I was back inside the SUV, metal crumpling as the pine tree caught the hood. The airbag exploded, powder burning my throat, my eyes, coating everything in a chalky white film. Blood slid into my lashes, warm at first, then freezing as snow drifted in through the broken windshield.
The seatbelt locked, cutting into my ribs like a vise. I jabbed at the release repeatedly, but it wouldn’t budge. And help wasn’t coming.
My thoughts turned sluggish, drifting to Addie and Sky—imagining them arriving only to find me gone. To Teddy, wishing I could take back every word from the night before. And finally, to Levi. Had he been this scared? Had regret clawed at him in his final moments, the same way it clawed at me now?
Then Teddy’s face appeared, snow tangled in his hair, eyes wild. And for one horrible second, I thought he’d turn back and leave me to the elements. That he realized saving me wasn’t worth it. That I wasn’t worth it.
The terror of abandonment had been worse than the crash itself.
“Hey.” Teddy’s thumb brushed my cheek, pulling me back to the present. “You disappeared on me. You okay?”
I blinked, finding myself not in the SUV but in his bathroom, fingers locked around his wrist, tears streaming down my face. Great. Just what I needed—to fall apart in front of the man who’d already seen me at my absolute worst.
“I’m fine.” I let go and wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. “Just the antiseptic. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.”
He didn’t call me on the lie but worked more gently. This close, I could see the concern etched deep in his hazel eyes.
I watched his hands. Broad, calloused, the same hands that had cradled our children, braided hair, built dollhouses. The same hands that had struck his youngest brother in the funeral home parking lot after Dane took the blame for Levi’s death.
I’d hated Teddy for that—for losing control when I needed him to hold me together. But as he worked now with the same care he’d once used on splinters and scraped knees, I wondered if maybe I’d rewritten our history to make my pain easier to carry.
Memory was selective like that. I’d told myself Teddy had checked out, had chosen the club—and the club girls—over family. But other memories surfaced, too. His thumb tracing lazy circles on my hip at club gatherings, claiming me even in a room full of leather and testosterone, as if theProperty of Crowpatch embroidered on the back of my tank top hadn’t been enough. The kisses he’d press to my neck while I cooked, arms wrapped around my waist, swaying to whatever was on the radio. The way his arms quieted the chaos and anxiety in my head, wrapping around me like a promise that we’d get through it together.
Only we hadn’t.
“Bleeding’s slowing some,” he said, frowning at the cut. “You anemic again?”
Three viable pregnancies, three battles with iron pills and medium-rare steaks grilled every single night because Teddy had read somewhere that red meat helped. He’d hover while I ate, making sure I finished every bite, even when morning sickness—which had lasted all day with Sky—made everything taste like copper pennies.
“Blood thinners.”
His hands stilled against my temple. “Blood thinners? Why?”
“Oh, you know. The usual middle-aged woman stuff.” I waved a hand, trying to deflect with humor the way I always did when things got a little invasive for my liking. “Next thing you know, I’ll have a house full of cats and be watching murder documentaries in my bathrobe. I mean, I’m already halfway there. Just need a couple more cats and?—”
“Kels,” he said with a pinched expression, silently demanding the truth.
“AFib,” I said, like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t spent three months terrified my heart would stop working. “Couple dizzy spells, one spin class face-plant. Very graceful. I took a header into the mirror in front of a bunch of twenty-somethings in Lululemon.”
He scanned me head to toe, like he could fix it by sheer will. “When?”
“I don’t know—a year ago?” Which was also coincidentally the last time I’d been in a gym.
His jaw ticked. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“You know, I meant to include it in the Christmas card I sent to your lawyer. Must’ve slipped my mind.”
“I thought I lost you!” The words burst out of him, raw and jagged.
“Teddy...”
“When I saw that guardrail torn apart, when I found you covered in blood and half-frozen—” His voice cracked. He turned away, rinsing the bloody washcloth under the faucet.
I wanted to joke. Deflect. But nothing came.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I said finally, forcing lightness into my voice.
He didn’t smile. Didn’t even offer the signature half-smirk that used to drive me crazy.
