Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TUCKER
The trail was still cloaked in mist when my brothers and I set out for our pre-family-breakfast ritual—our unofficial, no-one-admitted-we-liked-it run along the river.
It was early. Too early for me, given the past few nights I’d had, tossing and turning.
Alone in my bed.
Hazel had gone back to the spare bedroom.
But at least she hadn’t left.
Caleb was already five steps ahead, jogging backward, grinning like a man who knew he was about to be insufferable.
“You keep frowning like that and your face is gonna freeze that way,” he called. “Even Hazel won’t be able to pretend you’re the best-looking one anymore.”
“I’m the best-looking one,” Ryder deadpanned.
“Not even close,” Caleb said confidently.
I didn’t respond. Mostly because I was too busy trying to hold myself together. Every step hit the dirt path like it was personal. The salty fog drifted in off the river, hanging low and thick, clinging to the moss-covered branches like it didn’t know how to let go.
Neither did I. Not when she’d handed me that sonogram like it was a piece of herself she never thought she’d share. Not when I’d seen the way her hands shook and heard the way her voice splintered and realized that she still somehow thought walking away had been the right thing.
From here we could hear the ocean booming softly, that slow rhythmic heartbeat of the coast I’d grown up with. It usually grounded me.
Not today.
Because all I could hear was Hazel’s voice in my head—the way it’d broken when she’d handed me that sonogram, raw and shaking and honest in a way that still had my chest caving in two days later.
She’d truly believed she had to go through it alone.
Apparently my silence was suspicious, because Ryder slowed his pace and shot me a look. “You good?”
“Peachy.”
“What a totally normal way to say that,” he said. “Very convincing.”
Caleb doubled back, still jogging in reverse like a man with zero regard for personal space or emotional land mines. “Yeah, and why haven’t you lectured us yet about how this isn’t real cardio?”
“What’s wrong with saying ‘peachy’?”
“Nothing,” Ryder said. “If you’re eighty.”
I grunted.
Caleb glanced at Ryder. “Did he hit his head again?”
“Not this week, that I know of.”
I didn’t crack a smile. Couldn’t. My brain was still stuck on the look on her face when I’d said the wrong thing. Again. And then the sound of her voice when she’d said, I’d like to be alone now.
Because she believed that’s what she deserved.
And what had I done? I’d left, like the biggest asshole on the planet. I hadn’t tried. I hadn’t even told her I loved her.
My brothers flanked me like overly aggressive mall cops, subtle as bricks, loud as toddlers with drums, and just as relentless.
“You didn’t send me the renovation estimate for the Baxter place,” Ryder said. “You said I’d have it today.”
“And you will.” My legs burned. The chilled air seared my lungs. Or maybe that was just the ache in my chest taking up too much space.
Caleb gave Ryder a look, and they both slowed to a walk.
I kept running.
So Caleb tripped me.
I tucked and rolled on instinct, then lay on my back in the damp grass, staring up at my soon-to-be-dead brother, calculating how long I might spend in jail for burying his body out here.
“Talk,” Caleb said, planting a running shoe on my chest so I couldn’t get up.
I grabbed him by the calf and yanked, satisfied when he hit the grass on his back with an oomph.
“Rude,” he gasped.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Tough shit,” Ryder said. “Because whenever I don’t want to talk about something, you still make me.”
I stared up at the pink-and-gold sunrise. “Yeah, well, you can’t make me.”
They sat on either side of me. Caleb nudged my shoulder. “Is it Hazel? Did something happen? Did she shrink-wrap your truck again?”
“She pull another Houdini?” Ryder asked.
“Did she take out another tree along Main Street?”
I let out a low laugh at the list of some of Hazel’s adventures, but there was no weight behind it.
Ryder sobered. “Talk.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “She told me something. Something she never got the chance to say back then. All I knew was that Bill had told her to straighten up and fly right, or leave. He’d said that before, many times, but she took this one at face value.”
Both of them stilled.
“There’s more,” Ryder said.
“Yeah.” I stared up at the sky like it was my job. It was going to be a warm day, eventually. “She was pregnant when she left. She miscarried. Alone.”
Caleb went still, his expression sliding from curious to gutted. “Yours?” he asked quietly.
I nodded.
“I take it you didn’t know.”
I shook my head. “She was going to tell me the night she left. But I didn’t show.
Hank had been on a tear and had refused to let me go anywhere.
I could’ve sneaked out, as I had many, many times before, but I couldn’t leave Kiera.
I just…couldn’t. And before either of you says anything, you wouldn’t have either.
I knew that, just as I knew you’d protected me from Hank for years.
And I knew I was going to do the same for Kiera. ”
Ryder cursed low.
Caleb let out a breath like he’d been punched in the chest.
I could still see that damn kitchen clock ticking past midnight, knowing Kiera was asleep in her bed, counting on me to make sure she stayed safe. Me standing guard over Hank, who’d passed out drunk in his chair.
I’d thought I was doing the right thing. Thought Hazel would understand.
Above me, the wind rustled the pines, birds squawked, and the ache sitting heavy in my chest got heavier.
Because now I knew what I’d missed.
A whole life. A heartbeat I never got to hear.
And I hadn’t even known to grieve it.
“Hazel carried that on her own. For twelve goddamn years.”
And she still did. Even now, she tucked her pain behind sarcastic smiles and I’ve got it handled. Like it was a habit she couldn’t break.
Caleb blew out a breath. “Shit, Tuck.”
“Yeah.”
“I always wondered why she left like that,” Ryder said. “It never made sense. So, you two were…?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We were.”
Caleb dragged a hand through his hair. “You’re lucky Bill didn’t bury you behind Al’s Diner.”
“He still might, depending on what Hazel tells him. If she tells him.”
Ryder tilted his head. “Where do you and Hazel stand now?”
I gave a joyless laugh.
“How are you going to fix this?”
I looked at Ryder. “I can’t. She’s shut me out, back to shouldering everything on her own.”
“You mad at her?” Caleb asked quietly.
“No. I’m not. I would never be mad at her for this. I hate that she didn’t tell me, but I hate more that she had to go through it alone.”
I hated that I’d failed her. Then and now. That when it had counted most, I hadn’t been there.
“You love her,” Caleb said, simple and sure.
The sun broke through the treetops, slanting across the clearing. “Yeah. I do.”
Ryder didn’t even blink. “Then you figure out what comes next.”
“We’ve got your back,” Caleb added. “Even when you’re an idiot.”
I nodded, because for the first time in days, the silence settled—not just around me, but inside me too. Not like dead air, but like space.
Room to breathe.
Room to move forward.
Maybe it was the beginning.
Maybe now I could start figuring it out. Not just how to say the right thing. But how to show her she mattered. That she always had.
Maybe I’d find a way to prove to Hazel that she wasn’t alone anymore.