Page 3 of Taking What Was His

Marla nodded and mouthed the word ‘sorry’ for the way her sister treated her.

Beth just smiled and made her way to the kitchen.

“What can I help with?” Beth asked the other three women.

One of them turned. “Someone needs to start on the dishes.”

“Perfect,” Beth said and started the water in one of the sinks and then added soap.

For the next hour, she washed dish after dish until her hands pruned. One of the women handed her a towel.

“You’ve done enough, hun. Have you eaten yet?” one of Marla’s aunts asked.

“No.”

“Jayden already ate, so go take care of yourself.”

“Thank you. I’ll go check on Marla first.”

“She has got a good friend in you.”

“I’m lucky to have her.”

Beth walked back to Marla. Her heart lurched in her chest at the forlorn look on her friend’s face. She grabbed two plates with chocolate cake and forks and made her way over.

She sat down in the chair and handed Marla one of the plates. “When all else fails, eat chocolate.”

Marla snorted out a laugh. “You and your chocolate.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Like it’s not one of your obsessions, too.”

Marla took a bite and closed her eyes. “This is one of my grandmother’s old recipes. I wonder which one of my aunts made it.”

Beth took another bite. Marla came from a large Italian family, while she was an only child, and her parents had died right after Jayden was born. As far as she knew, there weren’t any relatives she had left. It was just her and Jayden against the world.

She wondered what it would be like to have a family like Marla’s. She cut off that line of thinking because it always made her sad, and there was nothing she could do to change it.

She had Jayden, and that’s all she needed.

Chapter Two

Roman stood on the other side of the room from where the widow sat and wanted to keep it that way. He’d never heard a woman cry like that, and it hurt his ears.

He looked around the room of mostly strangers, but the majority were cops, like himself. Unfortunately, he’d been to a few memorials in his career, and it never got easier.

His brother droned on about the different people he pointed out. Usually, he wouldn’t have cared, but now that he moved back to town, he figured he needed to meet the people he’d be involved with occasionally.

He’d applied for a captain job in the 9th District his brother told him about. The city he had lived in had lost all appeal when his friend had died in a car accident, so he moved closer to his family.

He’d received notice that he got the job a few months ago and had been in the process of moving and getting to know the officers in his command.

He’d been expecting to have a tougher integration than he’d had. He knew, having lived here growing up, and having his brother on the job but at a different precinct, helped tremendously. Add to that, he’d been a capable captain in the city he’d left behind, and it had gotten around that he was a fair but tough boss. The people in his building already seemed to respect him, and he’d settled in fairly smoothly.

“Oh, shit, here she comes,” Tysen, his brother, murmured to him.

Roman looked up and saw his brother’s ex, Maggie, headed their way. Shit, his ex-sister-in-law was a straight-up bitch. “What in the hell did you see in her?”

“I’ve no idea.”