Page 27 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

Clay

Josie looks so peaceful as I slide out of the bed and run a hand along her bare hip. She’s sleeping soundly, fully purged of energy from our three rounds of marriage-celebration sex, and I’ve finally worked up the courage to leave her long enough to get a glass of water.

My dry tongue and fatigued body thank me.

I pad gently to the kitchen of the small cabin, pulling a glass from the cabinet beside the fridge and turning on the tap to fill it halfway. A gentle lull of night sings from outside through an open window, and I take in the perfect moment with laser focus.

The crickets, the gentle breeze. They’re only background for what we are—who we are—together.

I want to remember this in the times of suffering or the fights we’ll have. I want to reference this when we’re not sure how to carry on, and I want to hold space to get back to it.

I want the perfectness of what we are to be a constant in my mind that I never take for granted because Josie is the woman I would have created in a dream if I could’ve.

I want to be her steadiness in a life of chaos. She deserves that and so much more.

Josie’s phone buzzes on the island counter from the spot I put it a couple of hours ago, and I lean forward to read the name on the screen.

Grandma Rose

Waking her feels criminal, but with everything I know about my wife, so does the thought of depriving her of the chance to share the most special moment of our lives with the woman she loves most in this world.

Josie’s family life has been rough and lonely in some of the most horrible ways, but Rose is the light in all of it. The two of them are as close as two people can be, and I’m thankful every day Josie has her.

Scooping up her phone and rushing to the bed, I gently rub at Josie’s hip until she starts to stir and then whisper in a firm enough voice that she can hear, but not so loud it’ll scare her.

“Rose is calling, baby. I’m sure you can call her back, but I didn’t want you to miss it if you want to talk to her.”

She sits up and rubs her eyes, trying to wake herself quickly and smiling sweetly as she does. I slide the little bar on the screen to answer for her and put it to her ear before she takes over with her hand and holds it herself.

“Hey, Grandma,” she says, the brightest smile in her voice.

My lip kicks up but stops abruptly when her eyebrows draw together, and she sits up straighter in bed. “Melba? What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

Josie’s hand flies to her mouth as she listens, and tears hit her eyes instantly. I scoot closer and grab on to her hand, willing my ears to hear and my strength to flood her. I don’t know what it is, but I can tell by the devastation on her face that it isn’t good.

“How bad is it? Where is she?” she asks then, jumping up from the bed and running around the room so desperately my heart shatters. She doesn’t know which way to go or what to gather because she can’t gather herself.

I run to her and push her back to the bed, grabbing her dress from the floor and handing it to her and then finding her discarded underwear and giving her that too. She clutches the dress to her chest and the phone to her ear, and she listens to Melba again.

“But, like, the doctors can do something, right? I mean, people recover from strokes. Hank Basset’s wife had one last year, remember?”

A stroke ? Fuck.

I hustle to my pants and pull them up, grabbing my T-shirt and pulling it over my head just after. All I want to do right now is hold Josie to me and never let go. To seep strength into her body with my own until this feels a little more all right.

But I know that’s not what she needs from me. I know she needs me to get us to Grandma Rose as quickly and safely as I can.

“I’m coming, okay?” she says almost desperately into the phone as she finally jumps up and starts dressing. “Please tell her I’m coming. I’m not at home, though, so it’s going to take me a little while to get there, but I’m coming. Please, tell her I’m coming.”

I grab everything we brought and follow Josie through the front door, helping her into the truck as she hangs up the phone and devolves into a deluge of tears so strong, it would flood the highest of elevation towns.

There are no words to placate, no ways to make this better, and I know it. She wasn’t with Rose because she was with me, secretly eloping. And she didn’t call Rose to tell her the good news because I told her to wait.

And the realization of all of that fucking sucks.

“I’m going to get us there as fast as I can, baby, I promise. Where is she?”

“Burlington.”

I nod and fire up the truck, throwing it in reverse and flooring it out of the small driveway to the road. Burlington is between here and home, but we’re still a good hour or more away, even if I hurry.

I reach out for her hand and hold it in mine, squeezing as tight as she’ll let me, and allow the rest of the ride pass in silence.

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done—leaving her to the quiet. But I know there’s absolutely nothing I can say to make her feel better or change what she’s feeling.

Her world just turned upside down. But I’ll do everything I can to keep it from falling down and crumbling completely.