Her head tipped up, her life-altering green eyes pleading with me long before her words did. “How bad?” When I didn’t immediately respond, she yelled, “How fucking bad, Hudson?”
I could have lived a thousand years and I’d never forget the complete and utter devastation on her face. I fought the urge to squeeze my eyes shut to block out the searing pain of reality. But if I did, she’d be forced to live this hell alone.
Holding her gaze, I whispered, “Bad.”
With that one single syllable, she flew away from me as though I were her mortal enemy. In that second, I guess in a lot of ways, I was.
When her back hit the wall, she managed to rasp, “Is…is he alive?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, jumping on the only good news I had to offer her. It was one tiny morsel of hope, and I prayed it was enough. “The four-wheeler flipped on his way back from the pond. They life-flighted him out, but…” Fuck. Fuck! I moved into her, stopping only inches away. Careful not to touch her again, but close enough to catch her if her knees buckled. “It’s bad, Lex. Like really fucking bad. But Brenden’s a fighter, and the sooner we get there, the sooner we can get answers.”
She was frozen in place, her hands in midair as though she were about to reach for my biceps, tears dripping from the corners of her eyes as she searched my face. “So he’s okay?”
He wasn’t. Not even close.
But the spark of hope that lit her eyes turned that rock in my stomach into a boulder, and I knew there was no way I would get her out of the house in one piece if I told her the absolute truth.
So, even though I prided myself in being honest to a fault, I swallowed my pride and told the biggest lie of my entire life. Staring into the terrified face of a woman I would burn down the world to protect, I forced a nod. “Yeah, Kid. He’s gonna be fine.”
She sprang back into action, her emotions spinning so fast her legs couldn’t keep up and she nearly tripped. After a few eternally long seconds of searching for her shoes, I told her to forget them.
I carried her from the house that day, barefoot, sobbing, and tearing apart at the seams.
Held her hand on the way to the hospital.
Stood behind her as she sat at his bedside—a million tubes and wires making him unrecognizable—begging the only man she had ever loved not to leave her.
I slept in a chair in the waiting room for a week when she refused to go home.
And I held her, wrapped in my arms, her tears soaking my chest, agony ravaging her, the day Brenden’s body finally gave out.
Cal, Lauren, and I did everything we could to ease Lex’s pain. But it was an impossible job.
I couldn’t fix it for her, but I never stopped trying.
Not when she fell into the depths of depression.
Not when the darkness closed in.
Especially not when the simple task of breathing became too much.
Looking back, I was so damn thankful I’d taken the second to memorize her face before I shattered her dreams, because it took years before I saw another genuine smile grace her face again.
Six years later…
I stared down the aisle and could barely believe it was really happening. I had on the dress, the shoes, the jewelry, and my hair was exactly as I’d been instructed. Big.
There were a lot of people, and as at any wedding, their eyes were trained on the door I was about to walk through—that was if he would just get over here and take my damn arm.
Did he have to pick today to become social?
The music began, and it took everything in me not to scream to get his attention. My only option was the Jedi death stare. If you could hear a glare, mine would have been deafening, but it worked.
He leisurely strutted over and linked his arm with mine as if it were no big deal that we were up and everyone was waiting. It wasn’t like we hadn’t been forced into practicing this very thing the evening before.
“You look like a clown with all that makeup on,” Hudson whispered as he leaned into my side.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think they made tuxedos in size Sasquatch, either. Yet here we are.”
Leave it to him to say something totally blunt and slightly rude, but he wasn’t wrong.