Brokenhearted Beauty(Divine Creek Ranch 19)(81)

Vincent nodded. “Chief’s old school but said it’d be best if we met with the staff counselor and talked it out and made sure there weren’t any unresolved feelings over his death.”

“Yup,” James said, sounding less than excited about the prospect.

She reached up and stroked James’s thickly muscled shoulder with her knuckles. “I think you should go. It couldn’t hurt, right? We’re far enough along in the grieving process that you can work out exactly the kind of feelings you talked about.”

James looked over at her and smiled as he nodded. “We talked it out and decided that with you in the picture it’d be best for us to meet with him at least a few times. Neither of us wants to do anything that might hurt you because we didn’t take care of unresolved feelings about him.”

“Thank you.”

“What about you, fluff? Chief said significant others can be a part of the appointments, too.”

“Really? But I’m not officially a part of your life. I mean, like…legally.”

“Chief knows you’re very important to us. He said you could come in, too.”

A knot formed in her throat at the sense of belonging she felt from a man she barely knew. “I would do it, if you think it’ll help. I probably should’ve talked to Emma about it before. I feel like we’re in a very good spot but these feelings still pop up sometimes,” she murmured, wondering how much of it was unresolved grief and how much was the wine. Honestly, her buzz from earlier was gone. She looked around them as Vincent drove past the cabin on the gravel driveway. “Why didn’t we stop at the cabin?”

They both chuckled and Vincent said, “What we wanted to show you is on our land but it’s not in the house. Now, did you pick a color?”

Thinking he was smooth for changing the subject so neatly, she looked down at the card and tilted the color chips in the sun blazing in through the windshield and said, “It’s hard picking a color for the two of you. I like the Sunset Copper and the Dragon Red. I can picture you driving it in either of those colors.”

Vincent finally stopped the truck and climbed out of it. James did likewise and held out his arms to her. She gladly went into them and looked up at both of them as they stood there smiling down at her.

Vincent held up the key ring. She cocked her head in confusion and he said, “We want you to pick the color for the truck before we send it for painting and other modifications.”

“Other modifications?” she asked as she took the keys from him. She gazed down at the decoration on the key ring and her breath caught. It was a tear-drop-shaped prism. The sunlight bounced off of its facets, dazzling her with sparkling, multi-hued reflections the same way her crystal had earlier as she’d unpacked it in the sunshiny room back at her apartment.

“We’re having the truck fixed up for you, fluff,” Vincent said. “You know where we found this key ring?”

“Where?” she asked breathlessly as she stared at it, not knowing what to say.

“We found it in his dresser when we were packing up his things. We weren’t sure what to make of it and then we realized the keys on it matched the ones to the truck. We’re pretty sure he meant to give you the truck all along. We found some other paperwork, estimates and such, and made some calls and had it confirmed.”

“Huh?” she asked, dumbly staring up at them. “He wanted to give me this truck?”

“He’d talked to a guy who specializes in truck restoration and customization.” He turned to the open truck door and pointed at various spots on the doorway opening. “He was planning to have special handholds put in for you, here and here…and a little ledge on the door here for you to use as a step to lever yourself into the truck…on the passenger side and driver side. He was also going to have the upholstery and interior redone for you.”

“Seriously?”

Both men laughed at the undoubtedly incredulous look in her eyes.

“Yup,” Vincent said. “We figured he’d want it jacked up higher but he actually talked to the guy about fitting it for a shorter person. We want to go ahead with all his plans. It’s what he’d want. So look at that card again and tell us what color and then we’re celebrating.”

She looked down at the color chips and smiled as tears swamped her eyes again. Only one color jumped out at her and she sniffled as she pointed at it. “Peacock Blue. That’s me.”

“You got it, Honey,” James said, then picked her up and carried her around to the driver’s side. “You ready to get this thing stuck?”