She broke off suddenly. She had thought before, in the midst of that nightmare time, about what it would be like if it had gone down the other way. If it had been Adam who had stayed outside while her father had gone into the store. In fact, in her darkest moments she had wished it, that it would be that other family ripped apart. After all, hadn’t she paid enough, losing her mother and now her father? And only the certain knowledge that her father would look at her as if she were the child she’d once been, and say in that way he had that wishing her ill fortune onto someone else was only human, but also useless.

Adam looked at her again. “If what?”

“If it had been the other way around, if you had died that night, he would feel exactly like you do. That it was his fault. That he should have, by some unknown power, have known that the second robber had lingered after the first had gone. That he’d left you to face it alone.”

“But—”

“So do us both a favor, and cut yourself as much slack as you would him.” She gave him the best smile she could manage. “And come inside and get warm.”

She turned and walked back into the house.

Chapter 29

Come inside and get warm.

After five years of long, hard practice, he usually managed to keep his imagination mostly under control. The therapist the department had assigned to him before they’d officially retired him had warned him that would be one of his biggest jobs, reining in his mind when it wanted to race down all the fruitless paths of all the myriad what-ifs.

But somehow that simple phrase careened around in his mind now, with what she’d clearly meant, the literal sense of the words, crashing into all the other ways it could be meant. Because she could warm him, in a way no one ever had. One kiss had proved that.

But she deserved better.

And he shouldn’t even be thinking about it like that, weighing as a possibility something that should—and would—remain impossible. Even if he were looking for someone, she shouldn’t even be on the list. He had no right. Not with her. He should—

A sharp nudge jolted him out of his thoughts. Cutter, bumping him rather fiercely, his nose feeling cold even to Adam’s chilled hand.

“Go ahead, go in where it’s warm,” he told the dog.

But the animal just stood there, staring at him. His fixed gaze was almost unnerving. He wondered, rather inanely, if there was a difference in the instincts of dogs who excelled at herding sheep versus those who excelled with cattle. He’d always heard sheep were dumber, but he’d seen some pretty stupid cows in his day. Either way, it would take a very strong-willed creature to ignore that stare.