Page 165 of Ly to Me

Carver

The Promise

Ialmost wished he’d lived.

I wished he’d see my face when he woke up and I could watch the hope of his recovery flee from his eyes.

I wished I could have told him what a piece of shit he was, and that it was all for her. ThatIwas her avenger.

I settled for watching several of the nurses run to his room while I acted like I was going to sue them for a faulty tube. Just to be sure he didn’t have the gall to play dead for a minute only to be resuscitated, Grant and I waited by the front as if his death was too much for either of us to handle.

The nurses ate it right up, playing into our words even as they rolled him from the room with a sheet covering his unmoving body.

No one would think more of Chet Walker taking his last strained breaths in the early hours of the morning. No one would think more of the woman he’d listed as his last living relative sending her husband to check on him, or that the husband was there to witness the tragic death when he was starting to show signs of hope.

No one in the building was aware of the horrible shit he’d done or know exactly why he needed to leave this place for good.

But the happiness and sheer peace that information would bring to my wife?

That was going to be fucking priceless.

That was the mental image I held onto as I waited for one of the nurses to tell me we’d be contacted by their social worker once they had everything in order. As I waited for them to apologize and give condolences like I wanted any of it.

The only thing I wanted was to go home to my wife.

It was almost noon by the time we got back to the bar, and with my thoughts on how Lyra would take the news, I almost forgot about Grant’s phone in my glovebox. His knuckles drummed on my window.

“Yeah yeah.” I passed his phone to him, and his brows shot up.

“Your wife called me.”

“What?” My finger shifted over the screen, revealing forty-eight missed call notifications, nearly ten of them with voicemails. The first one made my heart beat faster—

“Car, I—”Her voice broke.“I don’t know where you are but I’m sorry, okay? Please come home.”

The next one played out like the first.

The third was more aggressive—

“Did someone come after you? Did someone hurt you? I swear to god if you have my fucking husband, Jamie, I’m going to murder you in cold fucking blood and let Aubrey pick up the pieces.”

Grant’s phone played another—

“You ever take my husband outhuntingagain, I’ll sever your balls from your body. You got that?”

“You better go home,” Grant said, stepping back from the window.

I sped off as I played another, my heart tumbling as Ly reverted back to thinking it was all her fault. That she’d somehow done something wrong. That I’d left her like she’d left me.

Almost a month ago, that had been close to the plan. I’d wanted nothing more than to make her break like I had when she left. But that was far from what I wanted now.

I just wanted to hold her and tell her our lives could finally start. We’d just gotten our clean slate, and she could finally be free. No one was ever going to hurt her again and not suffer the same consequence. If anyone so much as tried to touch her, I’d kill them. I’d find any way I could, and come after every single last person who dared touch or hurt what was mine.

Brown hair shifted above bent knees on the steps of our front porch as I parked my truck. She didn’t even lift her head as I got out, or as I shouted her name. It was like she was so trapped by the idea that I’d left her that she became a shell.

And that was enough to make me run to her.

I got on my knees in front of her, pushing the hair from her face. “Hey, sweetheart. I got your calls.” My thumbs stroked over her damp cheeks as she slowly lifted her head. “I didn’t want to worry you when I left this morning, but it seems that’s not what happened.”