Page 97 of Make it Real
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
Not a lot of time to prepare, but she probably didn’t need to know that. We hung up, and I raked my fingers through my hair. Nothing like terror to get a person wide awake. I explained what was going on to Callie.
“That’ll be good. You’ll probably feel better once you see him for yourself.”
While she slipped into the bathroom to get dressed, I changed into a pair of jeans and walked out into the living room to find my boots. Didn’t even remember taking them off, much less where I’d left them. I’d been such a mess last night.
Maybe I should have regretted being so exposed in front of Callie, but I didn’t. It felt just right. Wouldn’t have wanted anyone else with me in a time like that.
When she reappeared, she grabbed her purse from the table. “I should—” She waved at the door. “You’ll keep me updated?”
I nodded. “I can’t thank you enough for everything last night.”
She shook her head as if single-handedly holding me together wasn’t that much. “I’m glad you called me.”
“What are you doing today?”
“Maybe painting the dining room.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
I leaned down to hug her goodbye, and I meant it to be normal, friendly, even, but hugs had never been that with her. They were whole body embraces that made the shattered pieces of my heart reform and weld together, leaving me stronger than I’d been pre-hug.
A lot to put on a woman’s arms around me, but she succeeded every time.
I watched her drive off, not knowing if I deserved her, not knowing if I could give her everything she needed in return, but knowing without question I didn’t want to lose her.
* * *
June and I sat in the medical center’s waiting room, trying not to watch the clock as the minutes ticked by. Wade had brought Marilyn in to see Pop first thing, and he’d taken a walk outside to pass the time while they visited. Maybe I should have joined him—being back in this awful room sure didn’t qualify as soothing.
“I’m sorry about your honeymoon,” I said. Callie had been right—keeping the news from June would have been unforgivable, but it’d put a damper on what should have been a week of celebrations. Not that I wanted to think a whole lot about those celebrations.
“We didn’t miss out on anything.”
I smirked. “I’ll be sure to tell Hardy you said that.”
She lightly pinched my arm. “You know what I mean. We weren’t going anywhere, we can take a few days off another time.”
The way Ty ran his one-man horse training business, he couldn’t very well take a week off to go traipsing around the country. June had a one-woman business, too, but I figured her decorating clients would be a lot more understanding about vacation time than the horses would.
“He feels bad about it, you know.” Her voice had gone soft, her gaze stuck somewhere in the middle distance, like she saw something other than the nurses’ station. “That we’re not going on a big honeymoon. I told him he can make love to me just as good here as he could under palm trees somewhere.”
“All right, all right.” Didn’t need the whole thing spelled out for me.
She laughed. “I don’t care where we are, as long as we’re together. The honeymoon’s nothing to me as long as he’s my husband.”
“I truly am happy for you.”
“I’m happy for me, too.” She grinned and stretched out for a second in the hard-backed chair but thought better of it and sat up again.
“How did you know Ty was the one for you?”
Something in my voice must have given me away. She turned her eyes to me like she was looking through a microscope, searching for everything I’d been hiding. Today, I couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t all be visible to the naked eye.
“Ty loves me for who I am, not some version of me he wants to see. I never felt so safe to be myself, the good and the bad. We butt heads sometimes, but it’s a whole heck of a lot better than a relationship where you never really scratch the surface.”
She laid a hand on my arm like she thought I might scramble away if she didn’t hold onto me. “Opening myself up to him can be scary sometimes, but that’s how the love gets in.”
