Chapter 5 Husband Who
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 I was her husband instead of just deciding to slip into the position because I know for fucking sure that the real one won’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… who are 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. Fuck no.
“Dallas.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Call me Dallas.”
Her nose wrinkles. It’s adorable. “Is that a nickname?”
Sure. Why not? “Um, yeah.”
“Are you from there? You don’t have an accent.”
I got my name as a fucking dig at my mom.
Growing up, she had a fascination with history, and a morbid fixation when it came to the multiple presidential assassinations in America, specifically what happened to JFK.
She was a Catholic whose grandmother worshiped the fucking ground Kennedy walked on so it was no surprise that his death imprinted on her decades after he was gone.
And what did Jack do? When mom had her one and only kid, he insisted on naming me Dallas because that’s where the president was when he was blown away back in the 1960s.
“No. I’m local. From Harmony Heights, actually.” I pause, checking to see if that means anything. When it doesn’t, I add, “Where you’re from.”
Lucy doesn’t say anything to that. I can’t tell if it’s because she was already told that, or if she wasn’t paying attention to me because she was still stuck on my name.
Then she says, “So you’re Julian Wright, but I call you Dallas?,” and I know exactly which one that is.
“Dallas Collins,” I say firmly, because even if everything else I say might be a lie, I need that to be the truth. “And you’re my sweet Lucy.”
My Dandelion.
She didn’t respond to that, either, when I first used the pet name that I gave her all those years ago. This time, I swallow it, holding onto that sliver of the past until I get a better idea of what our future is going to look like.
Since she didn’t scream and call for help, I take that to mean that she’s at least entertaining the idea that I am her husband. Moving away from the curtain, I edge my way closer, holding my breath as I peer down at Lucy.
Without ripping my gaze away from her, I sink down in one of the seats at her side.
I’m staring at my battered Dandelion.
She’s staring at my left hand, her expression suddenly puzzled. “Um… where’s your ring, Dallas?”
My ring?
Fuck.
“I don’t wear it at work,” I lie. “It’s a safety hazard, and it used to piss you off when I’d forget to put it back on. But you knew that I would never cheat on you, so it was more playful on your end than anything.”
“Work?” Her brow furrows. “I know I should know what it is that you do…”
I’m a reluctant trust fund kid who roughed people up and killed for my old man because he thought I needed to be toughened up before I took over the Order.
That’s what I think. What pops out of my mouth is, “Mechanic. I work with a buddy of mine. Bas… Sebastien Reynolds.” I hesitate. “That ring a bell, baby? Bas?”
She shakes her head slowly, though I’m not sure if she heard the tiniest clanging at Bas’s name… or if it’s how I used a different pet name for her.
When we were together, I started out calling her ‘babe’ or ‘baby’ before she became my Dandelion. I can’t bring myself to use my old name for her—not yet, not when Lucy looks at me like a stranger—but ‘baby’ just rolled off of my tongue.
The lie did, too. I don’t know what would shock Bas more: that Reynolds Garage has a second employee, that he’s my boss, or that Lucy Wright doesn’t recognize his name.
Before Annaliese proved it wasn’t true, I would’ve thought anyone in Harmony Heights with a pulse and an appreciation for cock would know who Bas is. His new wife didn’t know his reputation, but Lucy… she did.
Hell, Bas made a play for her himself before I shut that shit down, making sure that my brothers—Adrian, Connor, Sebastien, and Desmond—were aware that she was mine.
Adrian has only wanted Loni for as long as I can remember.
Connor has been obsessed with Haven since high school.
Desmond… I never thought he’d go after a woman that one of us had his eye on, and then he tried to marry Loni and got three bullets to the chest for his betrayal.
As for Bas, he was the biggest manwhore in Harmony Heights until a one-night-stand with Annaliese changed him for good, but even he backed off when he knew one of his bros was down bad.
“I wish it did,” she says, and there’s no missing the wistfulness in her tone—or the frustration. “I wish I remembered anything.”
I don’t trust myself to reach out and console her. For now, I keep my hands fisted in my lap, though I can’t keep myself from leaning toward her. “It’s okay, Luce. I talked to that advocate. I’ll find one of your docs next. We’ll get you better so you can come home with me.”
Another puzzled look. “Home? But I thought… they told me we were…”
“Estranged?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
After all, that’s what I told the patient advocate woman over the phone.
To explain why I wasn’t easy to reach, and so my amnesiac wife wouldn’t be hurt by the fact that I didn’t come stalking into her hospital until a week after her fall, I made up some cock and bull story about a separation, an estrangement, before confirming that I’d be there to visit her, that I’d take care of her despite that.
It doesn’t hit me until she frowns, a small wrinkle forming along her brow, that she would take that lie and understand it to mean that we weren’t happily married before now.
Fuck.
Maybe I should have put on a cheap ring. She’s wearing hers, which hopefully she takes as a good sign, but if I want to convince her that we have a marriage that’s worth something, I need to give her a reason to believe it.
No ring, but I can blame that on my ‘job’. I’ll have to come up with reasons why there’s no sign of her in my house, and—
“That was my fault,” I tell her. “My job got between us. My side hustle,” I add quickly, almost remembering too late that I lied about being a mechanic after letting the cop and the patient advocate and Lucy think I work in an office building with Adrian as my other buss.
Shit. That’s what happens when you never bother lying.
Now that I have to, I better figure out how to keep my stories straight.
Especially when she says, “You’re not, like, a hired killer when the sun goes down or something like that, are you?”
That hits way too close for comfort. Giving myself a second to recover, I scratch my thumb along the edge of my jaw. “Shit, Luce. You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
“I’m sorry—”
“No. Don’t apologize. You were hurt—”
She gulps. “I was in an accident.”
If that’s what she needs to believe. “I know, baby. And I’m here.
Forget why we were apart. None of that matters now.
I’m here. I almost lost you, and that made me realize how fucking stupid I was, keeping my distance.
I thought you needed space. Maybe you still do, but right now, you need someone who knows you. Someone who loves you.”
Fuck it. I get up from my seat, taking her left hand in between both of mine. Her skin is warm. Soft. One touch has my heart pounding, my cock twitching, and my brain saying that this is the best fucking idea I’ve ever had.
“You need your husband, Lucy. You need me.”
Two days later, when Lucy is finally being discharged from St. Luke’s, Detective Hargrove doesn’t try to shake my hand. Instead, he stands in the hallway outside her room, the same notepad from the other day tucked under his arm, eyes searching for something I won’t let him see.
The detective showed up earlier today to have an official interview with Lucy about the morning she fell.
He wasted his time. Lucy’s trauma-induced amnesia hasn’t shown any improvement, and because that’s the worst of her lingering injuries—and the hospital has no idea when she’ll start to recover—she was moved from the monitored ward the day I arrived at St. Luke’s, then told at sun-up today that she would be discharged so long as there was someone willing to assume the responsibility of her care.
Me. That was me.