Page 33 of Blurred Love

I put a hand on the door jamb. “It matters to me.”

When she doesn’t answer, I know I need to come clean, but I don’t even know where to start.

She blows out a breath. “So you’re not married. Anything else you want to say because I’m tired and I want to lie down.”

I put my other hand on the door too. “Poppy, please.”

She laughs bitterly. “Please, what? There’s a naked woman in your home, and she said she’s your wife. I’m not sure how you expected me to react, but I think?—”

I cut her off. “You have every right to be mad.”

Her arms cross again. “Okay, anything else?”

I point inside her apartment. “Please, let me come in and explain. If you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll leave.”

I’m not lying to her. I will leave, but there’s no way I’ll be giving up.

“Where is your wife now?”

I groan. “She’s my ex-wife, and I told her to be gone by the time I get home.”

I’m almost positive she’s going to refuse me, so I’m surprised when she steps back and waves for me to come in.

I walk in and sit down on the chair next to the couch. She doesn’t sit down. She walks across the room, putting a couch and table between us. “I didn’t tell you that I’d been married before because I would have to explain to you why I was no longer married.”

She’s staring at me, waiting patiently, and I hate what I’m about to say. “After the uh, accident?—”

“When you were hurt?”

I nod, and some of the anger starts to fade from her face. “And?”

I grit my teeth, hating the way this confession makes me feel. “When I got home and with my injuries and everything, Carrie didn’t want to be married to me. She didn’t want to have a family with me.”

Poppy gasps and shakes her head. She walks from behind the couch and sits down in it across from me. “I’m sorry. Are you saying she divorced you because you were hurt?”

“It was more than that. I had a TBI and?—”

She bangs her hand on the coffee table. “You were hurt! It says it in the vows, in sickness and in health.”

I lift my shoulders. “It was bad then, Poppy. I was angry and?—”

She moves to the coffee table and sits on it before grabbing my hands and holding them. “I’m sure it was bad, Colter. But you don’t divorce your husband when… he needs you most.” She stops and sits up a little taller. “Oh my God! Is that why you said you don’t want kids? Because she said she didn’t want to have kids with you?”

I’m not sure how to answer. I don’t want to push all the blame on Carrie. Not because I want to protect her but because I wasn’t innocent in all this. I was difficult to deal with. I was angry and scared, and it seemed like every day I was having a new symptom. “Poppy, the person I was back then… it was ugly… and that person shouldn’t have kids.”

I want to beg her to be with me, but I can see she’s trying to process everything. I don’t want to end up pushing her away, but I don’t want to miss my chance either. She’s still holding my hands, and I turn them so I can hold hers. I thread our fingers together, and a calm comes over me. That’s what Poppy does to me.

CHAPTER17

POPPY

He’s looking into my eyes, waiting for me to say something, and I say the one thing I’ve been thinking since I walked away from his house after seeing his ex-wife there. “Can you put yourself in my shoes? What would you do if you showed up here and some naked man answered the door?”

His face turns red and twists in anger. “I would kill him.”

I laugh and squeeze his hand. “Trust me, I felt the same way…” I let my voice trail off and shake my head, trying to get the image of that woman in a towel in Colter’s house out of my head.

He scoots to the end of the chair, and my knees are caged between his. “She’s my past, Poppy. You’re my future.”

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