Page 74 of The Stone Family Warrior

Chapter 21

Trent pulled up to the inn, feeling out of sorts.

Sure, if there was anything Trent Stone knew about, it was loss. It was a theme in all the Stone siblings’ lives. They’d lost their father, then their mother. They’d lost men and women in the service of their country. Now, Trent was losing Liberty, and he hated it. He should be with her back at the inn, but … the way she’d looked told him, she wouldn’t have stood for him being there.

He hated it.

The insane thing was that five days ago he hadn’t really even known her. Sure, they’d had some beach time together growing up. They had been friends. He had tried to play kissy face with her when he was sixteen. Now he had fallen for her, and she was not the young girl of years past. She was a woman, the most exquisitely beautiful woman he had ever seen. He had dated beautiful women before, so he knew it wasn’t just that. There was something emotional and spiritual happening between them.

He got to his room and stripped off his clothes, swapping them with his running shoes and shorts. He didn’t even need a shirt. He would be running so hard that he wouldn’t feel the cold. It didn’t matter what time it was; he needed to sprint.

He took his phone and ear pods, and before he knew where he was, he was flying down the beach with the moonlight streaming over him. He wasn’t blasting classic rock like he normally did, and his ear pods blocked out all sound. He liked to have them in to take away the little noises. Sometimes he just wanted to drown himself in quiet. He needed to dissect this situation with Liberty and understand why she was pushing him away.

Before he knew it, the numbers were streaming into his mind. 191100716019633975. Of course the numbers would surface in his mind; they were comforting, a problem he could work with. Liberty was an unworkable problem.

She was in shock. He knew that she had to process this. He knew that when people who weren’t used to trauma experienced a traumatic situation, they needed time to recover. She had told him that the memory of the car crash would creep up on her and cause panic attacks, and that she felt like it was her fault that the accident had happened.

His mind shifted, trying to get a handle on what she was thinking. Was that how she was feeling again? Like somehow everything with Banks was her fault? Like somehow she was the one to blame for seeing the statue when Banks happened to be nearby?

It hit him like a ton of bricks. Of course she would be internalizing that. If only he could just show her that none of this was her fault. Banks was in town, lurking. He would’ve found someone to track down. Trent might actually be thankful that it was him and not someone else. If Banks had found Matt’s little Tatum or some other kid or Lucy or even the idiot Roger …

His phone rang, and he hurried to answer. He hoped that it was her. He worried that it was her. Was someone trying to get in?

No such luck. It was Hunter.

“Dude,” Trent said. That was how they always greeted each other over the phone.

“Are you okay, man?” Hunter asked. As if he didn’t know. He had been on the call with the family. He knew everything going on, but they also had that twin thing. Hunter could probably feel Trent’s angst.

It would do no good to pretend everything was fine. Trent stopped running so he could fill him in. “I don’t know. Liberty is staying at her house tonight. Her brother came to town. I don’t know if I told you that Tom is getting a divorce.”

“What? She’s staying at her house? Why not at the inn? She and Tom could both stay at the inn.”

Irritation rushed through Trent. “Don’t you think that was my gut instinct, to protect them and have them with me? Don’t you think I might’ve offered to stay there, to sleep on the floor, or to not even sleep tonight?”

“Chill. Take it down a notch, bro.”

Trent quit talking and cursed under his breath. He was scared, and he didn’t like the feeling of being scared. SEALs didn’t do scared.

Hunter cleared his throat. “She’s fine. She’ll be fine for one night. Her brother is there. Tom is a decent guy.”

Trent hadn’t told his brother everything about Liberty and her husband and son, so he launched into an explanation. He told Hunter exactly what Liberty had told Trent—maybe it wasn’t his story to tell, but he had to get this off his chest. He told his brother about how she wanted to go to the Appalachian Trail and how she wanted to sell her grandmother’s house, but then she might not sell. He told his brother how much he liked her, that he liked to listen to her chatter, and that he wanted to know what she was thinking. He told Hunter that he pined for her. He wrapped it up by telling Hunter something he never thought he would tell another soul. “I can see a life with her. I can see the whole stupid thing—white picket fence, kids, all of it.”

After a long pause, Hunter burst out laughing.

Trent’s temper flared up. “I bare my soul to you, and you laugh at me? That’s perfect.”

“Hey, stop.” Hunter allowed himself another snicker. “You’re telling me Trent Stone has found the love of his life in, let’s see, four days? Just give me a second to process, okay?”

Trent started jogging back to the inn. Quickly, he checked the phone app that he’d installed with all of the security for the inn. No suspicious movement. If only he had an app like this for Liberty’s house. If only she had allowed him to stay there.

Then he had an idea, and he took off into a run. He could stay at her house. Maybe not on the couch or outside the door, but he could sleep on the beach and keep an eye on things.

Hunter spoke again. “Okay, I knew that you were dating her—clearly, because of all the things that have happened—but dude, I’m still processing the fact you want to marry her. Wow. I mean, that’s cool. It is. It’s just that you’re Trent and you’ve never been serious with anyone.”

Trent was in a full-on sprint now, but it wasn’t hard for him to talk. “I know. The thing is, she’s scared, bro.” He could see it all clearly in his mind. “She feels responsible for her husband and son dying, and because she wanted to go see the statue of St. Paul, she blames herself for putting me in danger. Her mind isn’t right about this. She said she never should have come here, we never should’ve happened, and she just wants to go hike the Appalachian Trail.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Trent slowed as he got to her house. The lights were on. He couldn’t see much at first, but as he approached, he realized that there were people in the kitchen. He stopped suddenly and was shocked when he saw it wasn’t just Tom and Liberty there; another guy stood there too, one he didn’t recognize.

“What’s up, bro?” Hunter asked.

“I’m at her place on the beach.” Trent took a few careful steps closer, feeling uncomfortably like a stalker. He peered through the window. “I don’t know, dude. There is some guy in the kitchen with her and Tom.” Every part of him was on edge, ready to pounce.

“Is it one of Banks’s men?”

“I have no idea. It doesn’t look like anyone is yelling or fighting—”

Trent broke off, stunned, when the guy kissed her.

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