Page 44 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Thirty

I can count the number of times I’ve been to the Ledger hospital in the last twenty years on one hand. I hate it here. The smell. The lighting. The constant sound of a lung being hacked up in the background. It reeks of hopelessness and disinfectant.

June got the information on where Ford was through her network of Ledger know-it-alls and texted it to me on the drive. Outside of the exam room she sent me, I hear his voice through the cracked open door and relief floods through me. He’s alive enough to talk.

“Hurts like hell,” he says with a hint of amusement.

“And here? How’s this feel?” a male voice asks—my guess, a doctor.

Ford coughs, and it’s punctuated with pain. “Like a massage.”

I chuckle—so does the doctor—and push the door open.

A man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck glances my way then looks back to Ford who’s sitting at the foot of the hospital bed, shirtless. My eyes roam all over him—looking for blood and bandages—but there’s only a bruise on his ribs below his left pec.

Again: relief.

“You know the drill, Officer. Vest took the brunt of it, but you’ll be sore. Take it easy. Call us if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

The doctor closes out an image of an X-ray on a computer screen, tucks a file under his arm, and gives me a tight-lipped smile as he leaves, closing the door behind him with a soft click .

I look at Ford again, shot but okay; the contents of the folder feel like an irrelevant meteor in a distant galaxy.

I step between his knees, gently tracing the perimeter of the bruise. “You get shot on purpose to make me forgive you?”

A slight smirk tugs at his lips and he lifts a hand to my face, grazing his knuckles against my jaw. “Did it work?”

“Depends.” I laugh softly, swirling circles around the mark with my fingertip. “You get the bad guy?”

“We did.” His fingers wrap around my wrist and bring my hand to his mouth, kissing my thumb. In a soft voice: “Hi.”

“Hi,” I echo, voice cracking slightly as I meet his eyes.

“I should have told you about Glory.” The bed shifts under his weight.

“I know it’s complicated between you two.

I helped her with a down payment on the car and set her up with the job so she could afford it.

She told me you buy her groceries . . . I was just trying to help. Fill in for Zeb in some way. ”

His hand moves back to my cheek, and I lean into his palm. A smile tugs at my lips. “So, we’re, like, siblings now? Kinky.”

The pad of his thumb rubs my cheek as he chuckles. “Not even close.” He kisses my forehead. “I didn’t mean to lie. I don’t want to. It all hurts. Saying the hard parts out loud makes them real—I just wanted it to not be. Just for a little while.”

These words could be a slogan for my life.

“I don’t know if you know this about me, Ford, but staying quiet about the hard stuff is my specialty.”

He plants a soft kiss on my mouth. “You?” He chuckles. “Never.”

“I get why you left now.” His eyes search mine. “I wish I would have known. I wish . . .” I swallow every confession I’m not ready to make. “Things happened after you left, Ford. Big things that I don’t know how to explain. Yet.”

He nods, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear then rubs his palms down my arms. “Okay.”

“When you left”—I sniff—“it was like you vanished.” He opens his mouth; I shake my head. “But I didn’t call either. And I should have. I should have hunted you down and caused a scene like we all know I’m capable of.”

“Life happens the way it’s supposed to, you know?” he says, our fingers gentle on one another. Down arms, across noses, through hair. We touch each other like we’re freshly glued pieces of broken glass on the cusp of a reshatter.

I stare at the blooming bruise. Ford could have died today—he could have been taken from me before we ever got the second shot at whatever this is.

I never would have survived it; I would have hated myself for the rest of my life for pushing him away.

For running away. For the last words between us being him telling me he loves me and me slapping him across the face.

“I don’t know if I can be what you want,” I tell him. “Don’t know how to be good enough for you. For Wren. How to dilute myself to be a more palatable flavor.”

His smile is so gentle it nearly hijacks the tears right out of my eyes.

“You’re my favorite flavor—always have been, always will be.” He wraps his hands around my hips and squeezes gently as a smirk plays at his lips. “Even if it burns going down.”

I snort a laugh; he dusts a kiss on my lips.

“And you’re good for Wren. Great for her.”

I want so badly to believe that’s true. To be what he thinks I am.

“I’m yours.” The words pop out of my mouth like a spring in a too-small box.

They’re all I thought of the whole drive over.

If he would have died—he’d never have known.

If he would have died—the regret of that alone would have ended me.

“Whatever you need to call that.” I swallow around the fist-sized lump in my throat.

“I always have been. Me thinking you were dead made me realize I should probably tell you.” Then, “Because I’ve clearly ruined you for other women. ”

His lips twitch; he drops his forehead to mine.

“Scotty Armstrong, you asking me to be your boyfriend?”

“I’m asking,” I say, biting back a smile, “for you to be my sure thing, Ford Callahan. ”

He looks at me, whole face as bright as his eyes as he sits upright. “Guess that means we’ll have to make the announcement at Orchard Fest.”

I groan; he laughs, grimacing slightly and clutching his ribs. “And the desert?”

As much as I knew this would come up, every fiber of every muscle within me goes wooden.

Less than three months away from escaping Ledger and everything that’s ever been wrong and ugly, and yet looking at him, it’s like there’s not a place far enough away to escape whatever this is between us. It will follow me. It will stick to me like a shadow like it has for the last twenty years.

He wants me to stay; it’s underscored by every word he does and doesn’t say. All over his face. His scruff-covered, salty-haired, smiling-eyed face. This perfect man wants me to stay.

For the first time since all of this started: I want to.

His eyebrows lift. “Scotty?”

I want to stay.

I rub my palm against my chest; it aches.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t think.

Ford goes blurry.

Stay.

Stay.

Stay.

“Um.” I blow out a shaky breath as my brain screams at me.

Stay with Ford, leave Glory .

Stay with Ford, leave the ghosts.

Stay with Ford, leave the trailer park.

Stay, leave.

Stay, leave.

Stay leave.

“I don’t—"

The door flies open and Wren bursts into the room with a shouted “Dad?!”

She looks at me, wide-eyed as she rushes across the room. At Ford, she does the same frantic search for wounds I did. “You got shot?” she asks, horrified. “Are you okay? Are you-you-you bleeding?”

He laughs as I step aside, giving him space to hug her and let the rhythms of my body return to normal.

“I’m fine, kiddo,” he tells her. “Sore. No broken ribs, just some bruising. Grandma bring you?”

When she nods, my stomach drops straight to the floor.

Charlene. I need to get out of here. Since Ford left, I’ve seen her once, five months after Zeb died, standing in the bread aisle at the grocery store.

She looked at me and knew everything I didn’t say; there was no hiding it.

When enough time passed and I never heard from Ford, I always wondered if she knew telling him would drag him back here and ruin his life.

“I should go,” I whisper to Ford, throat pinched and panic crawling under my skin like seven million tiny spiders.

“No. Stay,” he says, reaching for his shirt behind him on the bed.

“Really, I—”

“Ford?” I don’t have to see her to recognize the voice. Charlene Callahan is in the room, shrinking its size to a small cage.

I look at her, force a smile. Her eyes meet mine—briefly—but they move to Ford, doing the same once-over both Wren and I already gave him, worried look on her timeless face.

She’s beautiful in a classy way. Chock-full of southern charm, she’s always stood out—shining slightly brighter than everyone else in her cashmere sweaters and chino pants.

“Mama,” Ford says slipping his shirt over his head and dragging it down his torso, wincing as he stands from the bed. “I’m fine. You have that look in your eyes.”

She scoffs, her dark hair—now laced with more strands of silver than not—swaying as she gives a disbelieving head shake.

Even during an emergency, she has great skin and style.

“My son got shot, Ford, did you want me to come in with a party hat?” She steps next to him, giving him a hug and looking him over again as I take a silent step back.

She notices. “Scotty,” she says. Her voice properly southern, her smile genuinely forced. “You’re here.”

I give her a tight smile and cut my eyes to Ford. He stifles a laugh, draping an arm around Wren and clutching a palm over his chest.

“Hi, Mrs. Callahan.” I barely recognize my high-pitched voice. “I’m here. Surprise. Twenty years later and Ford’s shot.” What? I clear my throat and lift my arms as if I’m going to hug her. When she stares at them and pulls her chin back, I drop them by my side. “Right.”

This woman turns me into a fucking moron .

Her Callahan-patented blue eyes travel over the length of me, taking in my usual attire of fitted pants, heels, and a blazer, lingering on the Weird Al Yankovic shirt with a skeptical look.

“You haven’t changed,” she says with raised eyebrows and a tilt of her head and lips I can’t decode.

“Crematorium air,” I say with a grin and a fist pump through the air I don’t think I’ve ever made before. “Keeps me preserved.”

Wren’s eyes narrow, Ford stifles another laugh, and Charlene crosses her arms over her perfectly pink sweater, staring at me before letting out an exasperated sigh and turning back to Ford.

She starts talking to him about job safety, and I have the sudden urge to flee like a criminal. I’m going to go, I mouth to Ford over her shoulder.

Charlene says something to Wren, prompting her to start rattling off the series of events that led them to finding out he was shot and Ford nods as he listens to them. To me he mouths, Okay, girlfriend.

I flip him off so only he can see.

Then I replay his words the whole drive home.