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“Hi,” she murmured with a fond, bittersweet smile.

His face and his eyes softened. “Hi,” he croaked. Then his situation must have hit him because he jerked his head to the side and groaned. “No. No! You can’t be here.”

“I am here.” She smoothed the ruffled hairs of his beard.

“Y-you can’t. It’s wrong. It’s selfish. I can’t… I can’t let you… love…”

“Shh.” She stroked her fingertips delicately across his lips. “Jude, it’s too late. I already do.”

He fell asleep shortly after that—for real, with long, slow, steady breathing. The color was starting to come back to his face, and he was no longer doing all that tossing and turning, so she could relax at last.

His headache must have eased enough for him to sleep.

She texted Nancy and Mr. Gregory with a brief update and then climbed under the covers to lie beside Jude.

She watched him for a long time until she finally dozed off too. She slept for longer than she would have expected. She didn’t wake up until she felt the mattress shifting.

Jude was trying to sit up, so she scrambled up and ran around the bed to help him. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah,” he said, hoarse and weak. “I need to pee.”

“Can you walk? I can get that desk chair or?—”

“I’m okay. I can walk.”

He didn’t look okay, but he did manage to push himself to his feet. She stayed beside him, wrapping a supportive arm around his waist, as he limped toward the bathroom.

She was worried about him, so she didn’t close the bathroom door, although she did step outside.

She heard him pee and then flush. He was pulling up his underwear—which was the only thing he was wearing—when she went back in.

She waited as he washed his hands and splashed a lot of water on his face. As he was drying off with a hand towel, he shifted his eyes to look at her.

“You can’t be mad,” she told him. “You had no right to leave that way. It was stupid and irrational and counterproductive, and it wasn’t fair to me. Not to mention poor Nancy and your dad.”

His face twisted. “They know?”

“Of course they know! How the hell do you think I managed to find you? Your dad called someone to track you down.”

“You should have?—”

“I should have done exactly what I did. We all love you, and it was wrong of you to leave us like that.”

He winced and dropped the hand towel.

She wrapped an arm around his waist again to help him back to the bed, although he seemed fairly stable on his feet.

Jude didn’t say anything until he’d gotten back into bed, falling against the pillow like he could no longer hold his head up. Then he stared up at her with deep, pained gray eyes. “I never wanted this for you.”

“I know you didn’t.” She stood by his bed, gazing down at him.

“I never should have married you. I wasn’t thinking… I never dreamed you might actually…”

“Love you?” She swallowed hard and then managed a smile. “Well, I do.”

He closed his eyes. His shoulders shook a few times. “I never should have done this to you.”

“It’s too late, Jude. It’s a done deal. You need to stop worrying about me.”

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