Chapter 28
Molly
The first thing I see when I wake up is Taz.
I barely register the monitors or the IV pole. Last time, when I gave birth without my husband beside me, I kept staring at the chair where he should have been.
Just Taz. Sitting in the chair beside my bed, holding my hand, wearing his reopening shirt with my blood dried brown on the sleeve. His eyes are red-rimmed and his jaw is covered in stubble and he looks like he hasn't slept in years.
He looks like mine.
"Hey," I say. My voice comes out scratchy.
His whole face changes. "Hey. Don't move. Let me get the nurse."
"Don't you dare," I tell him.
He freezes halfway out of the chair.
"Sit," I tell him. "Stay. I'm not done looking at you yet."
He sits. His hand finds mine again like it belongs there. "How do you feel?"
"Like I got stabbed and stuffed in a truck," I say.
"The nurse can help with the pain," he says. "You don't have to make a joke first."
"It's either that or scream, and I haven't brushed my teeth." I try to shift, and pain lances through my side. "Ow, okay. How bad?"
"Two cracked ribs. Twenty-three stitches." His jaw tightens. "The knife nicked you, but it didn't hit anything important. You're going to be fine."
I keep hearing Boone in the truck: "You're gonna record a video.
Tell everyone you lied about the attack.
Made it all up to hurt Kendall's case." A retraction wouldn't erase the evidence.
He only shouted at me to stop cooperating with the lawyers.
They wanted to frighten me into taking back the truth, as if that could put Kendall's life back where she wanted it.
"And Clem?" I ask.
"With my mom," he says. "Safe. Perfect. Asking for you, according to Mom, but I think she's projecting because Clem's nine weeks old and can't actually ask for things yet."
I laugh, and it hurts, but I don't care. "What time is it?"
"Seven in the morning," he says.
"What day?" I ask.
"Sunday," he says.
I stare at him. "You've been here all night?"
"I've been here since they let me through the doors." His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand. "The waiting room was too far away."
"Taz—" I begin.
"Don't." His voice is rough. "You don't have to reassure me about staying. I wanted to be here. I'm done being in the wrong room when you need me."
My chest breaks open, the good way, the way that lets light in.
"The bee costume was still worse," I say.
He blinks. "What?"
"The stunt you pulled at the parade," I tell him. "Still the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me."
"I roped a man like a steer for you," he says.
"Okay, that was actually impressive." I squeeze his hand. "The trough thing, though. The trough thing I'm taking to my grave."
"Rudy offered to drain every trough before the next rodeo," Taz says. "Apparently I qualify as a livestock hazard."
"I'd decline," I tell him. "Watching you climb out kept me going through an extremely unpleasant week."
His smile softens. "I'd have fallen in twice if I'd known."
"Don't make me laugh," I say. "These stitches probably came with a payment plan."
He brings my hand to his mouth, and I let the quiet settle. He's here for the ugly part too. The pain, the fear, the joke that isn't quite enough to keep either away.
A knock at the door. Maggie's face appears, Clem bundled in her arms.
"There you are," Maggie says. Her voice shakes. "I brought your daughter. And a hairbrush, because hospital gift shops apparently believe sick women only require bears and enormous balloons."
"Did you get a bear?" I ask.
"Two," she says. "I was under strain."
Taz gets up to help her. Maggie waits while he steadies the pillows, then carefully transfers Clem to my good arm.
"Tell me if this hurts," she says. "Nobody has to prove anything today."
"Closer," I whisper. "I need her closer."
"There, sweetheart," Maggie says. "I've got you both."
Clem's weight settles against my chest, warm and solid and perfect. She's wearing the yellow onesie with the tiny bees on it, Sagebloom Honey's unofficial mascot uniform, and her eyes are open, blinking up at me, puzzled by the antiseptic smell.
I start crying.
"Oh, honey." Maggie's hand is on my shoulder. "You're safe now. You're both safe."
"We are." I can't stop the tears. "We are, I just—"
"Shh." Taz leans forward, one hand on Clem, one hand on me. "You don't have to explain."
I don't try to. I just hold my daughter and cry while my husband and his mother stand guard, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I don't feel like I have to be strong for anyone.
Sheriff Rawlings comes by in the early afternoon with Deputy Ruiz. Boone and Jolene are in jail. Kendall is back there too. Nobody is being released today.
"We'll let you know what happens on Monday," Rawlings says. "You don't have to face any of them right now."
I nod. I believe him. But it doesn't feel like relief exactly. More like the space where relief will be once I stop hurting.
After Rawlings leaves, it's just me and Taz again. Clem's asleep in the portable bassinet Maggie brought, and the room is quiet except for the monitor beeping and the distant sound of hospital noise.
"I need to ask you something," Taz says.
His voice has that careful quality, the one he uses when he's trying not to overstep.
"Your Sagebloom bookings. The farmers' market next weekend, the custom orders in the queue.
I saw order notifications on your phone at the reopening, before you were—" He stops.
Swallows. "Taken. There were orders coming in. I don't know what you've promised yet."
I shift against the pillows. My side aches where the stitches pull. "You want to cancel them?"
"I want to handle them. If you'll let me.
" He meets my eyes. "Just the next two weeks.
I'll email your customers, explain there's a family emergency, offer refunds or reschedule dates.
I'll deal with the vendor at the Saturday market.
Rita said she'd watch your booth if we want to keep the slot, or I can pull out entirely. Your call."
"You want to be my secretary?" I ask.
"I want to be useful." A pause. "I want you to rest without worrying about your business falling apart."
I study him: the exhaustion carved into his face, the way he's holding himself, braced for a no. A month ago I would have. Two months ago I would have bitten his head off for even suggesting he touch my email.
But I'm tired. And he's here. And maybe this is what trust looks like when you're rebuilding it from the studs: small permissions. Specific tasks. Letting someone help without handing them the keys to everything.
"I trust you," I say. "Emails and bookings only. You don't change my pricing, you don't redesign my labels, you don't start making executive decisions about my honey varieties."
His mouth twitches. "So I should cancel the rebrand?"
"You will never hear the end of it," I tell him.
"Noted." He's almost smiling now. "Thank you. For trusting me."
"Don't make me regret it," I say.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he says.
"For the record," I add, "the rebrand joke goes in the file with the bee suit and the water trough."
"I'll put all three on the chairman's résumé," he says.
"Now tell me about the company," I say.
"What about it?" he asks.
"Your mother says the board keeps asking when you're coming back," I tell him.
His face closes off a little. "I'm not going back."
"Taz—" I start.
"I mean it," he says. "I've been thinking about it since—since you left. Since before you left, honestly. I was never supposed to be CEO. That was my father's role, and when he died I just... stepped into it because someone had to, and then I never stepped out."
"But it's your family's company," I say.
"Which is why I don't want to destroy it by being the wrong person in charge." He meets my eyes. "Hollis is better at this than me. He always has been. He actually likes the board meetings and the quarterly reports and all the stuff I've been faking my way through for years."
"You worked yourself sick," I say. "Was any of it what you wanted?"
"The ranch. The animals. Teaching new hands things Dad taught me. I let that part disappear under a calendar full of obligations." He takes a breath. "I already stepped down. They want me back as chairman, but I won't be CEO. Let Hollis run things the way they should be run. Come home."
My chest aches, and not from the cracked ribs.
"I'll put limits in writing," he says. "Days, hours, travel. Then you and I look at what that actually means for our week before I agree to it."
"Include dinner," I tell him. "If you schedule over dinner, Clem gets your chair."
"She's a ruthless negotiator." He's almost smiling. "Anything else?"
"Yes." I drop my hand. "I want to tell Kendall what she did to me. In person. With her in the room."
His smile fades.
"Molly—" he says.
"I want to look at her while I say what she did to me. She doesn't get to decide how I tell it." I meet his eyes. "I need me to know I'm not afraid of her anymore."
He doesn't say anything at first.
Then: "Whatever you need. I'll be right there."
"Front row," I murmur, closing my eyes, suddenly exhausted. "I'm counting on it."