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Chapter 23
Trent rushed around the house, calling out, “Liberty?” He rushed through the side door and up the steps just as Liberty pulled back from the guy.
“Trent?” She backed up, looking confused. “Were you outside spying on us?”
Trent would never consider himself a calm person. No one that knew him would ever call him a calm person. Yet in this moment, he felt all the anger rush out of him, leaving him in crisis mode. He’d been trained to use that mode when dealing with terrorists or international situations. He shifted his gaze to the enemy. “Who is this?”
The guy scowled and took a step toward him. “I’m Shane, who are you?”
Right. Shane. The guy who could never take a hint.
Liberty cleared her throat. “Trent, what are you doing here? Have you been waiting outside of my house?” She looked around. “Should I be worried? Is someone out there?”
“Everyone inside,” Tom said, waving them all back into the kitchen.
Liberty’s eyes were red and her hair was wet. From what Trent gathered, he doubted she’d expected Shane to show up. “Trent, are we in danger?” she asked.
Trent crossed his arms. “No. I couldn’t sleep, and I took a run. I was going to stop and check in on you when …” He turned to Shane, still smarting. “I saw you in a lip lock with this guy.”
“It wasn’t a lip lock,” she said, glaring at him.
Tom sighed. “Okay, it’s been a long night. Maybe we can talk about this in the morning.”
Liberty kept her eyes on Trent but didn’t say anything.
Trent’s gaze flitted down the floor, where a bag lay haphazardly. He jerked a thumb toward Shane. “Is he staying?”
Liberty scowled. “What if he is?”
He wanted to blow up, accuse her of … something, even though he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be true. “I don’t know.” Was this who he’d become—just another lame guy worrying about a woman cheating on him? He thought of Hunter and Hunter’s girlfriend, Amy, who had been two-timing him. It didn’t suit Trent to be the jealous type.
Liberty shook her head. “Fine.”
He didn’t know what that meant. Honestly, he didn’t know how to begin describing this … thing that was between him and Liberty. She’d said earlier she couldn’t do a relationship with him. His wish right now was to introduce his fist to Shane’s face in this moment. “Fine.”
Shane bent and picked up his bag. “You know what? I knew it was a bad idea to come. I’m sorry.” His eyes held Liberty’s for a few seconds; then he nodded to Tom and turned to Trent. “I’ll leave.”
Liberty gave Trent an exasperated look and then said, “Shane, you don’t have to. Where are you going to go? It’s almost midnight on Christmas. Just stay here.”
So she hadn’t expected the guy. And clearly, she hadn’t expected him to kiss her. At least that was comforting.
“I’ll figure it out,” Shane said.
Trent found himself saying something that surprised even himself. “He can stay with me.”
Thirty minutes later,Trent stood in the library at the Stone family inn and stared up at the whiteboards that held all the information about the gold. He had pinned up all the Polaroids with the kids and his parents. A particular photo kept catching his eye: the one of him, Hunter, and their dad. They looked so happy. He tried to immerse himself in what the numbers could mean and why his dad had left these clues. He tried not to think about the guy who was staying in a guest room on the second floor. A guest room that wasn’t any of his siblings’ rooms.
Reluctantly, Trent thought about the conversation he’d had with Shane as Tom had given them a ride back to his inn. Shane admitted that Liberty never asked him to come, and he also admitted that he had probably taken advantage of the situation by kissing her. “I didn’t know she was even seeing anyone. I’m sorry,” he’d said as Trent had shown him to the room and told him to have a good night.
It troubled Trent that Liberty hadn’t even told Shane they were … What were they? Nothing, according to her. She didn’t want anything. Anger surged, but he pushed it away. He cursed and wished he wasn’t so overcome with emotion.
Trent stepped away from the pictures on the board and moved to the large floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the beach.
The adrenaline from the whole evening was finally beginning to draining out of him. He felt like a loser. Had he really accused her of cheating on him? Were they even together? It had only been barely five days now.
If he had learned anything from being a SEAL, it was that two parties in any given operation could look at events very differently. Did Liberty really want to be done? Did she want to just sell the place and leave South Port? She’d told him her plan the whole time, but somehow, he’d still fallen for her.
The numbers went on repeat inside of his head. Those numbers comforted him in a weird way, reminding him that he had a focus, and his focus couldn’t be Liberty Grey. Somehow, he would make sure she was protected, but he had to figure out the numbers. Plus, she was probably even more protected without him around.
No. That wasn’t true.
He grunted. He missed her, and he had just made everything a mess. A complete mess. His phone buzzed and he picked it up, hoping it was a text from Liberty.
The text ended up being from Cheryse. It was the picture she’d taken of just the two of them. Christmas cuties. Okay, for real. I hope you’re doing okay after everything with Banks. I’m so happy for you and Lib. For real on that, too.
A pang hit his heart as he stared at the picture. They’d been so happy only hours ago. Dang it. He closed his eyes and knew there would be no hope of sleeping tonight. In fact, he should probably get up and do another security sweep of her house.
