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“Ah, sure. I’ll just be… ah, in your living room.”
“That’s fine.” She finished caking on foundation, then added some more, followed by powder, and winced with every stroke of the brush. It was a relief when she’d finished.
She found Trent sitting on her couch. He jumped to his feet when she entered the room as if a pin had been pulled on a grenade and he needed to move.
She started to smile but the expression hurt. “One second.” She held up a finger to Trent and returned to the bathroom, grabbed a couple of ibuprofens, and downed them with a glass of water in the kitchen. She slowly lowered herself onto a chair that faced the couch and gestured for him to return to his seat. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you. I was worried about you.”
She studied him, looking for any sign that he was pissed she’d just left him without a word, but she didn’t see any anger. He was either one of the most forgiving people she’d ever encountered, or he was a good actor. “How did you know you’d find me at my house?”
“I thought there was a good chance.”
“Huh. So none of my neighbors called anything in? No complaints of yelling or shouting?”
He glanced over at her. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“That’s reassuring.” So much for small-town living being advantageous in the community coming together to prevent crime. “Guessing you heard what happened at work?”
Trent gripped his hands together and rubbed his palms. “Yeah.”
“Then you know I’m off the Palmer case.”
“And that you may be leaving PWCPD if what Malone told me is true.”
Her head hurt too much to get into what the man thought, and sure, in his place she’d think her actions constituted quitting, but she hadn’t come out and said as much in words. “I’m not leaving. In fact, I’ve got to get back to work.”
She jumped up and rushed to the door—and staggered. Her head was spinning.
“Careful there.” Trent was quickly at her side, and she brushed him away, but a wave of nausea threatened to topple her and had her returning to the chair she’d been sitting in.
Trent dropped back onto the couch. “Are you going to tell me”—his gaze dipped over every tender spot on her face—“what happened? We’re partners.”
“Were.”
“Don’t think you’ll get rid of me that easy, and you can also save any speech you might be thinking of about how you’re fine and whatever went down here is all fine. Fine is a trigger word for shrinks.”
She quirked an eyebrow and that simple action hurt, but she respected this new sassy side to the rookie detective. “And you’re a shrink now?” One of the ugly traits that she tended to bring out in her partners.
He stayed silent long enough to draw her out; like a good fisherman who knew how to reel in the line precisely so as not to have his catch break free.
“All rig
ht, there was an incident,” she admitted, “but I’ll be fine.”
His jaw tightened, and he rubbed his hands together again, the brushing motion sounding a lot like sandpaper scraping on wood. “I was just an officer with the Dumfries PD,” he began.
“Which wasn’t long ago,” she intercepted.
“Sure, but I was working a case with the FBI.”
She was tempted to cut in again, this time with something smart about it being his fifteen minutes of fame that he clung to.
Trent went on. “I might have overstepped and put myself into a situation…”
She found herself leaning forward. There may be more to Trent than met the eye, after all. “Might have?”
“Okay, I did.” He tossed out a small smile with the confession. “Anyway, because of that I got shot.”
