Page 8 of If You Were Mine

Because I knew exactly what airfield she was talking about. Because if it had made the news here so quickly, there only had to be one.

The one where my brother worked occasionally.

“Hudson?” I asked, my voice shaky.

A beat of silence. A growl of a voice. “You need to come with me.”

Everyone stopped moving as they stared between us.

“Oh my God, is it Joshua?” someone asked even though I couldn’t pay attention well enough to figure out who it was.

Hudson didn’t answer, instead just stared at me in that stone way that he always did. I immediately undid my apron and grabbed my bag from under the counter.

“Melody.” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. No. I would not react. Not now. Not when others could see and gossip. All was well. I had to show that. I couldn’t break on the outside when it was as if I were ready to shatter on the inside.

Melody, my full-time employee and friend gave me a sad look, her eyes filling. “I got it. And I’ll make sure that Scarlett or I can take care of Lucky too. Just keep us updated.”

“Okay,” I said, my voice low.

Melody looked over my shoulder. “Take care of her, Hudson.”

“Don’t worry, she’ll be safe with me.”

I wanted to believe that, but I wasn’t sure I was going to be safe ever again with the way he just stared at me. The way he wasn’t giving me a single update as to what he was thinking.

“Hudson?” I asked after we got into his truck, and I pulled out my phone. “What am I going to see when I look up the news?”

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and took a moment to respond. I hated how careful he was being. “Small plane crash. They don’t know what happened, though I’m sure they’re just saying that. There were two people on board.”

My hand squeezed my phone so tightly that my knuckles whitened. “Who was it? I mean, if you’re here, it’s got to be Joshua. Right? Is my brother okay?”

“Joshua and Dorian were in the plane.”

Silence.

A void of emotion.

A crack in the world that began to erode beneath my feet.

My throat tightened, and I just stared at him, wondering if the ringing in my ears would go away soon. “Do you know anything else? Hudson. What happened?”

“I don’t know, Harper. All I know is that there was an accident.”

I studied the line of his jaw as he wove down the mountain with such ease and practice like he had been doing it all his life. But then again, other than the time when he had been overseas, he had been.

And so I knew he was lying to me.

“Hudson? What else do you know?”

He let out a breath, and it took me a moment to catch the stress and cracking beneath it. “Harper.”

“Just tell me. If it’s both of them, I need to know. Because it’s them.”

My family. Two men that I loved. Not that I could tell Hudson that.

Not that Hudson didn’t already know or could guess.

Hudson’s growl of a voice filled the cab of the truck. “One is alive. In surgery. The other didn’t make it.”