She looks so small and doesn’t move as I walk around the bed, her beautiful blue eyes are fixed on the window. Someone has opened the blinds and the birds singing in the trees are loud.
A piece of hair is laying across her temple and I softly slide it away with my finger. I still remember the day she first let me do that. Sheletme touch her.
I decide I want to try something and say, “Remember that day in front of the fireplace during the ice storm? That was the first time you let me touch you. It was one of the best days of my life.”
Leaning over her, I press my lips to the same temple and pause, enjoying the feel of her skin on my lips.
“I’ve never told you this, but that first time I met you, when Callum told me it took him visiting the ranch a few times before you got used to him, I made a plan in my head. I started coming here to see you, soyou would get used to me. When you danced with me at the wedding and you forgot all about the people around us during our conversation,” I pick up her hand and lower my head to kiss the back of it. “I was the happiest man in the damn world.”
Holding her hand in mine, hoping she will hold my hand back, I kneel next to the bed. “Lepa, please look at me.” I set my hand on her shoulder, hoping for some kind of reaction, but it’s like I’m not here.
Fuck, I would even take her shying away from me over this.
Laying her hand on my palm and covering it with my other, I lean on the bed closer to her. “Did you know the French don’t say ‘I miss you’? They say ‘tu me manques’. It means you are missing from me.” I stroke the back of her hand with my thumb. “That is how I feel every minute you are away from me, ljubavi moja. [my love] You are missing from me, lepa. And I don’t want to live without you.”
She still doesn’t move. My heart sinks further every minute those beautiful blue eyes don’t look at me.
Maybe I should just be happy she hasn’t pulled away from me.
Lifting her hand to kiss the backs of her fingers, I hold her soft, warm skin to my lips before I set it back down and cup it between mine. “That’s okay, you don’t have to talk right now. I’ll be here waiting for you, I will wait as long as it takes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
JAX
IT’S AFTERmidnight, and I needed to get out of the house. I spent the entire day either sitting next to Marley’s bed or sitting outside her room when the girls kicked me out.
“The tree frogs are loud tonight.” Mr. Harlow says as he sits next to me in one of the wicker chairs on the porch that overlooks Marley’s stables.
I grunt in reply.
I’m tired.
Sleep has not been my friend for two days. I tried to get some shut-eye last night after Marley’s breathing evened out and I knew she was asleep, but I just lay there on my pallet in the floor wondering what I can do to help her.
But it’s not just physical exhaustion, my heart has been in misery since they took her from me. Even though we got her back, I don’t know what’s going to happen, my biggest fear is that she will push me away. For days I have felt like I’m standing on a precipice into a hell that I won’t be able to getout of.
She lets me hold her hand, but she still won’t acknowledge me. She lets the girls shower her and feed her, but her eyes stay trained on the window once she gets back in the bed.
He’s quiet for a few moments. A cricket near us somewhere sings its high-pitched song that crescendos and then dies off before it does it again.
The deep breath he sucks in is slow, and I realize I’ve never been alone with him before. Mr. Harlow doesn’t do anything by accident, the man plans everything. I’m pretty sure that Gray is a carbon copy of him.
I wonder what he wants to talk to me about.
“You know, when my wife died, I wondered how I was going to take care of six kids without her. Her goal was to have as many kids as her body would let her, she loved those kids with everything she had. When I took her to the emergency room that night, I thought she was sleeping when I broke down and asked God how I was supposed to have a family without her. She surprised me when I heard that small, tired voice say, ‘You’ll do what you have to do, you always do’.”
He’s quiet again, and I hear him clear his throat that’s become clogged with emotion. For just a fleeting second, I try to imagine his pain, I wonder how I would feel if Marley passed from this world and left me here alone. It only lasted a second, I didn’t want to feel that torture.
“In the months following her death, it was all I could do just to get up for my daily routine. I was too distraught at the time to give it too much attention, but I finally realized one day that our breakfast was still being made and dinner was on the table. Some nights it may have just been peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but we ate.
“It was Marley. She knew what to do by watching her mama, and she took to bossing Gray and Mason so things got done. She mothered her brother and sisters andshe tried to make home feel like home, even without its heart.”
I try to imagine a little Marley making sandwiches and taking care of her siblings. I’ve seen her be bossy with Kinley many times, and a few times with Tucker and Breanna when they’ve been home. Her maternal instincts are strong.
Having children was something I decided against a long time ago. I vowed never to bring a child into this cruel fucking world. But if Marley will have me, if she agrees to make a life, together, with me, I’ll give her as many children as she wants.
“Marley got the best of her mama and me. Her mama’s warmth, compassion, and quite a bit of the stubborn, and my drive to get things done, to make sure everyone is taken care of, are wrapped up in that girl. Taking care of everyone else is part of who she is.”
