Chapter 20
Twenty
But right now, she just needed to sit.
Lydia’s hands were still shaking on the steering wheel. She couldn’t make her fingers relax their death grip on the hard plastic.
She could still see Tom’s finger on that trigger and hear the rifle’s crack. She could still see Michael step between Tom and Ethan, blood spreading across his white shirt. He had walked away like the bullet had been nothing.
Rosie had asked if he was an angel, and Lydia had brushed it off as childhood imagination, but children saw things adults had trained themselves not to see.
Lydia needed to process what came next. Where would they live? How would she support the kids? On top of that, Tom was going to trial, and she had to testify and relive this whole nightmare in front of a courtroom full of strangers.
The most urgent thing about everything she needed to face, however, was Ethan.
Lydia got out of the car before she could spiral further. Her legs felt unsteady, like she’d been on a boat for too long and the ground hadn’t quite solidified yet. She made her way to the front door, fumbled with the key Ethan had given her less than two weeks ago.
Had it only been less than two weeks? It felt like years.
She stepped inside.
The house was quiet. Almost eerily so after the chaos of the farmhouse. The radios crackling, deputies shouting, Tom sobbing. Here, there was just the hum of the refrigerator and the creak of old floorboards settling and the whisper of wind against the windows.
“Ethan?” Her voice sounded too loud in the silence.
“In here.”
She followed his voice to the living room and found him sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
He looked like he’d been sitting there since he got home from the farmhouse, still wearing the same jeans and flannel shirt he’d had on that morning.
Dark circles under his eyes and tension in the set of his shoulders showed his exhaustion.
His hair was disheveled, like he’d been running his hands through it, and there was dirt smudged on his neck.
He looked up when she entered. Relief flooded his face.
“Hey,” he said softly, standing. He was looking at her like he was trying to memorize her face, like he was still half-convinced she might disappear. “Kids okay?”
“With Mrs. Figgs.” Lydia wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the house. “She insisted on keeping them for dinner too. Said they needed extra TLC today.”
“Good. That’s good.” Ethan took a step toward her, then stopped like he wasn’t sure he was allowed. “They’re surprisingly resilient.”
“They shouldn’t have to be.” Lydia’s voice cracked. “They’re six and nine.”
“Hey.” Ethan closed the distance between them in two strides, his hands gentle on her shoulders. “It’s over. Tom’s in custody. He’s not going to hurt anyone ever again.”
“I know. I know that logically. But I can’t—” She gestured helplessly at her shaking hands. “I can’t stop shaking. Everything is still replaying in my head. Ethan, if you hadn’t come, if Michael hadn’t?—”
“But I did come. And Michael did whatever Michael did. And we’re all still here.” His thumbs rubbed small circles on her shoulders. “That’s what matters.”
Lydia looked up at him. “Ethan, I?—”
“I need to tell you something first,” he interrupted, his voice urgent. “Before I lose my nerve. Before you say whatever you’re about to say and I miss my chance again.”
He guided her to the couch with gentle hands. The Christmas tree lights were on. Red and green and gold danced across the walls, across his face, across the nativity scene still sitting on the mantel.
Ethan stood in front of her like a man about to face a firing squad, shoulders squared, jaw tight, hands clenched at his sides.
“When Sarah died,” he began, and Lydia’s breath caught because he never talked about Sarah unprompted, never brought her up unless Lydia asked first, “I decided that was it for me. One shot at family, and I’d blown it by not being there when she needed me most.”
“You didn’t blow anything,” Lydia protested. “You couldn’t have known?—”
“Let me finish.” Ethan’s voice was gentle but firm. “Please. I need to say this.”
Lydia nodded, pressing her lips together.
“I closed myself off,” Ethan continued, starting to pace in front of the couch. “Went through the motions. Work, sleep, repeat. Told myself I was fine alone. That I didn’t need anyone. That it was better this way. Safer. Can’t lose someone if you never let them in, right?”
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing up in spikes. “I bought this house with Sarah. Furnished it the way we’d talked about. Hung the Christmas decorations she’d picked out. Like if I did everything exactly right, maybe she’d somehow know. Maybe it would count for something.”
Lydia’s throat tightened, aching for the man who’d built a shrine to his lost love and called it a life.
“But it was just a house,” Ethan said quietly. “Beautiful and perfect and completely empty. I’d come home after shifts and sit here—” He gestured at the couch. “—and just stare at the walls. Make dinner for one. Watch TV. Go to bed and wake up and do it all again. For three years.”
He stopped pacing, turned to face her. “Then you showed up.”
Lydia’s breath hitched.
“You and Eli and Rosie,” Ethan continued, his voice rough with emotion.
“Covered in soot, terrified and homeless. You were everything I’d told myself I didn’t want.
Messy, complicated, chaotic. A woman with an ex-husband who wanted her dead and two traumatized kids and more baggage than anyone should have to carry. ”
“Ethan—” Lydia started, hurt blooming in her chest.
“But you know what?” He crossed to the couch, knelt in front of her so they were eye to eye. “You were also everything I’d been missing. Laughter. Life. Purpose. A reason to come home that wasn’t just another empty house and another frozen dinner.”
His hands found hers, warm and callused and steady.
“You made this place a home, Lydia. In days you did what I couldn’t do in three years.
You filled it with noise and chaos and children’s laughter.
You put art projects on my refrigerator.
You left books on my coffee table. You wore my shirts and made coffee in my kitchen and argued with me about whether the kids needed jackets when it was fifty degrees outside. ”
Lydia laughed wetly, tears streaming down her face. “They did need jackets.”
“They absolutely did, and you were right.” Ethan’s thumbs brushed across her knuckles. “You’re right about a lot of things. Including the fact that I was being an idiot yesterday.”
“You weren’t?—”
“I was,” he insisted. “I fell in love with you, Lydia. I think I started falling the first morning when you made me coffee and remembered exactly how I take it even though I’d only mentioned it once.”
He shifted closer, his knees pressing against the couch on either side of her legs.
“Every day after that … watching you with your kids, seeing you rebuild your life from literal ashes, being let into your heart piece by piece even though you had every reason not to trust anyone ever again … I fell harder.”
“Ethan—” she began.
“I fell in love with the way you kiss Rosie’s forehead when you think she’s asleep,” Ethan continued, relentless, like he’d been holding this in for weeks and couldn’t stop now that he’d started.
“The way you check on Eli three times before you go to bed because you need to see him breathing. The way you hum when you cook. You wear my flannel shirts because they’re comfortable, not because you’re trying to be sexy, but somehow that makes it even more—” He stopped, swallowed hard.
He smiled. “I fell in love with your strength and resilience. You kept going even when everything was falling apart. Lydia, this morning, you stood between your children and a man with a gun without hesitation.”
“I was terrified,” Lydia whispered.
“I know. That’s why it was brave.” Ethan’s eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“I fell in love with you, and it scared me. Because what if I lost you too? What if I let myself care and then you left or got hurt or decided I wasn’t worth the trouble?
What if I opened myself up again and got destroyed all over again? ”
“It’s scary, isn’t it?”
“It is.” He looked ashamed. “I should have been brave enough to stay and remind you over and over again until you believed it that I wanted you with me. Instead, I walked away. I’m sorry, Lydia. I was an idiot.”
Tears streamed down Lydia’s face. “You’re not the idiot. I am. I convinced myself I was a burden, that I didn’t deserve you and needed to get my life together before—” She held back the words that were too vulnerable to speak out loud.
“Before what, Lydia?” Ethan asked. “Before you could let yourself be happy?”
”Before I could deserve to be with you. I don’t want to be your mess, Ethan, and all of this—” She waved her hands to point around them. “—has been a mess, and it’s mine to clean up, not yours.”
He cupped her face, thumbs brushing away tears even as fresh ones fell.
“Lydia, let me be part of the mess. I don’t want you only once your life is perfect.
I want you now. Exactly as you are. Chaos and crazy ex and all.
I want to be the person you turn to when things fall apart.
I want to help you pick up the pieces. Let me teach Eli to play catch and read Rosie bedtime stories.
Let me wake up to your terrible coffee every morning. ”
She laughed through her tears. “My coffee isn’t terrible.”
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted,” Ethan said, grinning now, his own tears spilling over, “and I spent three tours in Kandahar eating MREs that were older than some of the soldiers eating them. I’d still drink your terrible coffee every day for the rest of my life if it meant I got to keep you because it is utter perfection. Every drop of it.”
“I love you,” Lydia whispered. The words came easily now.
“I think I’ve loved you since you offered us your home without even knowing us.
You made grape juice our celebration drink because you knew about Tom and you didn’t want to make me uncomfortable.
I fell in love with you through a thousand little moments that added up to a future I was too scared to believe could be mine. ”
“Believe in it,” Ethan said fiercely. His hands were still on her face, thumbs still wiping away tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “Believe in us. Stay, Lydia. You and the kids. All of you. Be my family. Be the person I choose, every single day, for the rest of my life.”
Lydia’s heart stuttered. “Is that … are you?—”
“I’m asking you to marry me, yes” Ethan said, and his voice cracked with emotion.
“I know it’s fast. We should probably wait, follow the rules, date for a year, get engaged, and plan a wedding like normal people.
But life is short and unpredictable and I don’t want to waste another second not being your husband.
What do you say, Lydia? Let’s be brave together. Marry me.”
Lydia stared at him, this man who somehow saw through her defenses to the woman underneath.
Thank you for everything.
She had meant the note to be final, because she had been ready to walk away. Tom had always told her that she was too needy, too emotional, too weak, that she should be grateful he stayed even when she was such a disappointment. She had wanted so badly to prove Tom wrong.
Only to find out he had been wrong all along.
Because Ethan was here, telling her the opposite. Her chaos brought him life. Her brokenness was human and survivable, something that could be healed with time and patience and love. She wasn’t too much. She was exactly what he wanted.
Ethan believed she was worth choosing, worth coming home to, worth fighting for so much that he had offered his own life in exchange for hers.
She was still terrified that things could change, but she still said?—
“Yes.” It came out as a whisper.
Ethan’s eyes widened. “Yes?”
“Yes.” Her voice was louder now, more certain.
“I want to be brave with you. Yes, I’ll marry you.
” She pulled him up and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Yes to you, Ethan Cole. Yes to us. Yes to family. Yes.” She rested her head against his shoulder, her forehead pressed against the side of his neck.
“I can’t wait to tell the kids.” She could already imagine Rosie’s squeals and Eli’s cautious happiness.
“We’ll tell them together,” Ethan agreed.
“When you pick them up from Mrs. Figgs. We’ll sit them down and explain that—” He paused, suddenly looking uncertain.
“Wait. Is this okay? I should have asked them first. Should have made sure they were on board before I proposed. I’m doing this all backward?—”
“Ethan.” Lydia cupped his face, made him look at her. “They adore you. Rosie asked me last week if you were going to be her new daddy. Eli told me—” Her voice caught. “—Eli told me he felt safer here than he ever did in Ohio.”
Ethan’s eyes went bright with tears. “Really?”
“Really.” Lydia kissed him softly. “You’re already their family, Ethan. This just makes it official.” To demonstrate her point, she kissed him with everything she had.
He kissed her back like she was home and he’d been lost for far too long.
His hands were in her hair, on her back, pulling her closer until there was no space between them. His heartbeat matched hers, rapid and strong.
When they finally broke apart, both breathless and gasping, he rested his chin on her head with his arms wrapped around her. “I don’t have a ring,” he admitted, sounding embarrassed. “I was kind of improvising here. I should have gotten a ring and done it properly?—”
“I don’t need a ring,” Lydia interrupted, laughing and crying at the same time. “We’re a mess, remember? I don’t need any of that. I just need you.”
But Ethan was already pulling back, already digging in his pocket with a sheepish expression. “Actually, I might have something. Not a ring exactly, but—” He pulled out a Bandaid. One of the waterproof ones from his paramedic kit, still in its paper wrapper.
Lydia laughed so hard she almost choked. “Are you seriously?—”
“Ever the paramedic,” Ethan said with a grin. He unwrapped the Bandaid, then carefully wrapped it around her ring finger, smoothing it down with gentle touches. “There. Now it’s official. You’re stuck with me.”
The Bandaid on her finger was tan and utilitarian and completely ridiculous.
“Chaos,” she said. “It’s perfect.”