Page 44 of Worth the Fight

We’ll be okay.

I nod, and Lukas kneels down, tucking the items that had fallen out of my carry-on back in. He brings it up, slinging it over my shoulder, and pulls me in for another hug, planting a soft kiss on the top of my head before reluctantly releasing me. I take a step back, and then another, but history always repeats itself, and dammit, I need one more. I rush to him, reaching him to plant one final kiss on his perfect lips. He smiles against my kiss, nearly giggling when I pull back. With my gaze locked on those sparkling blue eyes I’ve loved nearly every single day of my life, I ask, “Call me?”

CHAPTER 24

Lukas

My stomach grumbles, reminding me that lunch time has gotta be coming up. Tossing the last bale of hay into the feeder, I flip open my pocketknife and slice through the twine. The bale falls open, and I shake the pieces free, distributing it around the feeder as evenly as I can. Pretty soon, the spring rains will have dried, and we can set the cattle out to pasture, relying on the fresh grass for most of their feed.

A few cows are already moving in, dipping their face into the feeder and ripping out chunks of hay. I climb back on the UTV, watching as the rest of the herd starts to follow suit, one leading the other. Monkey see, monkey do.

I pull out my phone, wondering if I’ll hear back from Mags soon.

She texted me earlier to let me know her flight landed safely. She had about two hours to try to crash and get some rest before she was met with a full day of rehearsal and practice. Thank God, she doesn’t have a performance tonight. I’m sure she’s exhausted, drained mentally and emotionally the same as I am.

I woke up this morning feeling almost hungover. I bared my soul to her yesterday, telling her things that I haven’t been able to put into words for anyone, even my therapist. But that’s how it always was with me and Mags. She could get me to say things and get the words out of me when it was hard.

I maneuver the UTV through the pasture, bumping along until I’m back on the main road. Bringing a hand to my lips, I brush my fingertips against the skin, swearing that I can still feel the heat of her kiss.

God, it felt fucking good to kiss her.

I’ve only kissed one other person in my life, and even though I wish I could blame it on the booze, or the state I was in, I know now that the reason I didn’t feel anything when I kissed Candi is because she isn’t Mags.

But now, she’s back in Paris. Thousands of miles away from me, and I don’t know when I’ll get to see her again.

My phone rings just as I’m parking the UTV in the machine shed. I scramble for it, heart thumping, knowing that it’s her.

“Hey, Mags.”

“Hey,” she says through a yawn. “I never thought I’d be so happy to say I’m back home and in bed.”

I chuckle at that. “You deserve ten hours of solid sleep.” I press my luck just a little and add, “I wish I was there to join ya.”

She yawns again, and I imagine her stretching out in bed, wishing like hell I could be lying next to her, holding her as she falls asleep. “I wouldn’t hate that,” she says, and I bite down my smile. “I talked to Nana earlier, called her to let her know I made it back. She’s pretty proud of herself.”

I grin at that. “I’m going to stop by and see her in a few days. I’m sure she’ll be bragging about how good her plan worked.”

“I’m glad she meddled."

I internally beat my chest like an ape. “Yeah, Mags. I’m really glad she meddled. Did you manage to get any sleep on the plane?”

“Not really. I felt exhausted given everything that had happened, but I couldn’t shut my mind off enough to sleep, you know?”

“What were you thinking about the most?”

“Oh…” She pushes out a breath. “How adorable Ivy is. How weird but natural it felt to see you as a dad. How kind Candi was. The guilt I still carry, I guess.”

“Guilt over what? We talked about this at the airport, baby. Our relationship wasn’t healthy. I deserved to have you end it. You deserved to be free.”

“Not just that, though. I just … Do you know how many mean things I’ve thought about you over the last year? How much I tried to hate you? I let myself create you out to be this terrible person, some evil, manipulative person, someone I know you aren’t. But it was easier to let myself believe that. It made me less sad, because I could focus on the anger, but that wasn’t fair to you. It’s not even true! I made you out to be this awful person in my head, and now that I’ve seen you, met Candi and Rick and Ivy, it’s like … all this time you were you again.”

I step out of the machine shed and into the sun, opting to lean my arms over the back of my truck. “I feel like I’m me, yeah, but it wasn’t always this way. When I got back, I probably was the person you were imagining. I wasn’t someone you would have wanted to be around, and honestly, I’m glad you didn’t get to see that side of me in person. I don’t know if you’d want to be talking to me today if you saw how I was.”

“But doesn’t it suck, all the not knowing? All the wondering?”

“Yeah, but I think I’ve started to make my peace with it.”

I can hear her let out a rattled breath, and I hold onto the silence for another moment. “You know, a couple of months ago, I took Harper out to dinner, just the two of us. She’s grown so much, Mags. You’d be shocked if you saw her. She’s an adult, a woman, still a spitfire like she’s always been but very capable of holding her own. We got into a little spat, and you know what she said? She said that I had been back almost a year, but it felt like I was just starting to come back.”