Epilogue
TESS
Two days later…
“Mommy, can we get nachos wike wast time?” Luke looked up at me as we walked hand in hand into the arena, his little red curls bouncing with each step.
I laughed, loving how his Ls always came out as Ws. “Yes, baby.”
He did a little fist pump in the air and ran off towards Emmett, who I was convinced was my son’s favorite human being on Earth. But he needed that, needed a strong male role model to show him how to be a good person. And I couldn’t think of anyone better for the job than my big brother.
I glanced around the parking lot again, triple-checking that Luke’s father hadn’t somehow found us.
It’d been nearly two months now since we came—escaped was more like it—to Wild Creek.
But even after all this time, I still checked over my shoulder every few minutes, still had nightmares, still woke up thinking I was trapped in my old, dingy apartment in Corpus Christi for a few seconds before I realized where I was.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and my blood turned to ice when I looked at all the notifications that sat ignored from the last two days while we’d been celebrating Savvy’s win and gearing up for Weston’s last ride.
Missed call Jeremy Watson (25)
Voicemail Jeremy Watson (15)
Jeremy Watson: Bring my son back home. Now. Before I come get him myself and drag u back here by ur hair.
There was a slew of other texts just like that.
All of them meant to scare me into going back.
At first, it had nearly worked, but the longer I’d been home, the less terrified of him I became.
And now, he was right, he would have to drag me by my hair, kicking and screaming, to make me go back to living under his thumb.
I’d rather be dead than go back to the life I had.
It was this newest text, though, that made my hands shake, that made me force down a sob so I didn’t draw any attention.
Jeremy Watson: I gave u ur time Tess but it’s run out now. I’m hiring a PI to figure out where the fuck u are. U can’t keep my son from me. And ur not gonna like what happens when I find u both.
My vision tunneled. The noise around me faded. I couldn’t breathe past the weight of his voice in my head.
“You okay?” I jumped at the sound of Levi’s voice. I shoved my phone in my back pocket, nodding quickly.
“Y-Yeah.” I gestured to the sea of people we were wedged into as we all funneled into the arena to watch Weston’s last ride. “Just hate crowds.”
Levi stopped walking then, and I, for whatever reason, did too.
“What did he say, Tess.” It wasn’t a question, but a demand to know.
I still didn’t understand how he knew when I was lying after only knowing me for a few weeks.
But I didn’t mind when Levi made demands, because it was nothing like when Jeremy did.
Jeremy ordered. He ordered without any room for negotiation because when I tried to negotiate, he’d throw things, hit things, or worse, me.
It didn’t matter if Luke was there or not.
When Levi demanded things, it was with good reason and intentions behind it.
Because he was a good, decent person who’d rather cut off his own arm than hurt someone else.
I handed him my phone, unable to look at him while he read it.
I winced at his sharp inhale and wanted to crawl into a hole when he muttered, “That motherfucker,” under his breath, likely reading the other texts.
It was humiliating to show them to someone else.
I still hadn’t been able to tell my siblings much of anything.
Levi was the only one who knew everything in all its traumatizing glory.
But he was my lawyer, so he kind of had to know every detail, no matter how much I didn’t want him to.
“You’re keeping all of these, right?” his voice was strained.
“Yeah, backing them up to my computer like you told me to.” I put my phone back in my pocket.
He told me to do that when we met last month to help provide evidence for my custody case.
While he never explicitly threatened Luke, Levi said it was enough that Jeremy was a threat to me to keep him out of our lives.
I forced myself to look up at Levi then. His square jaw was tight, hazel eyes fierce behind his glasses, handsome as ever. Butterflies swarmed in my belly the longer I looked at him.
I knew it was wrong, and admittedly stupid, to be crushing on my lawyer, but I couldn’t help it.
Not when he was so dedicated to helping Luke and me.
Not when he held me while I sobbed during our first meeting, and I told him every horrid thing that had happened to me in the eight years I was in Corpus Christi.
And definitely not three weeks ago when he was a little drunk at the Bull Pen and told me I was beautiful when I laughed.
“Mommy! Wevi!” Luke called from above. Levi and I both looked up to find him hanging over the railing of the arena, Emmett’s arms tight around him. “Are you coming?”
I grinned at his little smile, all my worries fading. “Yes!”
“Let’s go,” Levi said, taking my hand in his. I told myself it was purely so we didn't get separated in the crowd. That it meant nothing.
Because it couldn’t mean anything.
But that didn’t stop me from tightening my grip.
Or him from tightening his.
The crowd roared as Weston flew out into the arena on the back of a bull. My heart seized, just waiting for something to go wrong, but nothing did.
I looked over at Savannah, her hands clasped against her chest as she watched him, standing at the fence line.
I wasn’t even sure she was blinking. Or breathing, for that matter.
But that could’ve been the Xanax she popped as she walked out the door, mumbling about how ecstatic she was that this was the last time she’d have to watch him ride.
“Four… Five… Six…” the crowd yelled out as the last seconds of Weston’s professional bull rider career ticked by.
My ears rang when the crowd got to eight and Weston jumped off the bull onto the back of a horse to get him out of the bull’s way.
People were blowing air horns, ringing cowbells, yelling into megaphones, shooting confetti cannons.
It was the most chaotic thing I’d ever been a part of, that I’d ever seen.
Weston slid off the horse to his knees in the dirt, sobbing in the middle of the arena while everyone celebrated him. I couldn’t imagine the torrent of emotions hitting him right now.
Beau and Colt slammed into each other in a hug, their beers sloshing.
Claire, Brittany, and Delilah jumped around next to me, half-crazed.
Levi and Emmett high-fived, yelling. Anna and Joseph hugged, smashing baby Hattie in soundproof headphones between them.
Luke and Henry had their fingers in their ears, grinning so hard I thought their little faces would split.
But my sister, my buttoned-up, former big-city lawyer sister, jumped the fence. She shoved rodeo officials out of her way. Her boots kicked up dirt as she ran towards Weston, sinking to the ground in front of him.
My eyes stung watching them together. At the way she held him, the way he clung to her, his head in her lap, at the love and devotion that was so blatantly visible between them. I hoped I’d have something like that one day. I’d even take half of what they had.
My gaze slowly slid down a row, over to where Levi stood, smiling at the arena. He had a beautiful smile. Dimples, too.
Man, I was in deep. It was setting myself up for heartbreak to even entertain these feelings I had.
Absolutely stupid and foolish. I knew they wouldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t go anywhere while he was my lawyer.
But there was something about Levi that drew me in like a moth to a flame, as cliché as it seemed.
He glanced up at me, doing a double-take. His grin softened to a warm, tender smile that melted me. There was something unreadable in his eyes, something soft, something that made my breath catch in my throat.
“Oh my fucking God!” Delilah screamed.
My head whipped towards the arena. Weston was on one knee, holding a small box in his shaking hand. I gasped, a hand flying to my mouth. Savvy nodded, throwing her arms around his shoulders and nearly knocking him to the ground.
The crowd exploded, and I laughed, happy tears streaking my cheeks.
My sister was engaged. Engaged to the love of her life…again. But I knew this time it’d last. There was no getting between what she and Weston had.
I just hoped that even with my troubled past and uncertain future, I’d find someone like that for me. Someone who was always there. Someone who never made me doubt. Someone who understood me.
And if this were some kind of wishlist, I’d add: someone who maybe looked a lot like Levi Hollis.
The END