Page 103 of Paper Horses

When the discomfort subsided, I opened my eyes again, staring into the fire and thinking of going home. Questioning whether it would be the same now that Hudson had peeled back my layers and my mask had cracked. Layers I’d built long before him and lived with for over thirty years. Ones that couldn’t heal in only a week.

I hugged the blanket closer to me, breathing in his scent and letting it calm me as I made the decision I’d been avoiding. I needed to go home because everything I’d set free here was causing chaos in my mind. I needed to sort through it. I likely needed therapy, but I would never admit that or seek help. It wasn’t my style, even if I knew it worked for others.

Mostly, I needed time to rectify my past with who I’d become and who I was with Hudson. He had always been my safety net, and without him, it had been like walking on fragile glass as it cracked around me. One wrong step and I would plunge to my death. But as much as I wanted to let him be that for me again, there was too much for him to shoulder. It was time I faced myself and opened myself to the possibility that I deserved that safety. That I deserved love. His love.

As much as it broke my heart to think of leaving, I had known it would happen. Known our time was a fleeting moment that was one step away from slipping through my fingers. I needed to find myself before I could catch the fraying thread and make this more than a moment.

Chapter 24

Hudson

The soup sloshed in the containers as I juggled them while I opened the door. It was past ten, and my stomach was growling. I’d checked on Olivia before leaving for town, finding her sound asleep on the couch, the robe clutched in her hands, a peaceful calm over her expression. Seeing her so sick had been a punch in the gut earlier. I hated seeing her hurt, and a sense of helplessness had come over me. I’d done the only thing I could think of, supported her and cared for her. It was what I’d always done for her and always would…if she let me.

That was the thing that continued to confound me. The back and forth that plagued her, like an internal battle with warring sides of herself. Every time I thought she was fine, she would waver, and an unrelenting sense of dread continued to coil inside of me.

The door opened, and I pushed inside, juggling the packages and scolding myself for being too worried to make more than one trip. I didn’t bother taking my boots or coat off and went straight to the island to drop the packages.

When I turned to the living room, Olivia was sitting with her legs folded in. One of my old college hoodies engulfed her body, her bare ankles peeking out from between it and where the blanket covered her feet. She looked adorable and sexy, a mature version of the girl I’d fallen for when we were teenagers.

“Where did you dig up that old thing?” I asked, taking my jacket off.

“In the back of your closet.”

“Snooping for anything in particular?”

She gave me a shrug as I hung my jacket and pulled my boots off.

“Just a piece of you.” Calm and confident, with no sign of the fractured woman I’d held in the shower earlier. Something that had the worry gnawing at me because I suspected that meant she’d made a decision that had caused the change.

“Haven’t seen that since school. Forgot I had it, actually.” It was a complete lie because I’d failed to donate it the hundred times I’d tried. The memory of her wearing it was still burned into my mind, and I could never part with it.

“What did you bring me?”

I cocked my brow, giving her a sideways grin. “And you assume any of this is for you?” It was. I’d stopped in multiple stores, the need to spoil her driving me. More socks, these with rabbits on them, a candle, a romance book Rick at the bookstore recommended, a journal made of soft pink leather, and the hat she’d ordered for her nephew. All things I hadn’t needed to get, except for the hat. But I wanted her smile, her laughter. To cherish them and store them away when she left. The thought stabbed me with an intense flare of pain that had my heart faltering.

“Isn’t it?” That smile nearly broke me.

“Yeah, it is,” I told her, rubbing the back of my head as she jumped from the couch and ran to the island. It was almost like she was a lost girl locked in a woman’s body. Not a woman who had everything money could buy. The sweatshirt draped over her long limbs, covering her almost to her knees. Her mauve toenails were bright against the brown flooring.

I blocked her with my body, and she looked up at me with pouty lips. “You were gone a long time.”

“True, but you’re worth it.” The smile grew, the hues of her eyes a myriad of shades that nearly knocked the air from me. “Feeling better?”

“Much. I took a nap and had a cup of tea.”

“You need water.” Shit, I sounded like a father. Not that she would notice because her father had been a dick.

“I had some, but I’m getting hungry.”

“Good thing I had Jessie pack up some noodle soup for you. She packed up some rolls, too, said the bread would soothe your stomach.”

“That was nice.”

Our eyes stayed locked, heat growing in my chest along with an uncomfortable sensation because her voice was too smooth, too steady. I cleared my throat, stepping from the island so she could get to the packages, but she didn’t move toward them. Instead, she came closer, lifted on her toes and pulled my mouth to hers. Searing like a brand, the kiss reached so deep into my body that my toes curled. And within the kiss, I sensed it—the resignation, the decision.

Fuck, she was leaving me. The acknowledgment struck me like a freight train, and I grabbed her waist, tugging her against me as if that would keep her there.

I’d known it was coming. We had no choice because she had a life there and I had one here, but I’d hoped we could work something out. Travel back and forth, have her work from my place some weeks. Me…well, I hadn’t worked that out yet. But she had. In the time I’d been gone, whatever emotional carnage she had experienced in the shower had driven her to decide without me. Maybe it had been my words. Honest and raw, they had come from me unbidden and untethered.