Page 49 of Meet Me at Sunset Cove

“Waylen, thecop.” Daisy frowned.

Hunter cast her a look. “He wasn’t always a cop, you know. He used to get in trouble a lot before he turned things around. So, I guess, I had a lot of reason to think Belle wouldn’t listen. So I went along with it…We showed up to the party, and she got it into her head to dive off the St. Joseph’s lighthouse.” He shook his head. “Belle had always been stubborn, and the alcohol only made it worse.”

The fire crackled as a log fell into the flame, sending sparks across the sky.

“I’ll never forget it. She hit the water, and I just knew something was wrong.” He paused, collecting his memories. “We grew up around water. Jumped off the pier a hundred times. It seemed like no big deal. But it was dark, and we’d never jumped that lighthouse before. She misjudged the depth, hit a submerged rock, and shattered her leg.”

Daisy’s stomach twisted. He looked at Daisy, his eyes filled with regret. “If the Coast Guard hadn’t been nearby, she might have died.” Hunter drew in a ragged breath. “Just like that, it was all over. Her sports career, her college plans…everything she’d worked for, gone in one night.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that, Hunter,” Daisy whispered, her whole chest aching for him and the weight he’d been carrying all these years.

“Sure I can,” he said. “Her parents do.”

Suddenly, the memory of the woman in the coffee shop, her sad expression and Hunter’s tense shoulders, came to mind.

“Tara is her mom,” Daisy realized aloud.

“Yeah…”

“I don’t think she blames you, Hunter.” It seemed more like sadness—heartbreak—in the way Tara had looked at him in the coffee shop. Hunter sat up, his gaze searching hers. “Maybe.”

A charged silence filled the space between them, and Daisy glanced away. “What happened with Belle?” she asked.

His chest sank as he let out a heavy breath. “She had months of physical therapy. I did my best to be there for her, but things just…fell apart.”

A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “She called me up one day, said she couldn’t do it anymore. That she didn’t have room for a relationship in her recovery.” He shook his head, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why is it, when things get tough, when everything falls apart…I’m always the first thing to get cut loose? What does that say about me?”

Daisy didn’t know what to say to that. How do you respond to a person’s most vulnerable moment? She reached out, curling her fingers over his.

“So there it is. Hunter Barrett’s origin story.” Hunter took a deep breath, as if trying to shake off the weight of his confession. He turned to Daisy, a small, forced smile on his face. “Okay, now you’ve heard my big bad secret. Tell me yours.”

Daisy wrapped her arms around her knees, her hair falling in a curtain around her. “I’m an open book. What do you want to know?”

Hunter bit his lip, thinking about the question before asking, “Why did you leave the show?”

Daisy blinked at him for a moment. She straightened, slipping back into the safety of that practiced smile. “I just thought it was time. Looking for a new horizon, so to speak.” Her lips pressed together neatly at the end.

Hunter studied her for a moment, his brow furrowing. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” Daisy asked, her smile faltering slightly.

“That whole ‘Daisy Decker’ persona,” Hunter said gently. “You know you’re allowed to turn it off, right?”

Daisy’s smile died and she turned away from him, shrinking into herself. “Yeah…I do…I just…it’s easier to talk to people when I know what they’re expecting from me.” She picked up a nearby branch and poked it into the flames, watching it catch fire as she let out a heavy breath. “When the show first started, people would meet me in real life, and if I wasn’t exactly as peppy or bright as they expected, they’d walk away disappointed…So, I think I’m sort of stuck with it.”

A long moment passed before she felt Hunter’s arm wrap around her shoulder.

“We’re really a pair, aren’t we?” He laughed.

Daisy laughed too, feeling an instant lift in the air. “You’re telling me!”

Hunter’s thumb brushed over her shoulder, sending sparks through her skin. “For what it’s worth, I’d really like to get to know Daisy without the Decker.”

Daisy turned and found him looking at her, as though searching for something under all the layers of rules and plans, all the things she’d spent years building up so she’d never have to lose someone like him. And she wanted to believe that, for once, someone might want her just because of who she was, rather than what she did.

And so she pushed aside the plan, the one that said this was all imaginary. The one that said the rush she felt every time he touched her was all a part of the show. And she leaned in. Her hand trembled as she reached for him, her fingertips brushing his neck.

Hunter closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, and when they opened, they met hers with an intensity that stole her breath away.

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