Free Wholehearted by Cate Ashwood Page A

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