Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Wyatt
The bedroom is completely still. The aftermath of our tangled limbs and heavy breathing has finally settled over the sheets.
Emily is tucked against my side, her skin glowing in the pale Montana moonlight that’s breaking through a gap in the drapes.
I’m playing with her hair, my fingers tangling in the soft, golden strands like it’s my God-given right because, frankly, I don’t think I want to stop touching this woman for the rest of my damn life.
It’s midnight, and we’re both too drunk on each other to sleep.
Two rounds later, we’re both finally spent. She’s been quiet for a good fifteen minutes, and for a second, I think she’s finally drifted off. But then I feel the hitch in her chest. Her breathing is too quick to be asleep. She’s thinking.
“What was she like?” she asks suddenly, breaking the silence.
I stiffen. There it is.
The ghost of Charlotte has lived in the corners of this room for years. It’s the room we shared, the life we built, and for a long time, being here with anyone else felt like a betrayal. But with Emily, somehow that feeling has disappeared.
“Baby,” I rasp lazily, tipping her chin up. It lightens the sudden stabbing in my chest. “I just fucked your brains out, and you want to know about my late wife?”
“I’m just curious,” she says, propping herself up on one elbow. The sheet slips, exposing the roundness of her chest, but she doesn’t notice. “I mean, it’s not like it ended in a bitter divorce. She died. You must have loved her.”
I take a deep breath as my heart decides to miss a couple of beats.
I’ve held this in for so long that the weight of it feels like it’s about to snap my ribs.
But if this thing with Emily is going to work, I have to stop hiding behind the shield.
I have to tell her that the ‘perfect’ marriage everyone on this ranch remembers isn’t the whole story.
“Wyatt, sorry—if it’s too hard, you don’t have to. I understand.”
Her voice is soft, but she’s giving me an out I don’t want to take. It’s time to start being honest. Emily is the only person I trust with my entire heart, and I’m realizing that if I don’t share this burden with her, it’s eventually going to crush me.
“She was…great,” I start, my voice cracking.
Emily shoots me a look that could shatter glass. “Wyatt Miller, if I die and all you can say is ‘she was great,’ you bet your ass I’m going to haunt the fuck out of you.”
I shouldn’t laugh, but she’s so damn funny even when the world is heavy.
I shake my head, looking at the ceiling.
“I just…she was a great mom. The best, actually. She adored Alex. But her and I…” I swallow hard, scrubbing a hand down my face as the truth finally claws its way up. “God, I’ve never told anyone this.”
Emily goes still, her hand resting gently on my chest.
“The day she died…she…she handed me divorce papers that morning,” I rasp, the words still feeling like blades. “We had a fight. A bad one. She left, went for a drive to clear her head, and…she never came back.”
“Wyatt.” Emily’s hand flies to her mouth, her eyes filling with a sudden, pained understanding. “That’s…fuck. No wonder you’ve been this way.”
I shrug, but it feels heavy. “I just felt so fucking guilty. Like it was my fault. I should have gone after her or stopped her from leaving. I’d already lost her as a wife, but then Alex lost his mom, too.”
I look at Emily, needing her to see the whole messy picture.
“There was nothing serious between us when we met. We just kinda…hooked up at parties now and then. She was six months along by the time she told me she was pregnant. She hid it as long as she could. Her parents threw her out the second they found out. We were only kids—she was eighteen. We had a shotgun wedding because it was the ‘right’ thing to do. We tried, and for a while, we were okay, but there was always something missing. Something that wasn’t quite there with us. ”
I think about her parents, the coldness that still radiates from that side of the valley.
“I think she always resented the fact that she had to put her life on hold. She wanted to travel, to see the world, but she chose to have Alex and move here with me. Her parents haven’t asked to see that boy once.
Not in the entire ten years he’s been alive. ”
I look at Emily, her face isn’t pitying me. It’s pure, unfiltered grace, and the guilt doesn’t feel like it’s going to drown me.
“And you’ve been carrying that around for all this time?”
I sigh. “I didn’t know how to put it down.”
She brings a soft hand to my jaw and pulls me to her lips. The taste of her pulls me back safely to the moment. God, she feels so fucking safe.
“I had to be honest with you,” I whisper against her mouth. “Because I’ve spent too long lying to myself. Alex doesn’t need to know any of this. It’s rough enough losing a mom without realizing his parents were only together out of duty.”
Emily holds me tightly, her eyes searching mine. “The only people who need to know are the ones you want to tell. I’d never share that, Wyatt. But I’m glad you trusted me enough to let it go.”
She smiles, and it melts the last of the ice around my heart.
“I love you so fucking much, Emily.”
The words are the truest thing I’ve ever said. It hits me harder than the guilt ever did that what Charlotte and I had was a contract. But what I feel for Emily Callahan? This is what I’ve been looking for since I was seven years old.