better than most.
    “You had no inkling he was going to kill himself?”
    She’d been asked this question by a variety of people—colleagues, friends, her mother, his sister—but hearing it never got any easier. “No. He was depressed, and we constantly worked through it, but there was always an underlying sense of acceptance in him that I interpreted as hope.” Mis interpreted. She now believed the acceptance came from him deciding that his life was going to be short and that by choosing his own death, he would finally have some control. “I was wrong,” she said softly. “I should have known.”
    Kyle didn’t say anything, and she didn’t blame him for his silence. No one could blame her more than she did.
    “Have you looked through his phone or his laptop?” she asked, surrendering to the need to help. She shoved Amy’s warning to the recesses of her mind.
    “That’s how I found you,” he said, turning left onto Third Street.
    “Are there any names you don’t recognize?”
    “Loads.” He cast her a quick glance. “Maybe you should look at them with me.”
    She couldn’t. She shouldn’t . “I could maybe do that.” The words came out slow and uncertain.
    “You don’t sound very convincing. Are you going to brush me off again?”
    Like that had worked the first time. “Would you let me?”
    He chuckled as he took a right onto Adams. “Where’s your house?”
    “Next block. Second on the right.”
    “Nice neighborhood,” he said.
    The street was lined with early twentieth-century homes, most of which had been thoroughly remodeled within the last ten years.
    He drove through the intersection with Fourth Street and then slowed as he approached her driveway. The streetlight illuminated the two-story craftsman.
    “That’s a big house for just you,” he said, throwing his SUV into park.
    Was he trying to determine if she lived alone? “If you’re digging for information, you’re not helping to convince me that you aren’t a stalker.”
    He gave her a bemused look. “I assumed you lived alone because you were going to call a cab instead of someone to come pick you up.”
    Okay, maybe he wasn’t actually a stalker. Of course he wasn’t. He was just a grieving man who was desperate for something that would make sense of his brother’s death. Someone she ought to stay far away from.
    She opened the door. “Thanks for the ride.”
    He got out and followed her to the walkway that led to her front door. “Your yard is really nice.” He gestured toward the riot of purple and pink petunias she’d put in the ground the day before.
    She turned, waiting for him to leave before going to fetch her spare key from the magnetic container stuck to the back of the drain spout on the corner of the house. “I like to garden.”
    “Looks like it.” He shoved his hand in his jeans pocket. “Listen, do you need a ride to work in the morning?”
    She was a little surprised he was being so nice. Wasn’t he supposed to despise her? She would. “No, I’ll call a colleague. Or I’ll walk. It’s not that far, and it’ll be daylight.”
    He nodded. “Let me know if you need help finding your keys in those bushes.”
    “I’ll have security help me. I have a spare car key anyway.” Not that she didn’t plan on finding her keychain.
    His eyes widened. “Shit! Do you have a key to get into your house? If not, I can probably help you break in.”
    She couldn’t help the shot of derisive laughter that escaped her. “First you scare the hell out of me, then you make me lose my car keys, and now you