Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(76)

“Incredible to meet you too,” she replied, and it looked like her smile was going to swallow her face.

“Don’t say it, Jenn,” Caven warned. “Just don’t say it.”

“What?” she drawled innocently.

Trent cleared his throat. “Come on, Jenn. Let’s warm up the grill?”

She shot him an incredulous look. “Why do you need me for that? I haven’t been allowed to touch a grill in ten years.”

“I don’t. But you’re coming anyway.”

She huffed, following him out to the backyard, pausing for one last giddy glance before closing the door.

Caven shook his head and looked down at me. “Talk fast. Rosie will be back any second and then I’m going to lose you for the rest of the day. You going to be okay with Trent? I can make up an excuse if you want to duck out.”

I rested my hands on his pecs, my giant balloon nearly hitting him in the face. “I’m good. Really.”

“He’s not Malcom, Hadley.”

“I know. It was a gut reaction. I’m fine. I promise.”

He searched my face for several seconds, his concern doing some seriously warm things in my chest. “That changes and you find yourself not okay, I want to know. Right away. No dry-heaving in the bathroom without me.”

I cut him a side-eye. “What? Who said anything about dry-heaving?”

He chuckled. “On a different note, I think my brother and Jenn might be onto us.”

“Well, he’s not Ian, Beth, or Rosalee. So I guess it could be worse.”

“Clearly, you do not know Jennifer.”

Rosalee’s voice echoed through the room long before she entered it. “Ale’s going to Ruby’s house!”

With one last squeeze, Caven set me away and walked to the kitchen like nothing had happened.

I knew better though.

And I knew it would be happening again later that night, and that thought alone made the hum in my veins deafening.

He wasn’t wrong. As soon as Rosalee got back, he lost me for the day. That little girl never left my side. We ate more sweets than I had in years, and I laughed when she explained to me that Caven had bought me some gross burgers at the store. I was assuming they were veggie burgers, but I made a mental note to check with him before lunch.

Jennifer joined us when Rosalee insisted on starting the tissue paper mosaics while the guys grilled. I liked her. She doted on Rosalee like she was her own. And even when she was not-so-subtly prying about my “friendship” with Caven, she was doing it with hearts in her eyes rather than the contempt we were going to get from Beth and Ian if they ever found out. I did what I could to avoid her interrogation in front of Rosalee. This included airing the sordid details about Rosalee’s blooming romance with Jacob the love expert.

Trent kept his distance from me at first, but there was something eerie about the way he was always watching me out of the corner of his eye.

Or maybe I only noticed because I was always watching him out of the corner of my eye too.

As I’d listen to him and Caven laughing and telling embarrassing stories about each other over dinner, I’d come to piece together that Chief of Police Trent Hunt was nothing like his sociopath father.

But an hour later after Caven had sentenced me to the back deck while he and Rosalee put the final touches on my birthday cake, I realized Trent was nothing like his little brother, either.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

I forced a smile and waved a hand to the Adirondack chair beside me. “Please do.”

He kicked his long legs out in front of him as he sipped on a beer. “I don’t like it.”

“What’s that?”

He stared off into the distance, refusing to look at me as he spoke. “This thing. You. Caven. You coming back thinking you have any right to that little girl. I don’t like it. Any of it. But most especially, I don’t like you.”

Ohhhhh-kay. Blunt. To the point. Rude as hell. But it definitely explained the eerie glares.

Straightening in my chair, I turned to face him. “I know it’s an unusual situation, but I swear to you that I’m not here to—”

“My brother’s got a fucking bleeding heart. He’s been carrying Malcom’s shadow like a noose around his throat for a lot of years. He’s a strong man. A good man. But one mention of Watersedge and he’s on his knees.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as his dark gaze turned my way.

“There are people out there who might think to take advantage of that.”

“I can assure you—”

He once again spoke over me. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not you, I’m sure. So, that being said, I hope you don’t mind that I did some digging into your past.”

A surge of panic blasted through my system, but I showed him nothing. “No. Not at all. I totally understand. He’s your brother.”

He leaned toward me, one side of his mouth hitching. “I didn’t find much.”

Relief fell like raindrops over the fire of my anxiety. “Sorry to waste your time. I guess I’m a pretty boring person.”

“Nobody’s that boring.”

“You’d be surprised.” Ready to find Caven and then immediately start dry-heaving, I started to push out of my chair, but his hand wrapped around my wrist, stilling me.