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Behind us, a three-piece string band started to play and we swung around. The first bridesmaid to appear was Indy, followed by Chastity, Cassidy, and Honey, all of them in soft pink dresses and clutching white flowers. Then, Autumn appeared on her father’s arm, her wild red curls piled on top of her head, her dress a tight sheath of shimmering white silk. As she stepped onto the red carpet, she took one look at the man waiting for her at the altar and she started to cry. I glanced over at Maverick and the six-foot-six tower of muscle with the wild hair and hands so big they could crush you, started to cry right back.
I reached for Taylor’s hand, my throat tight with emotion, my pulse rapid, and she sank against me, resting her cheek on my shoulder as she watched Maverick observe his bride walking toward him with tears streaming down his face.
I didn’t see much of the ceremony after that because I was lost in the quiet storm taking place inside me. Walls were crumbling. Old emotions were fading to black.
And I was entering a frightening, unfamiliar territory.
After the ceremony, I sat with Ruger on the deck.
Across the room, Taylor sat with the bridesmaids, and Maverick and Autumn.
“She’s beautiful,” Ruger said.
“Yeah, Maverick has done good,” I replied.
He gave me a knowing look. “I’m not talking about Autumn.”
I drank a mouthful of bourbon but said nothing.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Pretend it’s not happening.”
I took another sip of my bourbon. Crunching ice between my teeth. “I don’t know what you’re rambling on about.”
“You look at her like you’re burning her image into your brain.”
“Jesus Christ, listen to you,” I said, shaking my head.
I hadn’t told anyone about my feelings for Taylor.
Unperturbed, Ruger raised an eyebrow at me. “I haven’t seen you look at a woman like that in a long time.”
I looked down and focused on the amber liquid in my glass. I knew what he was talking about, and it made me curious what he would think if I told him he was right. “What do think about that?”
“I think it’s about fucking time.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “You have to let her go, man. Hell, you should’ve done that years ago. You know she wouldn’t want you to be alone.”
His words made me think of the random hallway singer singing “Blue Bayou” and grabbing my hands. And a tremendous shiver quaked through my body.
“You know, a crazy thing happened to me when I visited Sybil in the hospital the other day?” I told him about the random hallway singer. “Pretty crazy shit, huh.”
“No, it doesn’t sound as crazy as you think.”
“No?”
He shifted forward in his seat. “I don’t know if now is the right time to tell you this.”
“Tell me what?” I could see him wrestle with whatever it was he wasn’t telling me. “Ruger…”
“When I got shot and I died for those few minutes, I saw Wendy.”
“You saw her?”
“And spoke to her.” He cleared his throat. “Now I don’t know if it was the drugs they had me on, or if it was the chemical changes occurring in a dying brain, who knows, I’ve given up trying to make sense of it. But what I do know is that I saw Wendy in what was supposed to be my final moments.”
I felt my jaw tighten. “And what did she say?”
“She told me to pass on a message to you.”
I became very still. “What was it?”
“She said you need to move on.”
His words spiraled through me with the force of a tornado.
“You never told me.” My voice was edgy. “Why?”
“You would never have believed me.”
He was right. I wouldn’t have. Hell, I hardly believed what I’d seen and heard myself.
I wasn’t a guy who believed in visions and ghosts. And monsters weren’t devils hiding under the bed waiting to consume you in your sleep. They were flesh and blood. Men who did bad things. Very bad things. I believed in the tangible. The tactile. Not the supernatural.
Yet, here I was, face to face with it.
I couldn’t make any sense of it. It went beyond what I believed in. But I was still a fucking human being who could be left standing in front of something he couldn’t explain.
I exhaled deeply as I asked, “Can I be real honest with you?”
“Always.”
I must be crazy. Or the alcohol was fucking with me. But I needed to admit how I felt to someone.
Fuck, my feelings for Taylor had me wanting to open up like a teenage girl.
“I’ve spent every day for the last eighteen years missing Wendy. Every morning. Every night. Craving her. Wanting her. Feeling guilty for her death. Dying inside because I couldn’t fucking touch her. I would wake up and she would be the first thing I thought of, and for a few seconds she wasn’t dead and I had that small moment of respite from the pain. But then I would remember, and all the darkness and guilt, and all the bullshit, would seep back into me again.”
