Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(32)

And with that, he followed his daughter into my house, sliding past me without so much as an excuse me.

Half of my heart was singing grand hymns of praise.

The other half was withering into nothingness.

This wasn’t about Caven. It wasn’t about the way I longed to curl into the safety of his arms. It wasn’t about the way I missed his smile or his tender touches.

I’d gotten what I’d wanted: time with Rosalee. And while I was grateful beyond all measure for his generosity, two days a week with Caven sounded like absolute torture.

But, for her, there was nothing I wouldn’t endure.

Closing the door, I squared my shoulders, pasted on a halfway-real smile, and said, “At my house, we paint, Rosalee. Fingernails, toenails, pictures, and all.”

She let out a loud squeal that immediately transformed that halfway-real smile into something so genuine that I felt it in my bones.

This was enough.

This would always be enough.

“That’s me!” Rosie exclaimed as I walked her into my spare bedroom studio—Caven only one step behind us. “Daddy, you used to have that picture in your room.”

Used to. I didn’t know that my stomach could sink any lower. I’d wondered if he’d kept it. Clearly, he had not, and I had no idea why that hurt as much as it did. I should have been immune to the pain by that point. But not when it came to Caven.

He grinned down at her. “Yep.” When his head lifted, the grin was gone and he avoided my gaze by retrieving his phone from his pocket and propping his shoulder against the wall.

Right.

He didn’t want to be there. He’d only come for Rosalee.

I walked over to the shelves lined with tubes of paint and grabbed two pinks, a white, and three purples—the palette of princesses everywhere. “So, what are we painting first?”

“A flower like my mommy.”

I froze and, without moving my head, shifted my eyes to Caven. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but I was even more unsure of what I was allowed to say to her in regard to Hadley.

Caven looked at his daughter, his face so soft and so gentle that I was jealous of its warmth. “When people die, they don’t really turn into flowers, baby.”

“But they get planted in the ground, right?”

He took a step in her direction and used his large hand to smooth the top of her hair down. “Kinda, but it’s called being buried, not planted.”

I held my breath as I listened to them discuss Hadley. In some way, it felt strange to talk about her. In other ways, it felt liberating. She wasn’t a dirty little secret anymore. Hadley and I had more issues than I could list. But she was my sister. And I missed her.

“Oh! What kind of berry?” She looked at me. “Is she a strawberry? We picked strawberries one time.”

God, I loved that kid. I bit my bottom lip to stifle a laugh.

“Buuuuuried, Rosie. Not berry.” His gaze finally lifted to mine. Just like the grin, his warmth was gone. “Maybe, instead of painting, Willow could show you pictures of your mommy when she was alive.”

My lungs seized, and my eyes flashed wide. I’d never dared to dream of a day where I could break out the old photo album with Rosalee. I had a million stories I wanted to share with her about Hadley. From both before and after the shooting. And thanks to Caven, no matter how much he hated me, I now had the chance.

“I can do that,” I breathed. “I have lots of pictures of her.”

“Can I see? Can I see?” Rosalee begged.

“Absolutely,” I replied, setting the paint down. “I’ll be right back.”

I rushed from the room, pausing as I passed Caven.

He turned to stone when I wrapped my hand around the feathers on his forearm. His eyes flicked from my hand to my face, his jaw getting harder by the second. He already hated me though, so I had nothing to lose.

I kept my voice low so Rosalee couldn’t hear me—and also to keep from revealing the tremble of emotion. “I don’t care if you did this for me or not. She looks like my mom. Laughs like my dad. And argues like her mother. For however long you stay tonight, and any night in the future, my family will be alive again. This is truly the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. And I will never stop thanking you for that, regardless if you want me to or not.”

I didn’t wait for a response. I simply released his arm and walked away.

But I did it with a huge smile on my face for the first time in over a week.





WILLOW


“What the hell?” Caven rumbled as he finally looked up from his phone. He was precariously perched on the edge of my bed, a far cry from the last time he’d been in that room—when he’d been naked and sprawled out beside me.

For three weeks, Caven had kept his word. He brought Rosalee over to my house every Monday and Thursday—the day I’d picked to spread out her visits, never wanting to go too long with seeing her. He always stayed within arm’s reach, sitting at the end of my table as we rolled vases in glitter or hovering in my new studio once it’d been finished as we painted a unicorn mural on the wall.

He didn’t look at me or speak to me if he could avoid it. He didn’t even crack a smile when Rosalee and I were giggling ourselves sick.

From what I could tell, hate from Caven Hunt only came in one form, because he was right back to treating me like he had the day I’d arrived as a total stranger at his house for Rosalee’s first art class.