Page 74 of Mine to Keep

“Bryn and the fact that she doesn’t have a digital footprint except for this jewelry-making stuff. Don’t you think that’s strange? And even weirder, there is nothing on the internet about her until she moved here. Nothing. Nada. Not one thing.”

Jamison leaned against the railing and rubbed his temple. “You’re seriously spending your free time googling Bryn?”

“The next step is to hire your brother Rhett to—”

“He won’t take the case.” But only because Jamison had already beaten her to the punch.

Cheryl waved her hand in front of her face as if she were batting away a fly. “I’ll find someone if I need to, but you should really be concerned about this.”

“Why?” Actually, the bigger question was why he even entertained this conversation, but he had to admit, he wanted to know what’d put a bug up Cheryl’s ass. Had she seen the story, too? Who else was making this connection? And should he say something to Bryn?

“What did she do before she moved here? Why doesn’t she have any social media accounts before that? There is no record of her anywhere. That’s weird because even you have a digital footprint, and you hate that shit.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. But I only have it because you created it for me.”

“Not true. There was stuff out there on you before me. Old high school records because of sports. Your firefighter picture. Just stuff. But not one single thing comes up about Bryn Tinsley outside of her Etsy shop and now her website, which lists a post office box in Lighthouse Cove as her address.”

Jamison had to admit that it did seem weird. And hewashaving his brother look into it, but he wouldn’t tell Cheryl that.

“She’s hiding something.”

“You’re jealous,” Jamison said. “And we’re not getting back together.” He arched a brow. “Troy told me you broke things off with him.”

She opened her mouth but snapped it shut quickly.

“We’re never getting back together, Cheryl, and trying to dig up non-existent craziness about Bryn isn’t going to change that fact.”

She narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t about you and me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I can’t believe you would even think that.” She breathed in and out so hard that her nose flared like a bull’s. “I’m here because I care about you, and I would hate to see you get taken for a ride.”

“No. You’re here because you still have dollar signs in your eyes, and you’re jealous just like you were when you thought there was something going on with me and Gina—which was the craziest thing in the world.”

“She wanted you even before her husband passed, and don’t go trying to tell me otherwise.”

Sometimes, Jamison wondered what he’d ever seen in Cheryl. The older she got, the worse she became. Instead of growing up and becoming a reasonable adult, she seemed to move backward. He wished he knew what the hell had happened that’d caused her to become so insecure. Or how he’d missed it when they’d first gotten together.

The only thing he could think of was that he’d been focused solely on her and no one else when they were dating. When they got married, that remained true. There was no reason for her to be jealous. It wasn’t until she started wanting to spend more than they had and pushed harder for him to leave his job that things had become difficult.

And then the shit really hit the fan when Steve showed up.

“Now you’re being delusional,” he said. “I’m not going to listen to this crap on Bryn’s doorstep. You said your piece, now it’s time for you to go.”

“I’ll leave, but I want you to look into this.”

“And I want you to stop meddling in my life. We’re not married anymore,” he said. “You know, Troy really cares about you, and you fucked that up by becoming obsessed with me again. And it’s not even me you want. If it were, you wouldn’t have cheated on me in the first place.”

“I made a mistake. I apologized to you for that. I don’t know what I have to do in order to get your forgiveness.”

“Nothing,” he said. “I forgive you. I really do. But that doesn’t mean there is an us to come back to. Because there isn’t. That ship has sailed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“You’re babysitting, and it’s sleeping.”

He laughed. “I’m actually working on a cabinetry project for Bryn, but that’s none of your business.” He gently curled his fingers around her biceps and guided her toward her car. “For the record, and just so we’re clear, I’m being paid.” Well, he and Bryn had bartered services, but he wasn’t about to tell his ex-wife that. “Her daughter was sleeping, and Bryn had an errand to run. Since I was here, I said I’d watch Zadie. But Bryn will be back any minute, and I want to finish this project today. I have other ones lined up.”

“I can’t believe you’re finally getting this business off the ground. Why couldn’t you do that when we were married?” She pressed her key fob, and the lights on her car flashed.

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