She looked at the tequila in her glass. Looked at the dark water beyond the railing and caught a glimpse of Dolly rolling through the moat. She paused, and Dove couldn’t have sworn the damn gator smiled at her, as if say, I’m here for you, sister. Right. Dove was losing her fucking mind.
She picked up the glass and drank.
“I’m still confused,” Trent said. “I feel like all we’ve done is talk in circles.”
“Slade had the documents connecting Courtney and her father to Sovereign's ownership. He had testimony from clients who'd used their evidence disposal service. Enough to open an investigation." Jack looked at Trent. "Not enough to bury them. And burial is what they deserve."
“Again, circles,” Trent said.
“The last piece of this puzzle came when we learned Sovereign Resources was making a move on this property.” Jack turned back toward the table. “Through the Hendersons.” He sat back down. “Slade paid them a visit. Turned out Courtney had done the Henderson family a significant favor. Their son had been brought up on vehicular manslaughter charges that should have gone to trial. But Courtney buried it. Case closed." He spread his hands. "The Hendersons owed her. And this—pressuring you to sell, using what Karl gave them to threaten you—this was how they paid the debt."
Trent slowly rose . He crossed to the railing where his father had stood, put his hands on it, and stared out at the moat, saying nothing for a long moment. Then he turned.
"You're telling me that for the last several weeks, while I've been losing sleep, thinking these people are trying to take my land—while I've been standing in my equipment shed, getting threatened— While Dove's house was getting torn apart—" He stared at his father. "The Hendersons have been working for your side this whole time?"
Jack nodded. "Not the entire time, but even after they flipped, they had to?—"
"Don't." Trent held up one hand. "Don't tell me it was the only way. I've been hearing that for twenty years about everything." He wasn't shouting. That was the thing about Trent’s anger—the quieter it got, the deeper it ran. "So everything… the threat? The photograph? Coming up to me at the town meeting with a smile and a warning?—"
“They had to make it look good, so they had to do what was expected. They knew you’d never cave,” Jack said.
Trent laughed. It didn’t sound anything like the way he’d laughed at the Jeep story. Not even close.
“That was a dangerous game. Mom actually asked me if I wanted to sell. If I was happy here. She said she’d understand if I wanted to leave. To experience something else.” He walked to the far end of the porch and stood there with his back to both of them, hands locked behind his head, staring at the night sky.
Dove couldn’t stand it. She inched her way closer, looping an arm around his waist.
Trent wrapped his arm around her and kissed her temple. “Mom thought that since I kept insisting Dove and I were just friends, there was nothing holding me here. That I might walk away from the legacy when she passed..”
Jack chuckled.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.” Trent glared.
“Your mother was always the smartest woman in any room,” Jack said. “She known you’d turn down the offer just like she’d known you’re in love with this lovely young woman.” He smiled. “She told me all about how you fought your feelings for Dove, but she had faith, that in the end, you’d come to your senses. Looks like she was right.”
“Mom was always annoyingly right," Trent said softly. He dropped his chin to the top of Dove's head. "I miss her."
“So, do I,” Jack said, turning toward the Everglades. “But we need to think about other things because once the exhumation results come back, and the news breaks that I'm not in that coffin—everything accelerates. Dutton. Courtney. All of them. They've been patient because they didn’t have any reason not to be. And honestly, my remains not being in that coffin might not scare them.”
Trent turned around and glanced at Dove. His expression had settled into determination. She knew that look, and Trent could be dangerous when he allowed himself to settle. “But it will make them nervous, and that will make them push harder,” he said.
“That's what I'm guessing, too. And while I missed the last twenty years with the only woman I’ll ever love, I’m not going to lose another second with my son.” Jack stepped closer, resting his hand on Trent's shoulder. “Or the girl who stole his heart and already feels like family.”
Dove’s cheeks flushed. She could only hope that Trent’s heart belonged to her, because she was so far gone she’d be lost without him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The morning came in slow and easy, the kind rising that made Trent forget, just for a minute, that the world outside Mallor's Landing had any problems. He had always loved how the sun lazily burned off the haze. Where the gators floated in from the bay and circled the moat, checking out the surroundings.
Trent sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in his hand, his father across from him, and a plate of half gooey, half burnt muffins that Dove had made. It was strange that something he'd imagined ten thousand times over the last two decades could feel, in the actual living of it, more ordinary than he'd expected. Not less meaningful. Just ordinary. Like the man had simply returned after having been away for a while, and here they were—coffee cups between them and the Glades doing its morning thing outside the window.
"You want to know what I thought about every single day for twenty years?" Jack wrapped both hands around his mug. "Your mother's biscuits." He glanced at Dove. "No offense."
"None taken.”
"She made biscuits that would make a grown man weep." Jack shook his head slowly. "I had a dream about them once. Woke up angry."
Dove laughed. “My mom’s not the greatest cook. She tried, and we tried to be supportive, but a few times she got it so wrong, my dad would have to order pizza. I'm not much better than her, unfortunately.”
