Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(49)

“I don’t know. Apparently, it’s what good and decent men do when they come face-to-face with the stark reality that they aren’t superheroes who can save the world.” I winked. “Anyway. He’s not a talker. But if we stay a little while, he’ll see us and know someone cares. Sometimes, that’s the hardest part of being alone.”

His face got soft as he stared at me with rapt adoration, but he said nothing else.

I heard the I love you all the same.

We sat in the car for twenty minutes, and like clockwork, Truett’s front door opened and the tall, dark, and ominous man appeared. It had been at least a year since I’d last paid him a visit. But he looked the same: handsome, lonely, and terrified.

His brown eyes collided with mine through the window and a deep frown curved his lips. That was as happy as Truett ever looked.

His heavy gaze flicked to Caven, who I swear nearly broke my hand, squeezing it as he desperately tried to disappear into a crack in the seat.

Yeah. He wasn’t ready to talk to Truett.

And Truett was more than likely beyond relieved.

Lifting two fingers into the air, our tattooed hero started down the street toward the diner. Holding hands like we were slipping off the edge of the Earth, Caven and I watched his every forced and calculated step until he disappeared.





CAVEN


Fuck.

This was going to hurt. After the day we’d had, delivering more pain was not what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was get my daughter to sleep and then take Willow to bed, bury myself inside her, and forget about everything and everyone that was not inside the four walls of my house.

But after the news Leary PD had just delivered, I doubted that was going to be possible. Thanks to Aaron White, the asshole they had identified as the guy who had assaulted Willow outside the grocery store, breaking her heart had been carved into the top of the night’s agenda.

“Yes, sir, I’ll let her know.” I looked at Willow, who was rolling little bits of paper towel while watching me from across the kitchen. “Right. We’ll be there. Thank you. I appreciate all your hard work. Okay. See you then.” I hit the end button and set my phone on the counter.

She swallowed hard. “I’m going to pretend not to notice how sexist it is that they called you instead of me.”

I grinned. “They called you twice and were sent to voicemail both times. Rosalee still have your phone?”

“Yeah. She wanted to take pictures of her stuffed animals before bed.”

“Right,” I murmured, closing the distance between us. She looked as nervous as I felt, so I wrapped her in a hug. “They got him, babe.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Very good. His name was Aaron White and they found him OD’d on a park bench about two hours ago. He still had your ID in his pocket.”

“Damn,” she mumbled.

I tightened my grip. “But it appears he hit your house first.”

Just as I suspected, her whole body tensed. Craning her head back, she put her chin on my chest and peered up at me. “What does that mean? Hit my house?”

“It means, at some point after the patrol car drove past this morning, he broke into your house and trashed a lot of stuff.”

She shoved at my chest, but I refused to let her go. “What kind of stuff?”

“Mainly the boxes in your garage. And your bedroom.” I stared down into her green eyes, my chest aching for what I was about to tell her. “But also all the paintings in your downstairs studio.”

She stared up at me, her face unreadable. I’d seen that makeshift studio; there had to have been fifty paintings lined against the wall. Some of them had been moved out to the backyard studio, but after it’d flooded with sewage, they’d been moved right back. For what an R.K. Banks original went for, that could have been as much as several million dollars in loss. Willow wasn’t hurting for money, but that kind of loss could be paralyzing for a business. Especially for an artist who had dedicated months of her life creating them.

Her breathing sped. “Wh-what about the ones in my living room? The ones on the wall?”

“He didn’t mention them. But he said the damages were pretty isolated to the garage, your bedroom, and the guestroom. So, I’m assuming they’re okay.”

“Oh, thank God,” she rushed out, her entire body sagging in my arms. Laughing, she patted me on the chest. “Jesus Christ, Caven. You scared me for a minute.”

I quirked an eyebrow, thinking maybe she was in some kind of shock. “Willow, baby, you heard what I said about all the paintings in your studio, right?”

Her lips flapped as she blew out a relieved breath and stepped out of my arms. I reluctantly released her that time.

“Yeah, but those were all junk. I painted them.”

I twisted my lips. “I’ve seen your work. They weren’t junk.”

“Maybe not total junk, but Hadley was the painter in R.K. Banks. I’ve been fooling myself that I could ever fill her shoes. We were a team. That was what made us work. I’ve been trying for months to replicate her strokes. Maybe this was the sign that I shouldn’t.”

“This guy being an asshole isn’t a sign. You spent a lot of time on those paintings.”

“I did. But they’ll never be the same without her. The ones hanging in my house were hers. That’s all I care about. He could have created a bonfire in the backyard with my stuff and it wouldn’t have mattered.”