Page 99 of Wild Then Wed
Hudson shrugs like maybe she does and just isn’t trying hard enough.
The energy in the room shifts again—lighter, fuller. There’s something about news like this that wraps around people and pulls them in, even if they didn’t know they needed it. It softens the edges of everything else.
And standing here in the middle of it, I feel the warmth of it hit me.
Big family. Big noise. Big love.
I can’t help but think that my dad would’ve loved this.
Loretta reaches for the ultrasound photo, squinting at it with the same expression she wears when deciphering a recipe in her own handwriting.
“Well, I’ll be,” she says, adjusting her glasses and holding the photo up to the light like it’s a weather forecast, “that’s a girl. I can feel it in my bones.”
Lark’s already disappeared down the hallway, digging through the diaper bag for wipes and the twins’ pajamas. Boone follows her without needing to be asked, like it’s just instinctual by now.
I catch a glimpse of them—Boone stepping in front of her, cupping her face in both hands like she might float away. He says something I can’t hear, something only for her, and then kisses her once. Then again.
I look away.
Not because it’s too much—but because sometimes, even surrounded by people you love, it’s possible to feel entirely alone.
Boone and Lark have each other. A steady, quiet love that somehow holds everything else up.
Miller and Ridge, as emotionally dysfunctional as they are, have some gravitational pull between them that’s hard to ignore or deny. Even whenthey’reavoiding it.
Sage has Elvis. He’s completely useless, but he’s hers.
And I—I keep finding myself thinking about someone I shouldn’t.
Sawyer’s stopped by my training sessions a few times in the last couple of weeks, on his days off. Always with dairy-free hot chocolate in one hand and a quiet look in his eyes like he’s still figuring something out. Sometimes we talk—about horses, or training, or nothing that really matters. Other days, he watches from the fence line for twenty minutes and then leaves without saying goodbye.
I never ask why he comes. And he never offers.
I wonder what his family’s Thanksgiving is like. Probably loud and chaotic, all those siblings packed into one house. I heard his other brother, Luke, came in from Missoula for the weekend. I imagine laughter and yelling, a table that doesn’tquite fit everyone, football on in the background, someone burning the rolls. A beautiful mess that swallows you whole.
And I hate—hate—how much I wonder about him. Where he is. If he’s thinking about me too.
He probably isn’t.
With his face, and that voice, and the confident way he carries himself—it’s not hard to believe he’s got plenty of women who make it easy not to think about someone like me.
It doesn’t stop me from pulling out my phone.
I stare at the screen for a second, chewing the inside of my cheek. Would it be weird to text him? It shouldn’t be. It’s a holiday. A polite holiday acknowledgment. That’s allowed, right?
For God’s sake, we’re getting married in eight days. Living together. Sharing a bathroom. Signing a legal document.
I hate this. This limbo. This tug-of-war between logic and…whatever this other thing is. The way it makes me feel like some teenage girl hovering over her phone, waiting for a boy to maybe,possiblythink of her too.
I’m not a teenager. I’m a grown adult. With a stable job and a mild dairy allergy. This shouldn’t feel like a risk.
But it does.
Still, I type out the message anyway.
Me:Happy Thanksgiving. Hope your family wasn’t too unhinged.
I hit send before I have time to rewrite it into something safer. Less…me.
