Second Chance Colton. Marie Ferrarella

up to Ryan to find out the why.

      Ryan definitely wasn’t going to be happy.

      “That did not sound like a good sigh.”

      Perched on a stool against the equipment-laden counter, Susie managed to swivel her stool around to face the doorway. She knew who she would be looking at before she was actually turned around. Nobody else’s voice undulated under her skin the way his had.

      The way it still did.

      Water under the bridge, remember? Water under the bridge. You’ve moved on. So keep moving, Susie told herself fiercely, albeit silently. Ryan no longer figured into her life, except professionally.

      Doing her best to collect herself and look every inch the forensic expert that she was, Susie replied, “It wasn’t. And it definitely won’t be from your point of view.”

      Ryan’s gut tightened. He knew what was coming and he braced himself—or tried to. “The DNA—”

      Susie had never been one to prolong a verdict for the sake of dramatic effect. With distasteful news, it was best to get it out as quickly as possible and move on.

      “—is still Greta’s,” she said, completing his sentence. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I had the test run a total of three times using three different samples from three different areas on the broken glass. I ran two of the tests and had someone else run another one.” To back herself up, Susie held up the three separate printouts that had resulted. “It came out the same each and every time. It’s Greta’s DNA. The blood found at the scene belongs to your sister.”

      Ryan took the printouts from her and stared at the results on the top sheet. The findings on the two sheets beneath it were identical.

      He felt as if someone had driven a knife into his stomach—and was still twisting it.

      “There has to be an explanation,” he insisted, talking more to himself than to the woman perched on the stool.

      “Ask her,” Susie suggested matter-of-factly. When Ryan looked down at her with confusion in his eyes, as if he had suddenly realized that he wasn’t alone in the room, she said, “If you really think that this doesn’t make sense, then ask her why she broke the stable window. Maybe she didn’t do it to get into the stables. Maybe there’s another plausible reason why the window was broken.” And why the stables were vandalized, she added silently.

      “You don’t believe that,” he said, going by the expression on her face.

      Susie shrugged away his observation. “What I believe—or don’t believe—isn’t the point here. I’m the forensic expert, you’re the detective. It’s up to you to take what I give you and arrange it into some sort of a complete picture that gives you the plausible answers you’re looking for.”

      It almost sounded cut-and-dried—but he knew from experience nothing ever was.

      He frowned, looking down at the printout Susie had given him. “This doesn’t give me any answers, just more questions.”

      “It’s a start,” she told him crisply. “Use it to help you get those answers.”

      “So now you’re telling me my job?” he asked, recalling that she had accused him of doing the same yesterday. He wasn’t being defensive, he told himself, just curious to see what the woman would say if he asked. “What is this, a demonstration of ‘turnabout is fair play’?”

      Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything to him, Susie thought. She’d run the tests, done her job and given him the results. It was now up to him to work with what he had. Her part in this was over. She had to keep telling herself that, keep reminding herself to keep her distance, even though something inside her still insisted on holding out the hope that...

      That nothing, Susie upbraided herself. There was nothing between them anymore except for business. He’d seen to that.

      “Just trying to make the results more palatable for you, Detective Colton,” she told him.

      Ryan winced. He could almost feel the frost encrusted around her words. “Ouch. That’s pretty formal. But I guess I deserve that.”

      Yes, you do. That and a hell of a lot more, she added silently. “See, you’re detecting already,” she told him, doing her best to keep distancing herself from Ryan. She knew if she didn’t, if she allowed just a crack to open up, no matter how small, he’d somehow seep into her system, and just like that she’d be vulnerable all over again. In danger of having her heart ripped out again. She’d been down that route once and had no desire to revisit it. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got cases other than yours all clamoring for my time...” She allowed her voice to drift off as she deliberately made a show of getting back to work.

      “No. Sure. Thanks.” The single-word sentences came out of his mouth in staccato fashion, as if he was firing each word one by one, pausing in between each.

      She heard Ryan begin to walk toward the exit. This was where she was supposed to continue looking down at the work on her desk, the work she was already supposed to have finished but had moved aside so that she could run those additional DNA tests in hopes of finding another suspect, one that wasn’t Ryan’s sister.

      All she had to do was hold out a total of thirty seconds. Fifty, tops, and he would be gone, Susie told herself.

      There was really no need for her to say anything more to the man than she’d already said.

      No need at all—except, perhaps, to satisfy her own curiosity about a man she had once believed herself to be madly in love with.

       Once?

      Hell, you’re still in love with him, you big idiot. You think you would’ve learned by now, Susie upbraided herself, annoyed at her own lack of discipline, not to mention a certain dearth of self-respect.

      But for her internal lectures never took, no matter how driven they were by common sense, and she found herself turning all the way around on her stool. She was just in time to see Ryan about to step over the threshold, out into the hall.

      Two more seconds and she’d be home free.

      One—

      “So what are you going to do?” she heard herself asking Ryan.

      Apparently already lost in thought, Ryan jerked his head up. He’d heard her voice, but not the words that she’d said. “What?”

      “So what are you going to do?” Susie repeated, enunciating each word.

      Ryan crossed back over the threshold, but only took a couple of steps toward her before he stopped. He had to admit he was surprised that she was interested enough to ask him that. “I’m going to call Greta and do just what you suggested. I’m going to ask her what she was doing in the stable and why she had to break the window in order to get in.”

      Susie thought for a moment. “Your sister’s a horse trainer, isn’t she?”

      He was surprised that Susie had taken the time to find that out. It wasn’t as if they ran in the same circles these days. And back when they were together, their worlds had contained only each other, to the exclusion of everyone else. That meant family members, as well.

      “Best in the business,” Ryan confirmed.

      “Maybe she was passing by the stable at that hour for some reason, looked in and thought she saw smoke coming from the stable. Or maybe she thought she saw a horse in distress. The fastest way from point A to point B is still a straight line.” She shrugged carelessly, unable to come up with any better explanations at the moment. “Maybe that was why she broke the window.”

      Although he appreciated her effort, he thought that Susie was definitely reaching. “And she didn’t stick around to tell anyone what she did?” Ryan asked skeptically.

      Susie took her theory to the next step. “She was probably too embarrassed about breaking