Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LINCOLN
The following week, I was in the middle of gathering eggs from the chicken coop when a crash sounded through the open windows of the silo. Then a bitten-off string of colorful curses came from Willa—words so foul, even Mabel would’ve blushed.
I didn’t hesitate. Just dropped the basket and ran toward the house. That wasn’t just any string of curse words. That was Willa breaking and trying like hell to pretend everything was fine because that was her default setting.
I burst through the door at full speed, my gaze darting around the scene in front of me.
Willa stood hunched against the counter, white-knuckling the edge like it was the only thing holding her up.
A crumpled crate of broken jam jars lay in a mess at her feet—shards of glass everywhere, along with red streaks I hoped to hell were jam.
But that wasn’t what stopped me cold.
It was her face. Her mouth was pressed in a thin line, her cheeks flushed and tightness bracketing her eyes—a pinched expression screaming only one thing. Pain.
She glanced up, caught me in the doorway, and attempted to wipe her expression clear. “I’m fine.”
No. Fuck no.
I was done playing this game with her, and I was mad as hell she was still trying to bullshit me.
“You’re not,” I said, striding toward her.
“Lincoln, I said—”
“Don’t care.” I stepped over the glass and scooped her into my arms before she could flinch away from me.
She gasped, her eyes going wide as she placed a hand on my chest. “This is insane. I’m—”
“Fine? Yeah, I’ve heard the line before,” I muttered, adjusting her in my arms to take any pressure off her lower back. “Try something new.”
“This is overkill, even for you,” she hissed as I headed for the stairs. “You’re being ridiculous.”
I didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t. Not when I was so focused on the way she was shifting in my grip—not from pain but from sheer resistance. Like accepting help was some kind of mortal sin in her world.
I gritted my teeth and tightened my hold. “You’re gonna hurt yourself worse by trying to prove a point. You really wanna be down for a week instead of just tonight?”
She opened her mouth to argue, but nothing came out.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Thought so.”
Once we were upstairs, I strode straight to the bed and laid her down as gently as possible.
She grimaced as soon as her spine met gravity, and I had to fight the overwhelming urge to punch a wall.
I fucking knew I shouldn’t have listened to her all the times she said she was fine and she could handle everything. That she didn’t need my help.
Stubbornness was going to be her—and my—downfall.
“Lincoln—”
“I’ll be right back.”
She started to sit up, but I sent her a look that froze her in place.
“That wasn’t an invitation for you to move, wife. Just sit your sweet ass right there until I come back.”
The scowl she shot me was one for the record books, but, for once, she didn’t argue. That, in itself, screamed volumes.
I stalked downstairs, not bothering to tread lightly.
Because yeah—I was pissed and had reached my limits with this entire situation.
I wasn’t mad at her—not really. I was mad at the fact that she was obviously in daily agony and still trying to pretend she didn’t need anything from anyone, least of all me.
Worse, she acted like I was somehow inconveniencing her by giving a damn about my wife.
While her microwavable heating pad was warming up, I grabbed a water bottle and found her stash of pot gummies she kept in the pantry next to the dried lavender.
I wasn’t wasting time with over-the-counter painkillers because they wouldn’t do shit when her back was this bad. She needed the good stuff.
When I made it back upstairs, she was exactly where I’d left her, and that told me everything I needed to know.
She was hurting. Badly.
After setting everything on the nightstand, I got to work.
I grabbed some extra pillows from under the bed and adjusted them how she liked—two behind her back, two beneath her knees, and one under each arm…
a perfect little cocoon. Once she was situated as comfortably as she could be, I helped her sit up and slid the warmed heating pad between her back and the pillows.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “I can—”
“Just sit your ass there and let me help.”
She snapped her mouth shut and huffed out an irritated breath but allowed me to do as I’d asked.
I grabbed a gummy and held it out to her. “Take this.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“You’re underreacting. Now, take it.”
Without a word, she snatched the gummy from my hand, popped it into her mouth, and chewed before washing it down with water.
“I hate this,” she muttered, avoiding my eyes. “Being weak.”
“You’re not weak,” I said, sharper than I should have, considering the amount of pain she was in.
But fuck. “You’re anything but weak, hellcat.
You deal with unimaginable pain every day and just go about your life as usual.
What you are, though, is so goddamn stubborn that you’d rather crawl across broken glass than admit you need help. ”
She snapped her gaze to me, eyes wide and lips parted as she blinked at me and my rising ire in surprise. “Um…where’s this coming from?”
“Fuck if I know.” I sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle her, and braced my elbows on my knees. “I’m just…tired, Willa.”
“Of what?” she asked, her expression wary and guarded like she thought I was tired of her.
“Don’t do that shit—I can see it written across your face that you think my helping you for all of five fucking minutes is reason enough for me to be sick of it.
When actually, I’m tired of watching you destroy yourself just to prove some bullshit point no one ever asked you to make.
And I’m tired of wanting to help you but getting shut down every fucking time like I’m offering you poison instead of a fucking heating pad. ”
My voice grew louder with each word as I finally released this frustration that had been bottling up inside for weeks, months… Years.
She stared at me in shock, her mouth opening and closing several times before she finally cleared her throat. “You’re…mad.”
“Yeah, I’m fucking mad.”
“But you’re never mad.”
I huffed out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, well. I’ve never had a wife who’s hell-bent on not allowing herself to need anyone, and it’s pissing me off.”
Her breath caught, and for a second, I worried I’d said too much. Pushed her too far. But, fuck. It was true.
From the sidelines, I’d been watching her suffer for years. But having an up close and personal viewing of it since being married was an entirely different beast. And it had only been two weeks.
She wasn’t thriving on her own. She was barely surviving.
And I wasn’t going to stand by and watch her struggle alone anymore.
I didn’t care if this marriage wasn’t real to her, or if we’d only entered it with the end already in mind. I was here, and I was hers—for now anyway. And I was going to act like it.
After a beat, I stood, strode around the bed to my side, and climbed in next to her. I didn’t say a word. Just stretched out, one arm tucked behind my head and the other reaching for her. I ran my fingertips gently over the inside of her forearm. Featherlight and soothing.
It took a while, but eventually, she started to soften under my touch. Her breathing slowed as she unclenched her jaw and unfurled her fingers, her whole body seeming to finally exhale.
“Most people would’ve gone straight for my back and tried to massage the hell out of it,” she murmured into the quiet space.
“I’m not most people.”
The added stimulation in that area would only make her pain flare brighter, which I knew because of something she’d mentioned years ago.
But I was hoping if I could distract her mind with gentle, soft movements and get her nervous system to calm down, even a little, she’d be able to find a sliver of peace.
She slid me a look out of the corner of her eye. “How’d you know?”
I lifted a single shoulder. “I pay attention.”
Her expression softened. Like maybe she was allowing herself the briefest moment to admit she didn’t hate being taken care of and didn’t hate that I was the one doing the caring.
Silence fell again as I continued running soft fingertips over her skin and she continued letting me. It was more than I’d hoped for, so I was going to take it and do it for as long as she’d allow.
“If I weren’t renting out the farmhouse, I’d soak for an hour in that big claw-foot tub,” she murmured, her voice wistful. “I even thought about asking Jeff to build me something on the porch over here. An outdoor soaking tub of some kind.”
Excuse the fuck out of me?
I slowly turned my head toward her. “You thought about asking Jeff to do this for you?”
“Jeff…the handyman?” she asked, clearly confused. “Yeah, why?”
“Nothing. Whatever.” My voice came out harsher than I meant it to. “I can be handy too.”
She huffed out a laugh, her eyes already closing again. “It’s no big deal. Just an idea…”
I didn’t say anything in response, but I clenched my jaw hard enough that it popped. Jeff. She was gonna ask Jeff. Like I didn’t have two perfectly good hands, a YouTube app, and a possibly unhealthy obsession with making her life easier.
If she needed something, her husband sure as shit would take care of it for her, not fucking Jeff.
Willa shifted, wincing before she could hide it, and I was immediately on alert.
“What do you need? Another gummy?”
“You trying to get me high as fuck? I’m not making out with you again.”
“Right now, you mean.” I grinned as she rolled her eyes. “And I’m just trying to get you comfortable. How can I do that?”
She adjusted herself again, her face pinching in pain before she settled against the bed and the lines bracketing her mouth finally relaxed. She closed her eyes and blew out a long, steady breath. “Distract me, please.”
Somehow, I didn’t think she meant with another day of practice.
“How about a little educational reading?” I reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the book she’d been reading every night before bed—the one she’d gotten from Penelope. Plowed by His Seeder. “Farmer boys do it for you now, wife?”
“I don’t need any commentary from you,” she said dryly. “Just read, Linc.”
So that was exactly what I did.
I flipped to the page where she’d left off and read the words aloud. This chapter started innocent enough with the two characters dancing around each other. But I wasn’t even three pages in before he was stripping her in the barn loft and bending her over a hay bale.
Willa’s cheeks flushed a deep pink and her breathing quickened, but she didn’t ask me to stop. She just lay there with her eyes shut, her body as close to comfortable as possible, and listened to me.
Somewhere between the farmer eating out the milkmaid and him plowing her with his seeder, Willa drifted off, her head falling softly to my shoulder. I closed the book and set it aside. Then, as gently as I could, I lifted my arm and tucked her into my side, allowing her to settle against me.
I bent my head and took a deep inhale, closing my eyes as I realized I’d become the hair-sniffing pervert I’d been trying to avoid. But right now, with Willa in my arms, her body relaxed enough to rest against me, I didn’t care.