Maybe then I could’ve saved Mom…
I didn’t. I couldn’t. But Lucy… this is my second chance.
And I’m going to take it.
Lucy.Fuck me, it’s Lucy. It really, really is.
The patient advocate murmurs that she’ll wait by the door, on the other side of the curtain. If Lucy needs her, just shout. I nod, waving her off, and gaze across the room as Carol shuts the curtain closed behind us.
It’s been five years. Unlike Adrian’s fixation with Loni, I had to stop cold turkey. She was so far out of my reach, it just made sense. She wore another man’s ring, slept in another man’s bed, and as soon as Julian had her, he made sure to whisk her out of Harmony Heights so that I couldn’t sit like a sad, sorry sack of shit, moping outside her window.
I know my dad put him up to it. He gave him a position on the other side of the country, a way to expand the Order’s reach outside of the fucking idyllic town that suffocates and chokes me at the same damn time.
“Dandelion.”
She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t recognize me.
I barely recognizeher.
She’s smaller than I remember. Paler, too. Lost in a tangle of IV lines and starched white hospital sheets, her once-stormy, now dull grey eyes too big in her face as she watches me approach hesitantly.
“Lucy… it’s me. Dallas.” Becausefuck it. I’m not Julian. I’m Dallas, and even if she doesn’t remember me yet, I’mhers. And then, as I walk further into the hospital room, I gaze down at my Dandelion and tell her the lie I’ve wanted to make true for the last five years. “Your husband.”
FIVE
HUSBAND WHO
DALLAS
Lucy’s eyes widen. I realize I should’ve probably eased into this instead of just dropping such a bomb on her head, but that’s not my style. And if Iwasher husband instead of just deciding to slip into the position because I know for fucking sure that the real onewon’t…well, wouldn’t I tell her that’s who I was?
Hell, she’s lucky I don’t rush her bedside, swooping her up in my arms, and holding her close. I mean…shit. I want to do that, but even I have some restraint, even if it’s taking every ounce of it I can call on to keep my boots planted on this linoleum square.
Lucy nibbles on her bottom lip. For a heartbeat, I’m scared shitless that she’s going to call out for security, tell them that some thug just walked into her hospital room and claimed to be her husband. Based on what the patient advocate woman told me over the phone, I wasn’t holding out hope that she’d get one look at thirty-year-old Dallas and remember the twenty-five-year-old I’d been. I’m a vain enough bastard that I want her to be attracted to me, but the blank look in her eyes has me wondering if she’ll even give me the chance to spin my story.
Finally, she lets out an awkward, nervous laugh.
“What was that? Husband who?” She clutches her thin hospital blanket between her fingers. “Who…whoare you?”
I don’t dare answer that question with the truth. Not yet.
Now when I know I’ll only lose her again if I admit that I’m the ex who’s never gotten over her instead of the husband who never deserved her.
So I tell her a different truth instead. “Who I’ve always been. Yours.”
“I’m sorry.” She lifts her hand, twirling the simple, gold, Order-provided wedding band on her all-important ring finger. “When I saw this, I figured I was married, but… oh, God. This is so embarrassing. They said your name is Julian?—”
It’s a knee-jerk reaction. Hearing her say the name of the man that got to call this beautiful creature his wife… no.Fuckno.
“Dallas.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Call me Dallas.”
Her nose wrinkles. It’sadorable. “Is that a nickname?”
Sure. Why not? “Um, yeah.”
