Page 36 of Marry Me, Maybe?
Gray stirred, barely. “Hud…”
“Hey, I’m here.” I pressed my hand gently to his shoulder to keep him from moving. “Just hang in there, all right?”
His eyelids fluttered again. “Tell Ozzie… don’t want him to worry…Matty…”
“I will,” I whispered. “I promise.”
Warren came back, tires crunching as he swung thetruck around. Clayton and I lifted Gray as carefully as we could, one arm over each of our shoulders, dragging him upright and into the passenger seat.
“I’ll get Matty and have him meet you at the clinic,” I said. “You get him safely there first.”
Nothing could happen to Gray. I couldn’t be the bearer of any more disasters in Matty’s life.
As Warren slammed the door and peeled out toward town, I stood there for a second in the settling dust, heart hammering. Blood streaked my hands. Gray’s blood. My shirt stuck to my back with sweat.
I’d promised him I’d tell Matty and Ozzie.
But I had no idea how the hell I was gonna look Matty in the eye and say it was me who hadn’t reacted fast enough and let his dad get kicked in the head.
8
MATTY
Junebug flicked her ears, impatient with my slow grooming. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you, girl.” I dragged the brush down her flank. “You didn’t fall in love with the wrong person. You didn’t get played and lied to. You didn’t end up the asshole in the story.”
She snorted, like she didn’t want to hear it either.
I walked Junebug back to her stall, tossed in a flake of hay, and ran my hand down her flank one last time. She didn’t look back at me. Not that I blamed her. I’d been bitching at her about my Hudson problem for an hour. “Go on, then. You don’t have to listen to me ramble about someone who’s not even worth my time.”
I left her alone and walked outside the barn, stretching. In the distance, I spotted my dad and Hudson shoeing a horse, Hudson steady at the reins. My jaw tightened like it always did when I saw him.
The man I couldn’t look at without remembering everything.
I turned toward the house. The house where I grew up.The house that no longer felt like a home. Not with my dad fornicating with Ozzie under its roof.
My dad had always been the one dependable constant in my life. The one I looked up to. Respected. Trusted to do the right thing, even when it was hard. And if a man like that—my father—could fall for Ozzie and do something as despicable as sleep with his son’s fiancé, then what did that say about others? If the man I admired most could disappoint me like that, how could I ever be sure of anyone?
Inside the mudroom, I scrubbed my hands at the sink until they were raw. It wasn’t about the dirt. It was about washing away the memories.
The house was unusually quiet. I poked my head into the living room to check if Ozzie was there with Hudson’s daughter. I usually avoided the house like the plague at this time of the day so I didn’t bump into them.
Ozzie was nowhere to be seen, but she was there. The little girl who would always be a reminder of Hudson’s betrayal. Curled up like a kitten in the sunbeam falling across the hardwood floor, she was fast asleep, one tiny sneaker still on, the other half off her heel.
I should’ve walked out. Turned around. Left her sleeping in peace. But my feet moved on their own, drawn by something I couldn’t name. I crouched beside her, and the moment I saw the gentle rise and fall of her chest, my heart started pounding, fast and sharp like it was trying to escape my ribs.
Up close, I could see the soft sweep of her lashes, long and dark like Hudson’s. That same little pout he got when he slept, the one I used to kiss just to see him smile in his sleep. But most of her—her nose, the shape of her cheekbones—belonged to her mother. She had his hair but her mother’s eyes, a mixture of the two of them.
Something in me ached.
I waited for it, that cold spike of resentment. The blame. She was the reminder of everything I lost. Of how Hudson had moved on, made a family, built a life without me.
But it didn’t come.
Instead, I remembered the way she’d blown me a kiss in the bakery. How she’d lit up like sunshine when I caught it. And now, here she was, sleeping like she belonged in this house.
A tiny cry escaped her, startled and soft.
Her eyes blinked open. Big and glassy and brown. She looked up at me, and I held my breath, afraid of frightening her. Ivy scrambled upright and crawled right into my lap, curling against my chest like she’d done it a hundred times before.
