Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
GAVIN
I’d pictured the morning after finally getting my fill of Rose a hundred different ways. Most of them ended with her in my bed, my mouth somewhere between her thighs, and breakfast on a tray that I’d happily set aside and let get cold just long enough to make her come again.
Not one of those fantasies included hauling ass out of the house before I could even make her coffee—just so I could go bail my adult daughter out of jail.
With her ex–best friend.
Who just so happened to now be best friends with my … what? Girlfriend? Lover? The woman I was balls-deep in less than twelve hours ago?
This wasn’t normal. Not even close. But as I pulled into the sheriff’s station and glanced over at Rose adjusting the hem of her sundress—still flushed from our quick detour at her apartment—I couldn’t help but laugh to myself.
What the hell was my life?
She’d been nervous we would run into her parents at the office when we stopped to change her clothes. But in classic Carter fashion, they weren’t there. Was she always so … alone?
We did spend a few minutes walking through the store before we left, though.
I wanted her to see the progress. The fans were gone, the space was aired out, and most of the drywall was already cut and hauled out.
My crew had started sealing the interior framing and laying insulation.
They’d told me the longest part would be refinishing the floors and resetting the walls—but if everything stayed on track, the bookstore should be fully restored in another three weeks.
That was a damn miracle, considering what it had looked like the day I walked in and found her crying on the floor.
And the day after that … yeah—maybe I should’ve told my guys to start drying the place out that night.
Maybe we’d be further along if I had. But the truth was, I didn’t give a shit about the floors or the walls. Not then.
I cared about her.
I got out first and circled around the front of the truck, opening the passenger door for Rose. On the walk up to the station, my hand found the small of her back out of instinct, but I kept it brief. Just enough to guide her inside the building without lingering too long.
No need to give Monson a reason to squint at us harder than he already would.
The second we stepped into the station, Sheriff Monson’s eyes flicked up from behind the desk. He gave us both a once-over. Not the casual kind, either. The kind that said he knew exactly what we’d been doing last night.
Fuck.
“Morning,” I offered, keeping my voice neutral.
He nodded in response. I knew he wasn’t a morning person from all the years we’d been friends.
He was a man of few words but when he spoke, we all listened, because there was no man who cared more about his people and small town than him.
He lifted a bag from the counter and tossed it to me. Teagan’s purse and phone.
“Figured I’d give her the full experience since she was the drunk, unruly one,” he said drily. “Let her sweat it out without her comforts. You’re welcome.”
“Appreciate it,” I muttered, adjusting the bag in my grip.
Rose stepped forward, a wrinkle between her brows. “And Elodie?”
Monson tapped a button on the phone sitting on the front desk.
A second later, a familiar voice crackled through the speaker. “You've reached dispatch. This is Deputy Anderson. Go ahead.”
Rose nearly choked on her laugh and I had to turn my head to hide mine.
Monson rolled his eyes. “Your ride’s here,” he said into the speaker, then flicked the button off. “She’s been entertaining everyone in the back. I hauled them in. Guess I forgot how much that one talks.”
“That was your first mistake,” I muttered.
Monson nodded toward the hallway. “I’ll go get Teagan. I tried to offer her breakfast when we placed our daily order at the cafe across the street, but she is in a mood. So. Good luck with that ride home.”
My stomach twisted. Because now it hit me—we were all riding together.
My daughter, who hated me. Her ex–best friend, who was just … Elodie. And the woman who’d been—and would be again, the second we were alone—calling me Daddy last night, who was exactly their age and currently stealing glances at me that made my thoughts anything but appropriate.
Goddammit.
I was stupid.
So fucking stupid.
A moment later, Elodie waltzed into the front office.
Her hair was pulled into a messy bun. She was still in last night’s leather skirt, but now her top was covered by an oversized sweatshirt with Bayridge Sheriff’s Dept.
across the front. She was barefoot, heels in hand, but grinning like she owned the place.
“Rose!” she shouted, throwing her arms up. “Sweet, sweet friend of mine. I missed you. Jail is so boring. You can’t even DoorDash pizza when you need to sober up. It’s a travesty.”
Rose hugged her, laughing into her shoulder. “You weren’t even technically in jail.”
“Semantics. I was detained.”
I lifted a brow. “You were babysat by Monson with a bag of candy.”
Elodie waved me off. “Details.”
Then she eyed me up and down with a look I didn’t like. “So … how was your night?”
“Don’t,” I warned her quietly.
But she just smirked. “Oh, I will. Just not in front of your daughter, who’s probably—”
The door swung open behind her, and everything in the room shifted.
Teagan walked in with the kind of energy that made the air feel colder.
She looked fine. Not a single hair out of place.
She wore jeans with so many rips in them that it made me wonder why anyone would pay for them, a band tee, and her leather jacket folded neatly over one arm.
But her scowl? That could kill a man on sight.
Her eyes landed on Elodie first. Then Rose.
Her face twisted and lips curled.
“Well, well,” she said, her voice sharp and echoing against the station walls. “The entire town showed up.”
“Teagan,” I warned, my voice low and even.
But she didn’t stop. She was already locked in and pulling the pin of what I knew was going to be a grenade of her own pain to hurt others.
“What’s Rose doing here, anyway? Supervising?
Or just making sure everyone remembers she’s the town’s golden girl—a perfect friend, and your friend’s perfect daughter who’s always better than troublemaker Teagan? ”
Elodie stepped between them like a goddamn bodyguard. “Don’t talk to her like that. She didn’t do anything to you.”
Teagan scoffed, narrowing her sharp tongue on Elodie now.
“I’m not dumb. There’s more than some wet floors keeping them close these past few weeks.
Last night proved it. Bumping into her and then my dad within a few steps from one another at a club, for Christ’s sake? You’re all just a bunch of liars.”
Her words hung in the air like smoke—acrid, clinging, dangerous.
My eyes flicked to Rose, just as hers found mine. Her face was pale, her jaw tight, but it was her brown eyes that hit me hardest—wide and glassy, filling with unshed tears she was trying her damndest not to let fall.
I wanted to go to her. I wanted to step in, say something, touch her—do anything to make her feel safe again. But we both knew what that would do. One brush of my hand, one look too long, and Teagan would take the match she was holding and drop it right on top of everything we’d built.
Elodie’s brows knitted and she broke my train of thought. “What the fuck did I do?”
Teagan’s voice sharpened like a blade. “If it wasn’t for you, you and I wouldn’t be in this mess then and now!”
Elodie fired back, “What the hell are you talking about? You pushed me out the second life got hard, Teag.” Her voice broke and her tone softened as if she could sense this was bigger than Rose and I.
“You got dealt cards that would fuck anyone up. I wanted to be there but you never let me back in.”
“And apparently that was the right choice," Teagan spat. “I’m pretty sure what you were doing with the bartender last night still makes you a liar and cheater.”
“Enough!” My voice cracked through the station, louder than I intended. All three of them snapped their attention to me.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I knew enough to recognize the edge in Teagan’s voice—the bitterness that had never healed. The grief she’d never let herself face. The truth she’d never said aloud. And right now, she was lashing out at everyone in reach.
My hands were clenched. My jaw was tight. This was my fault. I’d created this disaster.
The pressure in my chest was almost unbearable, and I didn’t know who I was more furious with—Teagan, for never letting go of a grudge she wouldn’t even explain.
Elodie, for something that had clearly broken a part of my daughter I never even saw.
Or myself … for loving the hell out Rose, who didn’t belong in any of this.
But when Rose stepped forward and gently laid her hand over mine—calm, warm, grounding—it was the only thing keeping me upright. I loved her. I loved Rosemarie Carter.
I took a breath, forcing my voice to steady.
“We’re done yelling in this goddamn station,” I said, eyes sweeping over the three of them. Then I pointed. “You”—I looked directly at Teagan—“are coming home. I don’t care that you’re twenty-seven and an adult. We need to talk.”
She opened her mouth, but I raised a hand and kept going.
“You”—I turned to Elodie—“are getting dropped off when I drop off Rose.”
And then, finally, my eyes met Rose’s. My hand dropped. My voice softened. So did my stare. “And you … we’ll talk later.” There was so much I wanted to say to her. So much I couldn’t. Not here.
I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders.
“Now everyone, get in the truck. This will not be like old times. No one gets ice cream on the way home. If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
They stared at me in stunned silence for a moment. Then, slowly, they started to move—grudgingly, stiffly—out the door toward the truck.
And God help me, I didn’t know how we were going to survive this ride, but I did know one thing—Rose’s fingers brushed mine on the way out, and that alone told me we would survive the rest.