Page 75 of Hold Me Before You Go

A new realization slammed into me and I looked outside. “He’s never going to leave Hallow Ranch, is he?”

“You and I both know the answer to that,” Denver replied.

I didn’t know how to take that. Eventually, I figured that after Mags healed and buried his demons, he would leave HallowRanch and start a new life. It never occurred to me that he came to Hallow Ranch just for that.

“Right, look. Mags knows you’re waiting, and he is holding off your boys for me,” Denver began, pulling me from my thoughts. I looked back at him. “I need to get this out, so just…shut the fuck up for a second, okay?”

I stiffened, knowing what was coming.

“The other day, I pushed you,” he started.

“Langston—”

“I said shut the fuck up,” he cut me off. “Look, what you did for me—for Hallow Ranch—I’ll always be in your debt, and I was ready to help you, Grayson.” He took a breath and looked down the hallway as his throat worked. “I was ready to help you get your happy ending, and instead of helping you, I fucking pushed you. Hayes told me I triggered an attack.”

“Denver—”

“I used to have them,” he cut me off again, his voice firm. My mouth shut, and I bit down. “It would be the simplest things that would trigger it, Grayson. When Valerie and I…when we…she triggered one, and suddenly, I wasn’t standing in my kitchen with the most beautiful, infuriating woman I’d ever met.”

I stared at him, waiting.

He looked at me. “I was back there, watching the guy next to me get shot in the head.”

“Jesus,” I murmured, closing my eyes.

“There was no stopping them, and I lived with thatfor fucking years. I could never get them to go away, then after I saved Valerie from the fire…I knew I couldn’t go on like that. I couldn’t live like that, Grayson, and neither should you,” he told me, pulling out a card from his wallet and flicking it out to me.

I looked down at it and then back up to him. “What is that?”

“Someone who can help, brother,” he answered softly.

I thought about Carrie and the life I was about to start with her after all this shit was finally over. I thought about what I would miss out on if I was spending the rest of my days battling the demons day in and day out. I couldn’t shove them down anymore. I couldn’t hide them underneath my suppressed emotions. Carrie changed all of that for me.

Carrie, in some way, was healing me, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to heal me completely. I was going to need to do some of the work and that was okay.

I stepped forward and took the card, muttering a thanks. Denver tipped his head in return and looked back down the hallway again. “How’s she doing?” he asked.

“She’s sleeping,” I told him.

He nodded and looked back at me. “Mags saw her on the trail camera.”

My heart drummed in my chest as I listened to him tell me how Mags found her. “She was curled up against a headstone in the graveyard, Grayson.”

The image of her, bruised, alone, and utterly defenseless out in the bitter, relentless blizzard popped into my head, and my gut twisted.She had to use a headstone as a shield.I bent my head, putting my hands on my hips, muttering a low curse.

I was going to slaughter both of them like fucking dogs, and no one would be able to stop me.

“There’s something else you need to know,” Denver said, regaining my attention.

“What is it?”

He looked to the fire, deep emotions passing over his face. “It was Nancy’s headstone.”

I inhaled a deep breath through my nose and looked away from him as the knife in my gut twisted harder and deeper than before.

Nancy was Valerie’s mother.

She passed away from cancer not long ago.

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