You Can't Escape by Nancy Bush Read Free Book Online

the top and aggressive, and she’d certainly enjoyed working with Wes Pelligree, the “black cowboy” as he was affectionately referred to around the department, she was looking forward to being back with her original partner, especially since Pelligree would be re-partnering with George Thompkins, the only other detective at Laurelton PD. George had a tendency to just ride his desk chair and use the phone and Internet rather than interview in person, but he somehow managed to get the job done well enough. Pelligree, though easy to work with, almost preferred investigating on his own.
    Now September glanced down at the ring on her finger. May sunlight was half-blinding her and she lifted her left hand to flip down the visor, the light refracting in flashing slivers off the stone. The previous summer she’d reconnected with a high school hook-up, Jake Westerly, and had never looked back. They’d moved in together last fall and at Christmas he’d gotten down on one knee in front of a yuletide fire and proposed. She’d been blown away, but had managed to nod out a “yes,” and now they were on the road to marriage.
    “I’m engaged,” she said aloud now. “To be married. To the man I love.”
    Why she found that prospect so alarming, she couldn’t say. Her brother had been living with his girlfriend for months. They were talking marriage in a desultory manner but weren’t technically engaged yet, and neither of them seemed to be worrying about that. She, on the other hand, was filled with angst. She wanted Jake. No question there. She wanted a life with him. And after the frightening accident that had nearly killed him, she’d been by his side constantly, irrationally afraid of losing him to some other unforeseen calamity that was just waiting to happen.
    But now she wondered if they might be rushing things. Her emotions were all over the place and it was their fault that she’d said yes. Two nights earlier, she’d said as much to Jake while they’d been curled up together on the couch, watching television under the warmth of the quilt her grandmother had made for her when she was a girl.
    “Cold feet?” he’d asked, looking into her eyes, his blue eyes searching hers.
    “No . . .”
    “You don’t sound sure.”
    “I’m sure about us. It’s marriage I’ve got a problem with. It doesn’t work for everybody. Look at my family. . . .”
    “You and I aren’t your father and Rosamund.”
    “God, no,” she agreed. Her father had married a much younger woman and they’d just had a baby girl the past
    January, naming her, well, January. Her father’s penchant for naming his children after the month they were born was well-documented. Her twin brother, August, had been born just before midnight of September first, and she’d been born directly afterward. Hence, they were August and September, though people who knew them called them Auggie and Nine—her nickname, since September was the ninth month.
    “My father makes me crazy,” September said. Braden Rafferty still tried to direct his grown children’s lives, even if they didn’t listen to him anymore. She and Auggie had thwarted their father by going into law enforcement against his wishes, but that didn’t stop Braden from trying to get her to quit. He’d pretty much given up on Auggie, who kept himself far, far away from Braden’s influence, but no matter how hard September tried to stay as aloof and distant as her twin, she seemed to keep getting dragged back into family drama time and time again.
    “So, you want to put off the engagement?” Jake’s tone had been neutral, but September had felt his tension.
    “No,” she’d answered quickly. “I want to be engaged.”
    “But—?”
    “Just don’t get offended while I work this out, okay?” she cut him off. “It’s going to take me a while. You have parents who love each other and their kids. I don’t.”
    “Your father loves you,” he argued, but she’d seen the beginnings