Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TRIGGER
FORTY-EIGHT HOURS LATER
It's midnight, and I've already knocked on every damn door I know.
Forty-eight hours ago, my world was literally turned upside down.
I spent the afternoon busying myself with chores around the ranch, things that needed to get done before the bulls arrived, because she asked for time.
Space to be alone with her thoughts. I hated it, but it's why I tried to keep my hands moving and my mind occupied until she came home.
By dinnertime, I was pacing the loft. By bedtime, I was calling every one of our friends, trying to figure out where she'd gone. I didn't sleep. How could I after the bomb that was dropped on me?
By morning, I was checking every one of our credit cards in hopes of finding her.
Did she go into town to buy coffee? Where did she eat dinner?
Where did she sleep? Nothing. After putting an alert on all transactions, I got in her car and drove to everyone's house.
I had to be sure they weren't lying to me just to cover for her.
That turned out to be a terrible idea. Everyone wanted to ask me twenty-one questions, and I couldn't answer any of them. Then, I drove through town, looking for my truck. Again, nothing.
It's why I'm here now, standing in the pouring rain at midnight in front of the last door I want to knock on.
My last stop and my last hope. I walked.
I left her car at the barn and followed the gravel path that cuts through the back of the property because I needed the time.
I needed to stretch out these last minutes of believing she'd be here.
Every step down that dark path, gravel crunching under my boots, rain turning the road to mud, bought me more time to hope.
The longer it took to arrive, the longer I could hold onto a possibility.
The longer I could tell myself that when I finally knocked on this door, she'd answer.
My clothes are plastered to my skin, and my boots are caked with mud, and somewhere between the barn and his front door, I stopped feeling the cold. Stopped feeling anything except the desperate need to find her.
I bang on the front door again, hard enough that my fist aches. "Please be here." I send up one last prayer.
The door swings open.
"What the hell—" Warrick's words die when he sees me soaked to the bone on his doorstep.
"I know she's here." My voice comes out rough and desperate.
"Who?"
"My wife!" The words explode out of me as I refuse to hear anything that's not a confirmation.
"She's not here," he says, but my hands are already finding his chest, pushing him aside as I barge my way into the house. Water drips from my clothes onto his pristine hardwood floors.
"She has to be." I'm already moving deeper into the house, my boots squelching with each step. "Asha, come out! I know you're here!"
I hear the front door close behind me with a solid thud.
"I'm telling you, she's not here." Warrick's voice is calm, too calm, and it grates against every frayed nerve I have.
I spin to face him. "I don't believe you. Where's her room?"
He sighs, running a hand over his face before nodding across the living room. "Down the hall."
I charge across the space, my wet boots leaving a trail of mud.
Let her be here. Please, God, let her be here.
"Which door?" I call over my shoulder.
"Two doors down." His footsteps follow behind me, measured and steady.
When I reach her door, I throw it open, expecting to catch him in a lie, expecting to find her sitting on her bed, surrounded by her mother's letters, red-eyed and hurting but here, alive and safe. Instead, I find darkness and boxes.
"Have you tried calling her?" Warrick asks, like I haven't tried the most obvious solution.
I pull her phone out of my pocket. "She left without it."
"When was the last time you saw her?" he asks quietly.
"Same as you. Two days ago."
The breath I hear him take could fill a room, but when I turn around, he simply nods. One slow nod, like everything isn't upside down.
"That's it?" I question, unbelieving of how he can be so unfazed. "How can you be so calm about this?"
His jaw tightens, and for a moment, something flickers across his face. "This isn't the first time someone I love received life-changing news," he says quietly.
The statement hangs in the air between us, heavy with meaning. He holds my gaze for a beat longer then turns and wordlessly walks down the hall. He's right. He's lived through this before.
I follow him, my emotions a tangled mess.
Every feeling bleeds into the next until I can't tell where one ends and another begins.
I can't stand waiting, but what's worse is not knowing where she is or what she's thinking.
I've tried hard to hold it together, to not let my mind spiral into worst-case scenarios—ones that end with her taking my choice in all of this away. The thought makes my stomach turn.
Warrick pulls down a blue-and-white bottle of tequila and two glasses, setting them on the granite counter with a soft clink. He pours a sizable amount in each and, without asking, slides one across to me.
"What are you thinking?" he finally asks, leaning against the counter opposite me.
I stare down at the glass, watching how the crystal reflects the overhead lights. "Right now, I'm torn between hating you and hating that I understand you."
The words come out more honest than I intended.
I take a long pull off the tequila, welcoming the burn that tears down my throat.
He responds with another slow nod then takes his own measured drink.
His jaw works as he swallows, and for a beat, we just stand there in silence, two men drowning in different decades of the same fear.
"Did you know Maya was sick before you married her?" I ask, needing to understand how he survived this.
"No." He sets his glass down with deliberate care and stares blankly across the kitchen, his dark eyes unfocused, like he's watching a memory play out on the wall. "We were young. I met her on a family trip. My parents came to Bardstown with friends for the summer, for a vacation."
"In Bardstown?" I raise a brow. "There's nothing here but bars and land."
His lips quirk into the ghost of a smile.
"That's what I told them when I said I wasn't going.
" He picks up his glass again and swirls the liquid.
"At eighteen, this place had nothing for me.
But one of my father's friends wanted to look at buying land.
He was a businessman with a vast portfolio and convinced my parents they should look into investing.
Told them if they sat on it long enough, it would be worth enough to retire them when this place became the next hot spot. "
He pauses to take another drink. "On one of the many property tours, I met Maya.
While my parents spent the next month looking at land they didn't plan to buy, I spent my time falling for the farmer's daughter.
" A soft smile tugs at his mouth. "And then a few months later, after I returned home, she called me.
She was hysterical, crying, and apologizing because she was pregnant. "
I watch his fingers tighten around the glass.
"By the end of that week, I packed up the car my parents had given me for my birthday, and I moved to Kentucky." He looks up and meets my eyes. "She was so scared, and I'd just found out I was going to have a family."
She was scared, and I just found out I was going to have a family.
The words echo through my mind, and my chest tightens.
I'm in the exact same shoes he was. History is repeating itself in the worst possible way.
I down the rest of my tequila and push my glass toward him. He refills it without comment.
"We were young, had no clue how we were going to make ends meet," he continues, his voice growing distant.
"When her father found out, he was upset.
He didn't like the idea of his daughter falling pregnant so young, but what could he do?
" He shrugs. "He needed help on the farm.
I needed money and a place to stay. So, I worked relentlessly.
For every problem he had, I identified a solution. Built on his legacy."
He takes another drink, and I notice his hand isn't quite steady.
"By the time Asha was five years old, we'd made our first million-dollar sale on a Thoroughbred. We were on cloud nine. All the hard work we had been putting in had finally paid off," he says, before his expression darkens. "Later that year, Maya received her diagnosis."
Of course she did.
"She thought she was overdoing it around the ranch, working too much, not getting enough sleep.
The symptoms she had in the beginning went hand in hand with a hard day's work.
But when her speech started to slur..." He trails off, his jaw clenching.
"I knew something was wrong. A lot of things went downhill quickly from there.
We were able to hide it from Asha in the beginning, but we knew it wouldn't be long until we couldn't."
He drains his glass and pours himself another, heavier this time.
"She had fast-acting juvenile ALS, and we had hard decisions to make."
I grip my glass tighter, and a chill that has nothing to do with my wet clothes runs down my spine. "That's why you used the accident at school to send Asha away." The pieces are clicking into place. "But why did you make me the enemy? Why my father?"
Warrick's shoulders tense, and he turns away, bracing his hands on the counter.
"Maya was friends with Baylor. Admittedly, I was always jealous of their friendship, even though deep down I knew she loved me.
But I'm human. My insecurities are no different from yours.
They had a history, a relationship for years, before I ever came into the picture.
And when I found out she confided in him about her diagnosis.
.." He stops and pulls in a shuddered breath.
"I lost it. I questioned if she only loved me because we accidentally got pregnant.
When she gave him something so personal, I worried it was because he was the one she wanted. Not me."
"My father said they never had romantic feelings for each other," I say quietly. "I believe him."
"I know." Warrick turns back to face me, and there's something raw in his expression now.
"But I think you can relate a little bit to how I was feeling then, given what you're going through now.
" He leans forward, his dark eyes boring into mine.
"If you found out Asha was sitting in another man's arms right now, seeking comfort with something so deeply fragile and personal instead of you, her husband, how do you think that would make you feel? "
His words strike a chord. I'd lose my fucking mind. It's taken every ounce of my sanity to keep my shit together and not go off the deep end. I'd fall apart if I knew I wasn't the only person she wanted in this moment.
"It wasn't her fault," Warrick continues, his voice rough with regret.
"It was mine. I didn't handle the news well.
Finding out my wife had months to live wasn't an easy fucking pill to swallow.
" His hands flatten against the counter.
"I loved her, but my heart wasn't the only one about to be broken.
I had a little girl who was about to lose her mother, a little girl who might be destined to live the same fate. "
He looks down at his glass, and I see the pain he's kept to himself all these years.
"I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't talk about it because it was taking everything I had to hold it together and be strong for her.
I was weak, and in that weakness, I pushed her into your father's arms." His lips pinch together with regret before he adds, "She couldn't talk to me. So she talked to him."
The silence that follows is heavy. I set my glass down, the sound too loud in the quiet kitchen. "And that's why you didn't want Asha and me to be friends. You were worried he'd tell her the truth about Maya."
"Yes." The word comes out flat, honest. He meets my eyes without flinching.
"It's the reason I was distracted and wrecked my vehicle during your senior year.
" His voice drops lower. "I didn't know Baylor had sent you to Ridgewood, and when I saw the two of you in that picture together.
.." He closes his eyes briefly. "My mind went from zero to fear in the blink of an eye.
I wasn't paying attention to the road. Just kept thinking about how close you were getting to her, how you'd eventually be the link, how it would all unravel. "
He pauses, his fingers drumming once against the counter before stilling. "I thought if I could keep you apart, keep our families separated, I could keep the secret buried."
Fuck. He nearly killed himself over this. I suppose this isn't news. Asha told me she suspected it as much, but hearing it for the truth it is from his mouth hits different. It was a man enraged. It was a man crippled by fear.
"But regret and hate, they eat you alive from the inside out.
" His voice is rough, weighted with years of mistakes.
"They almost stole my little girl from me.
I pushed her away, trying to protect her, and I nearly lost her completely because of it.
" He straightens, his dark eyes finding mine across the counter.
"I'm hoping what I've done is forgivable.
That she can understand why I made the choices I did, even if she doesn't agree with them.
" He pauses, and the sound of rain hammering against the windows fills the silence until he adds, "But I know she'll come back.
" His gaze sharpens and locks onto mine. "I know she'll come back for you."
The words land like a promise, a promise I can't feel through my fear.
Because what if he's wrong?
I stare at the man who's already lived through losing everything once. What if this time, she doesn't? What if this is the thing that finally breaks her? Not the lies. Not the secrets. Not even the disease, but all of it.
What if I've lost her?