the reason for it. There was no way to breathe under that weight. Not with the most understanding, loving husband. Or kind, supportive friends. There was only escape. So that’s what I did. I stopped here because I was tired. Because I needed somewhere to hide. To tend to my wounds. And because I liked its ugliness. Liked that the sheets were scratchy, the bathroom dirty. It’s what I needed at the time. Eventually, someone came to get me.”
“Ranger?” Kace guessed.
I realized then it was the first time I’d heard Kace say his name. Surely, that couldn’t have been right. It wasn’t as if Kace was afraid of my husband’s ghost. Wasn’t like he was living in fear of my dead husband. He hadn’t ever made me feel guilty or uncomfortable for still mentioning him. Still grieving. There was no forcing me to forget him, to move on. Kace was perfectly comfortable with sharing me with my dead husband.
Yet I hadn’t ever heard him say his name out loud.
Was that on purpose? Had he waited for me to bring him up because he didn’t want to push me? Hurt me? I made a mental note to go back to that thought later.
“No, not Ranger,” I answered.
My mind went back to those memories. Before all of this, before Kace, the recollections coming back in crisp detail. Stark color. As if they had just happened yesterday.
But now they were blurrier. My pain couldn’t get through as easily. Like my body had some kind of protective shell around it. Or maybe I was finally starting to heal.
“It was Gage,” I clarified. “I’m sure that Ranger fought him hard on being the one to come and get me. No one mentioned it, but I know it was most likely not pretty. He wasn’t exactly the kind of man who would sit back and let anyone else be with his wife when she was in pain. Especially his best friend. But he was also a man who knew when to step back, even if it hurt him. Which I know it did. But he knew me well enough to understand I couldn’t face him, not then. And he loved me enough to put every one of his instincts and needs aside. Because he’d just lost a baby too. He was bleeding too. But he wanted to tend to my wounds first. Like always.”
I smiled. It was easier to remember these things about him now. It still hurt, I figured it always would, at least a little. But now I could see Ranger more clearly. His death didn’t permeate every thought of him.
“Gage didn’t seem like the right person, before all of that happening. You wouldn’t look at him and think that he was. But these Sons of Templar men all tend to surprise you.”
I glanced back from the motel to look at Kace.
“I thought I was going to be finished then. I’d survive, of course, because I had Jack at home. I had Ranger. There was a whole life beyond my pain. My plan was to leave it all here. Like a time capsule of suffering. Suspended, yet still connected to me somehow. My pain did stay here, yet it was also still inside of me. Gage helped me understand I wasn’t finished. Some things would just be different. Life did carry on. I’d drive by here sometimes, though. With an almost kind of cockiness. That I’d been dealt my pain and I’d survived it. Then Ranger died. I didn’t come here immediately. No, there wasn’t time. Wasn’t space for that. There were two children to care for. There were things to do. There were lies to tell myself. It came much later, that visit. But it came. And like last time, Gage brought me back again. But I left a lot here. Almost all of me. Left it to die.”
I paused, sucked in the air that smelled faintly of the fast food place across the street. “Then I met you. You grew new things inside of me. You changed me. And I want to show you this, the last of my pain. Maybe I want to show myself I don’t need it anymore. To go to this place for a different reason.”
I sucked in another breath. Deeper this time.
“I’ll always love two men,” I said. “One dead. One alive. He is buried, but what I have for him, it’s eternal. It doesn’t go away. I don’t work that way.” I looked up, but I