I'd walk in, baby girl. I always walk in.
I open the door.
The room's dark. His bag is on the floor. His boots are gone.
He's gone.
My stomach drops. For one terrible second, I think he left. Got in the rental and drove to the airport and went back to Oregon without me, the way he drove out of Nacogdoches twelve years ago when it got too heavy to hold.
Then my phone buzzes.
Aiden
I'm at the hospital. Don't leave. Please.
I need to do something. Then I'm coming back.
Please be there when I come back.
My knees give out. I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at my phone, reading those three messages over and over. Thepleasetwice. Aiden Harrison doesn't say please. Aiden Harrison grunts and nods and fixes your stirrup in the rain without telling you. The word please from this man is a door blown open.
I'm here.
I set the phone on the nightstand. Pull off my boots. Sit on the sagging bed in a blue sundress in a hotel in East Texas and wait.
An hour passes.
I don't turn the TV on. Don't shower. Don't move. Just sit with my hands in my lap, watching the parking lot through the curtain gap, counting headlights.
His rental pulls in at nine forty.
Headlights sweep the ceiling. Engine off. Car door. Then nothing for a long minute, and I know he's sitting in that car the same way he sat on his porch steps after Delaney came to the ranch. Hands hanging. Staring at something nobody else can see.
The hotel door opens.
He's standing there in the same clothes. Same flannel. But something's different. His eyes are red. Not crying now, but he has been, and he's not hiding it, and Aiden Harrison doesn't cry, which means whatever happened in that hospital room took him apart.
"Paige."
"I'm here."
He comes in. Closes the door. Stands in the middle of the room with his hands at his sides, and for a second he looks lost, genuinely lost, like a man who's been running on a map that just changed and he hasn't found his bearings yet.
"I told her," he says. "Everything."
My heart starts hammering.
"Told my mama what it did to me. Not yelling. Not accusing. Just told her." He swallows. "Told her I loved her, and that watching her choose his comfort over mine broke somethingin me that took twelve years to name. Told her I forgive her, because I do, but that forgiveness doesn't mean pretending it was okay. Told her I'm not coming around. I came back. There's a difference, and she needs to hear it."
"Aiden."
"She cried. I held her hand. She said she was sorry." His voice splinters. Holds. "First time in twelve years. She said she was sorry and she meant it."
My eyes are burning. I blink hard. Stay on the bed.
"Wyatt was there. Didn't say much. I told him the same thing. That I'd pay the bills, but I'm not here to reconcile. I'm here because Mama asked and because the woman I love told me I'd regret it if I didn't come."
Everything in the room stops.
