“She did,” Sarah said slowly, wondering why he hadn’t addressed what she’d just told him. Maybe he needed to process it a bit. “She was a doctor and needed to be closer to the hospital. She’d just finished her residency and was working in the Emergency Department on Christmas Day when the general came in with an appendicitis attack. She diagnosed him and he ordered her not to leave him. So, she didn’t. Once he was recovered, he came back to the hospital with flowers and asked her out.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“I know—and completely unlike the general. I’m not sure I believe that’s actually how it all went down, but that was her version. They married four months later and she had Caden a year after that. She quit her job to stay home with us.”

He reached across and placed a hand on the back of her neck to gently massage. “If you get any tighter, you’re going to snap.”

“I always tense up when I talk about her—or my past. Simply because I still miss her terribly.” And he had yet to say anything about her revelation. Was he going to ignore it?

He hugged her, an awkward embrace over the console—why was there always that blasted console between them?—but she took comfort in it while she pondered his response to her living in the run-down area and his lack of response about her confession.

Was he right? Was her choice a source of worry for Caden? She sighed. Of course it was, but did that make her selfish? It did if her only reason was to tick off her father.

Gavin nudged her. “Travis is heading back this way, but I want to let you know that I don’t think any less of you, Sarah.”

He didn’t? “Why not?”

“You’re not that person anymore. You’ve risen above it.”

“Have I?” she whispered. He frowned and she leaned back to catch the expression on Travis’s face. “Why does he look mad?”

“Because he found something, and it doesn’t look like it’s a good something.” Gavin rolled the window down once more. “Well?”

“Someone broke into her place and trashed it. I’ve called the cops.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY

Sarah shot out of the truck like a bullet and Gavin scrambled after her. Travis and Asher pulled up the rear, the four of them coming to a halt just outside her apartment door.

Her mangled apartment door. It hung from one hinge.

“They kicked it in,” she said.

With fingers curled into fists held at her side, she stepped over the threshold. Gavin rested a hand on her arm. “Hold up.” He glanced at Asher. “I’m assuming you cleared the place and there’s no one in there?”

“Nah, I fixed the guy a sandwich and told him to make himself at home.”