“No,” I blurt out at the same time as she says, “Yes.”
“We met once,” she says hastily, recovering herself.
“A long time ago,” I mutter.
“Can you check this and tell me I’m not misreading it?” Paige holds out the tablet to Hudson, and I’m thankful at least one of us is thinking straight. I need time to gather my thoughts, and the last thing I want Hudson to know is what I did with his little sister.
My stomach twists at my stupidity for not making the connection. Her mother had just died three years ago, and when I got to the overseas base, Hudson was on leave because his mother had passed. I should have made the connection, but I was too busy remembering every detail about Rose’s body to think straight.
I study Paige as she speaks with her brother. Her hair is longer, the pixie cut gone, and there are smudges under her eyes. Her body has filled out with soft curves that look good on her.
She wears cut-off shorts that show thick, strong thighs and a black band t-shirt.
I don’t know if she’s thought about me as much as I have her over the past three years. I wonder if she’s thought about me at all.
A child’s laughter comes from the shed she walked out of, and a moment later, a toddler rushes out giggling, his dark curls falling around his chubby face. He’s chased by a woman I don’t recognize, who must be his mother.
But instead, the boy runs to Paige and tugs at her leg. “Momma, up.”
Paige’s gaze sweeps to mine with an unreadable expression. “You want to come up?” she asks the boy.
Hudson takes the tablet while she scoops the child into her arms with a fluidity that demonstrates she’s done this a hundred times before.
The child buries his face in Paige’s shoulder, giggling as the other woman pretends to tickle him.
Hudson introduces me to the woman as Avery, but I barely catch her name. I’m too busy processing. All that’s running through my mind is that Rose has a child. She’s moved on. Of course she has. We were a fun weekend in a hotel room. She’s obviously with someone now, and they have a child.
Three years of hope is crushed as I watch her kiss the boy’s chubby hand and release him to the tickly monster.
My world caves in, and the hollowness inside gnaws away at whatever fragments of hope I had left.
I turn away, not caring that it takes an age to maneuver my chair.
“Hey, where you going?” Hudson jogs after me, but I keep wheeling. I don’t say a word. Finally, when I’m back in my room alone, I take two more pills and heave myself onto my bed, waiting for the sweet oblivion of sleep.
13
PAIGE
Hudson’s speaking to me, but I barely hear him. My stomach churns as I watch Sergeant Gray—no, Ryan is what Hudson called him—wheel himself away.
When our eyes locked, I was transported back to the hotel room. Crisp sheets and our sweaty bodies coiled together, the scent of his sweat, the soft sounds of our moans. His muscular arms pinning me to the bed as his stubble scratched over my skin.
How many times have I thought about that weekend? First with pleasure, then with bitterness and regret, and finally with profound wonder and gratefulness.
How many times have I wished we’d exchanged numbers and names. Over the years, I’ve run over a dozen speeches in my mind that I’d say if I ever ran into Sergeant Gray, from ranting at him to falling into his arms. Yet, when the moment presented itself, my mouth went dry, and I was speechless.
The last thing I expected was to see him in a wheelchair, his eyes vacant and lacking the vibrancy that attracted me to him in thatbar a lifetime ago. The man I knew is buried somewhere under that pain, and for a heartbeat, I wanted to find him again.
“Paige?” Hudson looks at me with his eyebrows raised, and I have no idea what he’s just said. Noah is running around my legs being chased by Avery. My best friend and my brother are oblivious to the bomb that’s just exploded inside me.
I drag my gaze away from the retreating figure and back to Hudson. “Huh?”
“I said, how do you know Ryan?”
He pounds into me as my fingers grip the headboard and my moans turn to cries of pleasure.
“Umm, can’t remember. He looked familiar. The kind of face you don’t forget.”
