Page 63 of His Build

“How do you know?” she cried, jumping up again.

“I don’t.”

“What are you saying?”

“You have to go to him, tell him you love him. Beg him to forgive you for leaving him after he opened his scarred heart to you.”

“Oh god, Sadie, how am I supposed to do that? I’ve never told anyone I loved them before!”

“It’s not hard. ‘I. Love. You.’”

“But what if he says no? What if he tells me it’s too late?”

“He might.”

“I don’t think I’d survive.”

“You’d survive. And there’s only one way to find out if he’d actually take you back.”

Lucy’s heart clapped against her ribs. Everything that was safe and familiar told her to stay. But everything good and true and real told her to go.

“I have to do it,” Lucy said, her expression grim. Then she whipped her face to her sister. “Sadie,” Lucy said, grabbing her shoulders. “Come with me.”

“What?!”

“Please. Drive back up with me. I need to practice what to say in the car and… I want you with me.”

Sadie considered for a moment and then shrugged. “Okay.”

Lucy shrieked and clapped her hands together. “Really!?”

“I mean, you always tell me I rush into things and don’t think things through, so if you think I should think this through…”

“No! Be brash,” Lucy cried, practically ripping her sister from the bed.

As Sadie threw some clothes together Lucy pulled out her phone and frantically flipped through it. She had an idea, but only a vague idea of how to pull it off. She needed help, and she knew just who to call—someone whose contact info she’d just been given.

He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

She let out a breath. “Chris, it’s Lucy. I need your help.”

23

This was fine,thought Graydon, as he paddled out into the lake. It was dusk, and he’d decided catching a couple lake trout would be the perfect way to spend the evening. Better than moping around at home, staring up at the barn, and wondering what had gone wrong.

He briefly considered texting Shelby, but the thought made him want to throw his phone in the lake. He knew—he’d known for weeks—that his days of fooling around with Shelby or any of the other women he’d been with over the years were over. There was only one woman he wanted to be with.

And she didn’t want to be with him.

Casey had called, trying to get him to go into town earlier, but Memorial Day Weekend was always too crazy there. Even though downtown Barkley Falls wasn’t exactly jam packed with crowds even on the busiest holidays, there would still be a thousand more people than he wanted to see. Everyone would be gathered in the town’s main park to watch the firework display, and the last thing Graydon needed right now was to see anyone he knew. Hell, he didn’t even want to utter a single word to the people closest to him, not even Casey, who he loved to the moon and back.

The one person he wanted to be with was the only person he wanted to talk to, and she’d left.

Lucy had disappeared. Just like what had happened with his parents. There one minute, laughing, happy, joyful, then gone in an instant. Except Lucy hadchosento leave. And she wouldn’t be coming back.

Graydon knew what it was like to have his heart ripped out of him. He lay his paddle in the bottom of the boat and ran his thumb along his scar. Which is why he’d vowed never to let it out of his care again. But he’d let it happen. He’d let himself tumble into full-onlovewith Lucy, his hopeless heart falling right out of his chest. Hell, he’d lobbed it out himself.

And how could he not have? She was everything he’d ever wanted. She knew what she wanted in life, and she went after it. Like him, she’d built her own business, and she worked hard to keep it running smoothly. She tried new things—designing, moving from the city to the country,him.

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