Page 55 of Written with You (The Regret Duet 2)
And I kissed him back, returning his worship stroke for stroke.
We’d said a lot of words in that car. More elephants had slid into the backseat, while a few had managed to break free into the wild.
But it finally felt like something had gone our way.
That kiss became a promise to work together.
A promise to heal.
A promise to step out of the prison of regrets and live in the seconds of the present.
We were a long way from forever, but just like the day at the mall when he’d appeared next to me, seemingly out of nowhere, I had hope that we could find a way out of this mess.
We were going to be okay. We were all going to be okay.
“It’s Saturday,” I whispered against his mouth. “Can we wait here for another twenty minutes or so? I’d like to see Truett.”
He backed away so fast that it felt like a Band-Aid being ripped from my lips. “Willow, I—”
“Relax. We aren’t going to talk to him. He’s not much of a conversationalist anyway. Have you ever met him?”
“No. Have you?”
“Yep. He might be the only person in the world holding more guilt than you.”
His forehead crinkled. “What the hell does he have to feel guilty about?”
“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.CAVENFuck.
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.”
