Page 26 of Finding Her Strength

Max turns his head at my voice, a smile breaking across his face. His brown hair and dark chocolate eyes have always been warm. Between Lucy’s constant kindness and Max’s generosity, they are two of the nicest people I know. Which is saying something because the rest of my friend group is amazing, as well.

“How are you, man?” Max asks, pulling me into a bro hug,our hands clasped at our chests and a quick slap to the shoulder.

“Doing pretty good. How are you guys?”

“Just great.” Lucy smiles. I give her a quick kiss on the cheek. Her stick-straight, blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail while her brown eyes shine with happiness.

“Can I help with anything?” I set the six-pack I brought in the fridge, grabbing two out before closing the door.

“Nope, it’s just about ready,” Lucy says, moving around the kitchen, taking out bowls and silverware. She gives the chili on the stove another stir, then lets us know it’s ready to dish up.

Once we all have our bowls prepped, we sit down at the table to chat about everything going on in our lives. Despite co-owning the company, Max and I don’t spend every day together. Most of his day is spent at our small office in town, drawing designs and running the day-to-day stuff while I’m on-site at each build. We have regular dinners so we can catch up on our lives.

“What’s on your project list right now?” I ask Max.

“I’ve got a couple of things, but no major time sucks. Why?”

“Well, I may have a project for you soon.”

“Did you find a house?” Lucy asks excitedly. They’ve been a part of this search since I started looking months ago, knowing it’s my dream to fix up a place of my own.

“I think I might have.” I pull out my phone to pull up the pictures. “I’m going to put an offer in tomorrow but wanted to make sure you had some time to help me design the renovation.”

“It’s going to take a lot of work. You’ve got a mess on your hands there,” Max says, looking at the pictures with Lucy.

“I know, but it’s got the right bones to make it exactly what I want.”

“I think it’s perfect.” Lucy grins at me.

“I agree. I couldn’t have picked out a better house for you.” Max smacks me on the shoulder.

“You’ll help me with the design?”

“Of course. We’ll charge you a nominal fee. Give you the family discount.” He winks. “We’ve got a baby to think about now.”

I freeze. “What?”

“Oops.” Max sheepishly grins at Lucy, who laughs at him.

“You’re having a baby?”

“Yeah, we found out a couple of days ago.” Lucy blushes.

“Holy shit, guys!” I stand from my chair and walk around the table to give them both a hug. “Congrats. Does anyone else know?”

“Nope, you’re the first one we’ve told. We were going to wait a while before we shared, but it sort of slipped out there,” Max says. Lucy grabs his hand with a smile as I sit back down in my chair.

“This is great!” The look Max and Lucy share has something in my chest constricting. I’ve never felt the kind of love they have for each other. The kind of love that consumes you so fully, you don’t know what you’d do without the other person. It’s not something I ever thought much about, but now, I feel like I’m missing out.

As they usually do, my thoughts drift to Hope and the connection between us. She’s the first woman I’ve ever considered wanting more with. No one else has ever captured my attention like she has. I want to be with her all the time. It took every ounce of strength I had to leave her the other day after I hung her paintings. I knew we both needed a little space after the heaviness of what happened. I’m still not sure why we took such a hard left turn.

She was being so playful, then something happened to make her utterly terrified. It was like a switch was flipped, and she became a different person. She folded in on herself, even flinched away from me when I tried to figure out whatwas going on. All I wanted to do was protect her from the bad things in life, and based on her reaction, some pretty bad things had to have happened to her.

I had to keep complete control over my emotions because rage was coursing through me so strongly, I knew she’d see it if I let it slip. I can only guess at the horrors Hope has endured, but her fear speaks loud and clear. If someone hurt her, they deserve to rot in hell after being made to endure the same pain they inflicted on her.

I hate that she felt the need to cower away from me. I would die before I ever did anything to hurt her. I was surprised she let me comfort her afterward but was really glad she did. It eased some of my worries about her being afraid of me.

“You okay over there?” Lucy asks, her brows furrowed in concern. I must’ve had a look on my face to make Lucy notice I wasn’t paying attention anymore.

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