Page 16

MERIT

I balance the plate of chicken casserole in my hand, having a heart attack when the piece of buttered sourdough bread bumps against the doorframe, nearly knocking the china out of my hand.

Well, that wouldn’t have been good.

My ass is getting too big to be wallowing around on the floor cleaning up casserole, creamed corn, and green beans.

Grunting in frustration, I shut the door to the gym.

Where the heck is he?

I’ve searched the entire Big House from top to bottom, and he’s nowhere to be found.

Granted, I know we aren’t together, and I know he’s not required to tell me where he’s going or where he’s been… but, I mean, I’m having his baby. Doesn’t that gift me with a little bit of latitude? A certain number of inalienable rights? If he’s out on a date, don’t I deserve to know?

If he’s humping some cheap hoe he met at the grocery store, don’t I have the right to object?

I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

He’s not humping a hoe.

He’s been gone nearly all day. Just like the past three days, before now. So, he’s not having a sex marathon for days on end—with a random lady he picked up in the produce section—unless he’s pumping erectile medicine though an IV. I mean, he is the great Holt Hill.

But no man is that great.

Not for four days straight.

Really, I should be given a major award for not asking him where he’s been, for keeping my curiosity bottled up deep inside my chest. He’s come over to the Children’s Wing the past few nights, and I’ve refused to acknowledge the fact that he’s not been around during the day. Personally, I think it’s a testament to my strength. My resolve.

My resolve for what, though?

My resolve for pretending that I’m not still in love with him?

My resolve for pretending that I could move into the Children’s Wing and not be affected by his nearness, his closeness?

Because it’s so hard. Fucking epically hard, if I’m telling the truth.

Because sometimes he smiles at me, and for a brief moment—one absolutely perfect minute—I forget what’s happened. I forget that he threw me away. I forget that he slithered out of my life, leaving me broken and shattered and traumatized.

And if he only knew how traumatized I really was…

It wasn’t just his memories that buried me, but Delaney’s and Heidi’s too.

Buried alive, and fighting and clawing my way to the surface. Fucking battling for every breath I had to take.

For one-hundred-and-forty-two days.

Well, technically, I guess one-hundred-and-forty-three days since he didn’t start banging on my parents’ door until after midnight.

Weakened from my thoughts, I set the plate down on the mudroom cabinet tucked in the corner of the hallway. Sitting on the plush bench, I look down, counting the number of worn sneakers and football cleats. There’s even two footballs, caked with dried mud, resting on the floor. I rub my fingertips through the dirt and spread it around on my fingertips. At the farm, we have a commercial washer and drier in the garage, just to wash our filthy work clothes.

Sod farming is dirty business.

That’s not the kind of mess you want to track through your house—multiple times a day.

Huh, the garage.

I didn’t check the garage. What if Holt’s in there.

Hopping to my feet, I open the door caddy-corner from me—the last door on the left—and look around.

Nope. Nothing.

And just to rub the insult in my face, his absence is confirmed by his missing truck. The only vehicle in the massive garage is his old, slightly dented truck from years ago. Right then, the walls start to rumble, and the metal garage door starts to lift. Promptly crapping my pants, I squeak in surprise and shimmy the door shut so I have only one eye peeking out.

I know he has good vision, but surely, he can’t make out one little eye from across this big of a distance. Especially with the setting sun pounding in my direction.

The garage door finishes rising, and I’m shocked to see Ridge’s truck idling in the driveway and not Holt’s. My eyes dart between the two of them as they sit in the car, talking. I haven’t seen Ridge in a long, long time, and the shadowed sight of him, from yards away, brings tears to my eyes. My severed attachment to Holt’s family and friends is just another trauma I had to fight back from.

I went from having all these people around me to being alone. Well, I mean, I still had my parents and Granny. But it’s not the same. And I’d never admit this to Granny, but hanging out with Ridge is more fun— was more fun—than watching I Dream of Jeannie reruns with Granny.

After a couple of minutes, Holt halfway climbs out of the truck. His movements seem a little off-kilter. Like, maybe, he has a catch in his back or something. Half of his body is still twisted inside when he says his goodbye. “Thanks for everything, brother.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, I immediately latch my peep-hole door, grab the plate of food from the mudroom cabinet, and race down the hallway, shuffling on my tiptoes, trying to be as quiet as possible so he won’t hear me. All of a sudden, the sourdough bread flies off the plate, bounces against a huge, framed photograph of a football field, and lands on the floor. I’m about to turn and get it when I hear him open and close the door. His grunt echoes down the marble hallway, blaring like a bullhorn in my ears. Giving one last glance at the bread, I see it landed right against the wall and is leaning on the baseboard.

Maybe he won’t even see it.

Sprinting as fast as my growing son will allow, I bolt into the kitchen. I quietly set a place at the kitchen island, flinging the plate, a napkin, and some silverware in front of a barstool. Then, I hop up on the seat next to it and slap my phone in front of my face, trying to appear bored as hell…even though my heart is thundering in my chest like a locomotive.

One millisecond later, he rounds the corner into the kitchen.

I don’t look up.

Instead, I pretend to yawn.

“Hey.”

Sweet mercy. His voice. It’s like he’s trying to fuck my eardrums.

“Hi.” I have to swallow to even get the word out.

“What’s up?”

I nonchalantly nod to the plate of food. “I cooked too much supper. I didn’t want it to go to waste. I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten yet or not.”

“You been waiting long?” he asks.

I tap around on my phone, pretending to send some very important email or text message. Somehow, I end up on the App Store, downloading an app for a talking animated cat. “Yeah, it’s been a while. I guess I lost track of time. I’ve been busy.”

“Uhhh… Mer?”

“Yeah?” I respond, holding the button to delete the cat. I really hope I didn’t just pay $4.99 for this thing.

“Is this yours?”

Begrudgingly, I lift my face.

Damn it. Sure enough, he’s holding the sourdough in his hand.

But my embarrassment for this little charade—you know, the charade of me acting like I don’t care about him or his whereabouts—dies the instant I see what’s in his other hand.

Or more accurately, what’s on his other shoulder.

An arm brace.

“Holt!” I fling my phone across the granite and jump from my seat. It takes me a second to round the corner of the island to get to him. He’s already walking in my direction, and as soon as I’m within arms’ reach, he grabs at me, lovingly folding me against his side—the side not encumbered by his left arm snuggly dangling in the arm brace. The crusty edge of the toasted bread scrapes against my shirt and shakes crumbs all over me and the floor.

“Shit,” he says, with a chuckle. Twisting just a smidge, he tosses the bread across the kitchen, and it bounces into the kitchen sink.

I shift in his one-sided embrace, checking out his injury. There’s a large bandage peeking out of the collar of his shirt. Lifting my eyes, I trail my fingers down his cheeks, bobbing my head left and right, searching his face for damage.

There is none.

His face is perfect.

Just like always.

He gifts me with his signature, sexy little wink. His whisper slows my rapidly beating heart, placing it back in a steady pattern. “See any damage, Mer?”

I peer into his eyes. “No. You’re perfect.”

His forehead lowers to mine, and he sighs. “We both know that’s not true.”

What the hell is happening?

Clearing my throat, trying to capture my unbridled actions and emotions, I step from his grasp.

As always, running away from the shadow of his body leaves me feeling emotionally hungover—spent and frazzled.

I drag my eyes down his body. He’s grimy and grubby, covered in dried sweat and dirt. His hair is matted and tangled with little black particles catching in the blond waves. What the heck is that? I inch closer, erasing the distance I gained just a moment ago, and squint my eyes. Is that… asphalt?

Holt shit. He had a wreck.

I could’ve lost him.

I just got him back, and I could’ve lost him.

“You had a wreck?” I wish I could hide the unsteadiness of my voice. But I can’t.

He shakes his head, wincing slightly with the motion. “No, I didn’t have a wreck.”

“What happened then? What’s wrong with your shoulder and arm? What’s in your hair?”

He nods to the barstool, nonverbally telling me he needs to sit down. Like a sad little puppy I follow, sitting beside him. He pushes the plate of food out of the way. “In my hair? That would be asphalt.”

“Asphalt? But you weren’t in a wreck?” Horror rushes through every part of my body, turning my blood to stone. Life doesn’t pump through me; it stops. “What the fuck? You got run over? Someone hit you and ran you over?”

His boisterous laugh catches me off guard.

And then it makes me angry.

So angry that when he grabs my hand and kisses my wrist, I should pull away.

But I don’t.

Kissing me again, he rubs his nose back and forth across my skin, smelling me. “How come you always smell so good? I wanna drown in your flavor.”

Ummm…

What…

Coming to my senses, I snatch my hand back and tuck it underneath my thighs. I completely ignore his comment. “Why do you have asphalt in your hair? And what happened to your shoulder?”

“It’s shingles. I have pieces of asphalt shingles in my hair.”

I furrow my brow. “What?”

He takes a deep breath. “You haven’t asked me where I’ve been going this week.”

I shake my head, wondering if he knows how much his unexplained absence has affected my psyche.

“That surprised me. I thought you would be wondering where I was… too curious not to ask me.” He smirks, charming and innocent, and it makes me think about what he must’ve been like as a little boy. Wondering if our little boy will be the same. “To tell you the truth, I was dying for you to ask me.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me, then? Tell me where you’ve been going, what you’ve been doing?”

He shrugs with his one good shoulder. The movement must still hurt because he grimaces. “I guess I was worried you wouldn’t care what the hell I was doing.”

I search his face, looking for the lie.

But he’s not lying.

He’s being truthful, being vulnerable. And not for the first time since his return to my life, showing me the man underneath the swagger. The man, who’s worried our relationship may not end where he wants it to end—with me in his arms, in his bed, in his heart.

And him in mine.

“Where have you been going? Tell me what happened, Holt,” I gently urge.

“Habitat for Humanity.”

“Habitat for Humanity?” I repeat the statement back as a question.

“Ever since my name was cleared, I’ve been volunteering with them. Working to build houses. The last few days, I was on a job site.”

He’s been working to build houses? For the needy? In a thousand-degree heat?

No wonder his cheeks are sunburnt.

“You’ve been volunteering? Why?” I’m not surprised that he’s volunteering per se; Holt has a giving heart. I’m just curious as to his thoughts behind it.

He attempts to shrug again. He’s not exactly successful at it. “I’m not working. Once the threat of losing my life to a jail cell went away, I felt guilty for just wasting my days moping around. I mean, the police and prosecutors and everybody were still in the throes of finalizing the deals and investigations against Delaney, Heidi, and Denise, but I knew I was in the clear.” He stabs me with his penetrating gaze. With a cautious hand—his good hand—he slides his fingers across my thigh. “I was drowning in my guilt over the way I treated you, the baseless accusations I hurled your way. All I did was sit around thinking of ways to apologize and agonizing over the idea that you may never want me in your life again.”

I should move my leg.

I don’t.

“I had to do something with my mind, with my time. I needed… a way to find purpose again. I needed something to give me a sense of worth. Because let’s just say,” he licks his lips and squeezes my thigh even tighter, “I wasn’t in the best headspace.” Sighing, he eventually moves his hand, shifting it back to the countertop and fiddling with his napkin. “I tried to volunteer with three different charities before I found Habitat for Humanity.” He softly clears his throat. “Those three turned me down. They didn’t wanna be associated with me. So, when Habitat said yes, I jumped at the chance to work with them.”

“Is that part of the reason you decided to create your own charity, your own foundation to help others? Because you were turned down so many times?”

His head bobbles up and down. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“So, what happened? How’d this happen?” I ask, with a nod to his jacked-up shoulder.

I can’t help it; I instinctively lean closer to him. Like he’s a magnet drawing my heart to his, drawing my soul to his. Drawing me into his orbit, forming our own universe.

He gives me that look of trepidation, the one that says he would prefer to lie but can’t—because he’s talking to me.

The woman he promised to never lie to again.

“Today was roofing day. I was working on the ground to finish the banister railing on the steps. There were a couple of other volunteers working on painting the inside. One of those was Tracey. I’ve worked with her several times. She’s in her seventies. Her husband died last year, and she started volunteering because she was lonely. She’s an amazing artist. Used to teach art at one of the elementary schools.” He looks at me, making sure I’m following along. “She paints these murals in the houses. Like, if the Habitat family has kids, she’ll paint a mural of something he or she likes in the bedroom. In this house, she’s painting a wall of flowers.”

He moves from his napkin to his fork and starts spinning it around. “She came outside to pick some flowers from the bushes. She wanted…inspiration,” he says with a soft chuckle. “She was heading back inside. I was walking back from the trailer at the same time with some extra wood. I heard one of the roofers hollering. And when I looked up, I saw that a bundle of shingles was about to slide off the roof.

“It was headed straight for her. She was so engrossed with the pile of flowers in her hands, she didn’t even know anything was wrong.” A little growl rumbles in his chest, vibrating the air between us. “These things weigh sixty, seventy, eighty pounds,” he says. He abandons the fork and drags his fingers across his lips and chin. “I couldn’t let that hit her. Hell, it could’ve split her head wide open.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “It could’ve killed her.”

My heart is lodged in my throat, making it difficult to swallow. Making it difficult to speak. Hell, making it difficult to think. “It could’ve killed you .”

He spins on his barstool. Hooking his foot around the leg of my own barstool, he slides me closer. So close, he has to straddle his legs to make room for me. His fingers reach out, grabbing a lock of my hair and twisting it back and forth. His blue eyes find mine, searching my thoughts, my feelings.

It could’ve killed him. And then I would be all alone again. We would be all alone… me and our son.

How does he expect me to absorb all this information? How can I comprehend all these actions that say he’s a good and honorable man? How am I expected to understand that he would risk his life for this random woman, yet he would throw me to the curb based on nothing more than groundless accusations.

What made me different?

What made me expendable?

He said we didn’t lie to each other. He said he could read my face, read my mind.

Obviously, he couldn’t read shit. Because he told me I was his life. His reason for living and breathing. And then he shut the door in my face.

“I’m sorry,” he says simply, breaking my train of thought.

“For nearly getting yourself killed?”

“For not giving my life for you like I should’ve.”

I suck a much-needed breath through my teeth. The trapped air cools my overheated lungs.

His thumb grazes my cheekbone, sending fire into my skin. “You’re the most important person in my life, Merit. You have been since the day I set foot in your store. And I let fear steal that truth from me. I let the anxiety rip you from my heart.” His hand slides around my neck, gently massaging the base of my scalp. “I made you dispensable. Which is a lie.” He licks his lips, and my watered eyes are drawn to the dirt smeared across his brow. “You’re my only necessity in the world.”

I’m not exactly sure how long I let him hold me in his semi-embrace. But long enough that when he makes a move to inch closer to my lips, his injured muscles spasm, and he winces.

Dropping his good hand, he leans back, trying to stretch his neck to relieve some of the pain.

My heart slowly beats in my chest, thumping a constant rhythm. Not frenzied. Not frantic.

Stable and undeviating.

And each pump releases a small stream of forgiveness into my blood.

“What happened? I’m assuming you pushed her out of the way… and what? The bundle hit you?”

He nods.

Shit.

Mere centimeters from his head. A few mere centimeters, and I might’ve been looking at him in the morgue instead of this kitchen.

He glances down, his eyes clouding with sadness. “I sprained her ankle.” He turns back to stare at me. “When I knocked her out of the way, she fell on the porch steps and twisted her ankle.”

My troubled concern and wild imagination flare, bursting to life with visions of one horrible scenario after the other. “Sprained her ankle?! What about you, Holt! You still haven’t told me what’s wrong. Your arm could be hanging on by a thread and filled with gangrene for all I know.”

He lifts an amused brow. “I’m not filled with gangrene.”

I flop my hands in the air, trying to mime the ridiculousness of my lack of knowledge.

“The singles hit my shoulder, obviously. I went down…boom. Like a ton of bricks.” He pounds the table to emphasize the boom. “We were in Ridge’s zone, but I knew he wouldn’t show up. He’s not working as a paramedic this shift. But he’s the best, and I wanted the best for Tracey. I called him, and he drove out separately. He got Tracey’s ankle stabilized and sent her in the ambulance to the ER—just to make sure nothing else was wrong with the ankle that he couldn’t see. Then, he drove me in his truck to the hospital.”

I shake my head in disbelief. There the two of them are again, taking a leisurely drive around while Holt is injured and broken. What the hell is wrong with those two?

I fold my arms across my chest and grunt my displeasure.

Grinning, he ignores my temper and keeps talking. “I’m gonna be fine. The bundle was open on one corner so the exposed shingles took a layer of skin off—kinda like road rash. Other than that, it’s just bruising and some pulled muscles. No damage to the rotator cuff or anything like that. I’ve only gotta wear this contraption,” he nods to the brace, “for about a week. Besides, I’ve been hit a hell of a lot harder on the field.”

“Okay.” Finally, I heave a sigh of relief, exhaling the worry and dread I’ve been holding inside. “What can I do to help? What do you need?”

He looks at the food, and I swear, he starts drooling. “Well, I’m really hoping the offer for these leftovers is still valid. I’m withering away to nothing over here.”

Leaning forward, I bring the plate back in front of him and grab a fresh napkin from the holder in the middle of the island. There’s no way he can wipe his mouth with the other one, he mutilated it. “Yep. The offer is still valid.”

He starts eating, moaning his appreciation around a mouthful of casserole. “Mer, it’s great. Thank you.”

I blush. Like a little girl.

Getting up, I fix him a glass of water and set it next to his plate. “And after this?” I ask.

He immediately drinks half of it. “Obviously, I need a shower. I have sweat and dirt and hospital funk in places that haven’t seen it in years. And obviously bits of shingle in my hair.”

Oh, shit. He’s gonna ask me to help him shower.

Naked.

Wet and slippery and soapy.

“Uhhh…I don’t think that’s a good idea, Holt.” And I’m fairly certain I blush again. Because it feels like a thousand fire ants are biting my face.

His light-hearted chuckle is low and raspy and seductive as hell. “I’m pretty sure I can handle that part by myself,” he says.

Well, damn it all to hell. Why am I a little disappointed? I blame my swinging and far-flung emotions on my pregnancy hormones.

“But I could use your help changing the bandage.” He reaches down and pulls out a small plastic baggie from the leg pocket of his cargo shorts. It’s got some waterproof bandages in it and some antibiotic salve.

“Yeah, okay. I can do that.”

We make small talk while he eats, with me only leaving his side to get him some over-the-counter ibuprofen from the downstairs medicine cabinet to take with his food. Once he’s done eating, he gingerly takes off his arm brace, and I help him with his shirt. I do my best to ignore the feel of his skin underneath my fingertips.

Although, it’s hard to ignore his hitched breath and the jumping of his dick in his shorts.

And when I peel back the soft bandage that’s currently covering his damaged shoulder, I can’t stop the tears from rolling down my face. It doesn’t look good…but it could’ve been worse. I don’t think anything will scar. Like he said, it has more of a carpet burn or road burn look than anything else.

But it’s on his beautiful skin. It doesn’t belong there. What belongs there are little moles and sun freckles and drops of sweat.

Dutifully, I apply the ointment and doctor the area with his hospital-issued waterproof bandage.

And then, I kiss it.

I want to kiss away the thought of nearly losing him.

I want to kiss away the hurt.

If only kisses worked on all the hurt.

Things would be so much easier that way.

But things aren’t that easy.

And when his face turns, brushing his lips against my jaw, and his fingers clench against my body, kneading into the curve of my hips…I steel my back, straighten my shoulders, and walk away.

And I pretend his words don’t echo across the marble, chasing me all the way into the Children’s Wing. “I love you, Merit.”