“He’s not going to beat me up because I want to kiss you.”

“Stop.”

“No.”

“Really?”

He smiled. “Come on, you want to go out with me.”

“Arrogant and cocky, just like always.”

He reached out and touched her hair, dropped his hand. “Maybe I just want a friend.”

“Yeah?”

“No. I want to go out with you. How about we start at breakfast tomorrow and work our way up from there?”

“Breakfast?”

“On one condition.”

“I don’t do conditions.”

He laughed. “Fair enough. Okay, how about this? If you enjoy my company tomorrow over breakfast, without once mentioning that I’m your brother’s best friend, you can then join me for some off-roading. I just fixed up my quad and want to take it for a spin.”

“Wait—I don’t even want to go out with you and you’re putting a condition on it?” She laughed because she couldn’t help it. “You’re a piece of work, Tripp Garza.”

“So?”

“Breakfast is fine.”

“Tomorrow. Seven.”

She got up. “I’ll see you then.”

She walked out, not sure what was going on with Tripp, but it would be good to catch up. She didn’t plan on taking the flirting any further than that, but he had been a good friend to JT...and had been a good friend to her, back in the day.

And good friends were hard to come by.

One day at a time, she thought. But Regan was looking forward to tomorrow for the first time in a very long time.

Lucas sat in the studio alone. He’d come in early because he wanted to get his head together.

This was going to be a lot harder than he’d thought.

He had all the answers he wanted, but it didn’t seem to satisfy him. Sure, he was glad he had found the truth for Adele’s family. He’d spoken to her dad last night. He had cried. Her dad cried, and Lucas felt miserable, even though Mr. Overton said thank you over and over.

Thank you.

He didn’t want thanks, he wanted Adele and Candace to be alive. They were dead, and he still didn’t quite feel like justice had been served because Rachel Wagner was dead: she wasn’t going to prison.

Regan had saved his life, but he still wished he could have confronted Rachel, testified against her, made her live the rest of her life in prison.

He still had questions. Maybe it would take a psychology degree for him to understand why Rachel went to these lengths. Regan had explained that everything Rachel had done was to protect her image. And the more her carefully built life began to fall apart, the more violent she became.