Wholehearted (9 page)

“How are you feeling today?” Declan asked.

“Fine,” Lucas replied.

“How’s the pain? Are you still taking the meds?”

“It’s fine. No. I haven’t taken any.”

“Do you need any?”

“Nope.”

“Okay….” What a delightful conversationalist, thought Declan. He wondered if the attitude was going to remain this cold and distant the entire time he stayed. It would be a long six weeks if that were the case.

“I have to go into the office for a bit today, and I have some running around to do. Do you want to come with me, or do you want to stay here?”

“Why would I come with you?”

“I dunno, I just thought maybe you would want to get out of the house for a bit. Hope Cove is pretty small. You could walk around while I’m finishing up some paperwork from last week, and then we could meet up and have lunch at the diner.”

“No thanks.”

“Okay, whatever you want to do. If you change your mind, let me know.”

“I won’t,” Lucas said brusquely as he grabbed a section of the paper and started reading, shutting Declan out.

“All right.”

Declan was already getting pretty sick of the attitude, and it had only been one day.

“I’m going to hop in the shower. Do you need anything before I do?”

“Nope.”

W
HEN
D
ECLAN
arrived at the station, he walked straight to his desk. He slumped down in his ergonomically designed chair and surveyed the room. Everything looked exactly the same. The same cluttered desks, the same terrible lighting, the same greyish-white wall color and drab blue linoleum. His desk was the same, meticulously organized and clutter free. He wasn’t sure how the other deputies were able to find anything on the messes they called their workstations, but to each his own.

He pulled the file on Lucas’s attack from the folder organizer in the top left corner and opened it to the first page. Nothing had magically appeared since he looked at it two days earlier. There in bright and vivid color were the photos of the crime scene and of Lucas’s battered body. Additional photos had been taken at the hospital after the blood had been cleaned off, and the sight of it still turned Declan’s stomach.

Other than the statement Declan had given to Mack at the hospital, there were very few details in the remainder of the file. There was a report from the doctor, which didn’t hold anything Declan didn’t already know. There was no physical evidence found at the scene, no weapon, and no witnesses.

It was infuriating that there were no leads to follow up on, and the only person that could help him had seemed unlikely to do so.

Mack walked out of his office and crossed the main room to Declan’s desk. He leaned against the side and crossed his arms. “Still working on the Hale case?”

Declan nodded and leaned back in his chair, tiling to look at Mack. “Yeah, but there hasn’t been any progress at all. It’s so frustrating. I don’t know where to go from here.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s better. The surgery went well, and he seems to be healing up nicely. The hospital discharged him yesterday.”

“And now he’s living at your house.”

Declan’s eyebrows went up before he realized. “Oliver. Oliver told you.”

“Of course Oliver told me, and even if he hadn’t, you think you could hide the fact that you’re squirreling away a buff little man at your place for very long? The whole town will be talking about it by the end of today, if they’re not already. Marcus already mentioned that Ben told him you had someone staying with you.”

“Fucking small towns. Nothing is your own business.”

“Nope. And we gotta talk about your involvement on the case, Dec. The rule book would say I should pull you off it for conflict of interest.”

Declan was momentarily dumbfounded. He hadn’t even entertained the possibility of being pulled from the case. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to follow this through to the end. “No, Mack, please don’t do that. I can keep the personal and the professional separated. I swear.”

“I know you’re a good cop, and you wouldn’t do anything to intentionally jeopardize the case or your career, but I think you’re too close to this one. For now, take a step back from it. Focus on Lucas and helping him heal. You know we’ll use every resource available to us to find out who hurt Lucas, and I swear I’ll keep you updated on any progress we make.”

Declan paused before responding. He didn’t much like being kept off the case, but he knew Mack would honor his word to keep him in the loop.

“Okay.”

“Good. Now that we’ve got that outta the way, you wanna tell me what you’ve got so far?”

“Not a lot, to be honest. Lucas isn’t talking, and I don’t think pushing him will help. He doesn’t seem to want to deal with it at all.”

“Well, can you blame him? It looked like he went through something pretty awful.”

“Yeah, but I would be pissed. I would want whoever did that to me to pay.”

“Would you?” Mack asked him, his eyes narrowing and boring straight into him. Declan didn’t think he was trying to be an asshole; he just wanted him to reexamine his belief structure on the situation. “You’re sure, that if you were put in his place… if someone had beaten you and broken you… are you sure you would turn and fight? You wouldn’t run from the situation, emotionally at least?”

Declan knew they weren’t just talking about Lucas. “It’s not the same thing at all,” he said, feeling very much like a little boy.

“I know it’s not an identical situation, but the principle is the same. You were abused and beaten, he was abused and beaten. You ran, and he’s hiding. I’m not saying that it’s the wrong thing to do. Especially in cases like this, sometimes the victim can’t deal with the consequences of facing their attacker. I’m just trying to get you to see the parallels between your situation and his. Maybe you should talk to him. Tell him what you went through. He might feel a bit more trusting if you were to open up first.”

“I don’t think so. I can’t tell him what happened.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know how he’ll react to me….” Declan let his voice fade out.

“It’s a scary thing. I’m not going to tell you it’s not. But it’s clear that you care about this guy. He should know who you are.”

Declan sighed. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll be gone in six weeks anyway.”

Mack shrugged. “It’s your call, but my vote is for telling him. Leave out the gruesome details if you have to, but you should try talking to him.”

“I dunno, Mack.”

“Just think about it.”

“I will.”

Declan did think about it. In fact, he wasn’t able to think about much else for the rest of his day. He spent longer than anticipated at the station. It turned out to be a good thing that Lucas hadn’t gone with him. He finished the paperwork that had been left on his desk for him, and then squeaked in a visit to the bank and the dry cleaners before they closed.

His second to last stop was Scarlet’s to buy some clothes for Lucas. Hope Cove didn’t have the greatest selection for fashion, and he didn’t know what size Lucas wore, so he just grabbed sweats and a couple of T-shirts a size or two down from his own and hoped for the best. Anything would be better than watching him walk around in those threadbare scrubs that made Declan want to rip them from his body. It would only be a day or two longer until Lucas’s stuff arrived anyway.

Finally, he did a quick grocery shop, picking up food he thought Lucas would like. Of course he had no idea what Lucas would like, but they couldn’t live off pizza for the full six weeks. He would have to get some sort of nutrition into him if he was going to heal properly. He looked like he had lost some weight since being in the hospital, and Declan wanted to make sure he put every single pound back on. He needed them.

By the time he got back to his house, he wasn’t any closer to making a decision about whether or not to tell Lucas about his past.

W
HEN
HE
got inside, he found Lucas lounging in a pair of his sweats, reading the book Declan had bought for him. The dark circles that had appeared the day before seemed more pronounced in the afternoon light. His skin was pale and drawn. He looked like shit.

“How was your day?” Declan asked.

“Fine.”

“What’d you do?”

“Nothing.”

These one-word answers were getting old.

“I got you some clothes. I hope they fit all right. I didn’t know what size you usually wear.” Declan tossed the bag on the couch next to Lucas and ducked into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. When he came back, Lucas had put on one of the shirts Declan had bought for him. Thank God for small favors. Declan didn’t know if he could sit next to a shirtless Lucas on the couch without salivating all over himself.

“How is it?”

“Fine. Thanks.”

Two words this time. They were making progress.

“Do you want to go to the diner for dinner tonight, or should I make something here?”

“Whatever.”

Declan walked across the room and sat down in the chair across from Lucas. Lucas watched him with measured interest. Declan leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together in front of him.

“Look, you don’t have to have an Oprah-length conversation with me, but more than one-word answers would be nice. If we’re going to be spending the next six weeks under the same roof, can you at least pretend that you don’t hate being here?”

“I don’t hate it,” Lucas said quietly.

Declan could feel himself becoming irritated. He hadn’t intended to have this conversation the moment he walked through the door, but Lucas’s terse tone wore thin on Declan’s tolerance. “It doesn’t matter. I just would like to be civil to each other and I have no idea what crawled up your ass and made you fucking delightful to be around, but whatever it is, if it was something I did, tell me off and we can move on, or let it go. Either way, I don’t care.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Lucas countered.

“Then what the fuck is your problem?”

Lucas’s face wore an expression of shock. Okay, perhaps that was not the most delicate way Declan could have dealt with the situation, but there was only so much a man could take before he snapped. Declan was at his snapping point. “I know you had a bad day, and more than a bad day a few days ago. You almost died. Believe me, I know.” Declan speared his fingers through his hair, pushing it back and trying to rein in the emotional outburst. “My heart almost stopped when I saw you lying there, but I’ve been trying to help you since that moment. I don’t know what you want from me. Do you want me to back off and leave you alone? Should I pretend I don’t notice you in the house, because if that’s what you’d honestly prefer, then I can do that.”

“No. I don’t want that.”

“Then what the fuck do you want, Lucas? Because I can’t read your mind, and I don’t know how to be around you. Should I be walking on eggshells, or yelling and cursing at you like I am right now? Which I now feel really bad about,” Declan yelled. His tone completely opposing the words spewing out of his mouth.

“I don’t know what I want,” Lucas said softly.

“Well, then we are at an impasse. I can’t give you what you want unless you tell me what that is.”

“I just want to feel normal.”

“Okay….” At least it was a starting point. Declan could work with that. “I get that. Why don’t you feel normal?”

“I’m just so
tired.
”

“You aren’t sleeping?”

“I think I am, but I wake up exhausted. I feel like I’ve been up all night, and I can’t seem to get enough rest. I’m halfway hallucinating when I’m awake, and I just don’t know how to go back to how I was before….”

“Hallucinating? Are you still taking the meds?”

“No, that’s what I thought too, the first morning, so I stopped taking them.”

“How’s your pain?”

“Bearable, but it would be a lot better if I could get some rest.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been an asshole.”

“You want some tea and leftover pizza for dinner?” Declan decided coffee probably wasn’t the best idea.

“That sounds good, actually.”

“Okay, stay here. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Thanks,” Lucas said, seeming to be more relaxed.

Declan filled the kettle with water before retrieving two large mugs from the cupboard. He put two slices of pizza each on a plate, saving the meat pizza for Lucas. That was the kind he had seemed to like the night before, and Declan wasn’t picky about food. He put Lucas’s in the microwave first and pushed the pizza button before going to the cupboard to grab the box of tea bags. Soon, their impromptu dinner was ready.

Declan balanced both plates on top of the mugs and brought everything back to the couch. He set the plate down in front of Lucas before settling in next to him. Lucas dug into his pizza, letting out a little moan of approval at the day-old dinner. It really was better the second day, Declan decided.

Lucas ate quickly, devouring both pieces before Declan had finished one of his.