Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
PAIN IN MY FUCKING ASS
HENRY
I like to think I’m a man who doesn’t shock easily.
Life’s handed me enough beatings to last ten lifetimes, and being sheriff of a town like Thunder Ridge?
It means you see behind the masks. You learn quickly who people really are when the chips are down, and let me tell you—there are some sorry motherfuckers hiding in plain sight.
Wolves in church clothes. Monsters behind apple pie smiles.
But nothing—and I mean nothing—knocked the wind out of me like the woman sitting to my right.
Louisiana Wright.
The great love of my life.
The biggest pain in my fucking ass, and, apparently, the most heartbreakingly stubborn woman God ever put breath into.
She sat there, cradling that baby with a fierce, bone-deep tenderness only she could possess—like she’d poured every ounce of love she had into the curve of her arms. Then she looked up at me, eyes shining with unshed tears, those honeyed depths wide and wrecked, and whispered, “I can’t give you this,” and the whole world just… stopped.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t fucking think.
She said it like a confession. Like a curse. Like she expected me to nod and walk away because the future she imagined I wanted was suddenly off the table.
But all I could do was stare at her.
Because that? That was it? That’s what she’d been holding back all these years? That was the God damn reason she’d kept me at a distance, built walls between us, filled every space with fire and fury just to make me stay away?
Because she couldn’t have kids?
My heart cracked wide open. Not because I gave a damn about babies, but because she thought that made her less.
She thought that made her unworthy of love.
Of me.
And God damn if that didn’t gut me.
I wanted to take her face in my hands and scream that I didn’t fucking care. That I never did. That all I’ve ever wanted, since I was too damn young to know what love even meant, was her. Messy. Unruly. Stubborn. Loyal. Brave. Broken in all the ways that made her beautiful.
But there was another part of me—burning white-hot with fury.
Not at her. Never at her. At the grief she carried alone.
At the lies she told herself. At the way she looked at me like I’d want something else.
Someone else. Like she thought I could live in a world where she didn’t belong front and center.
She was ready to give me up. Not because she didn’t love me—but because she loved me too much to let me settle for a life she didn’t think she could give.
Boy, did that fucking break me.
All these years spent playing by her rules, trying like hell to worm my way back to us, but tonight it all clicked into place.
How she apologized to me when Dallas told her she looked like a real mom, and the silence that wrapped around her when babies came up—how Sophie would look at her, sad and soft, like she was holding a truth that wasn’t hers to name.
She’s been bleeding for years and I didn’t see it. I didn’t fucking see it. I thought she was mad. Defensive. Guarded. I thought she just didn’t want me. But she wasn’t angry—she was mourning. Grieving what she thought she’d never have. Grieving what she believed made her less.
Jesus Christ, I missed it. I missed her, but not anymore.
Because now I see her—really fucking see her.
And I know without a shred of doubt there’s no version of this life, no dream, no future I want if she’s not standing in the center of it.
She thought she had to give me everything.
That love meant giving me children. A legacy.
A family she thought she couldn’t build.
But what she never understood—what no one ever told her loud enough—is that she is the damn thing I’ve always wanted.
No baby. No picket fence. No legacy.
Only her.
She thought she had to be whole to be loved.
That if she couldn’t give me everything, she shouldn’t give me anything.
What she doesn’t see—what I see so fucking clearly—is that she is love.
She shows up. She stays. She fights. Even when it hurts.
Especially when it hurts. That’s what makes a mother.
That’s what makes a partner. That’s what makes a family. That’s what makes her mine.
I catch her from the corner of my eye, and the tension radiating off her is impossible to miss.
She’s sitting too straight, too still—like her spine’s made of steel and the smallest movement might crack her wide open.
Her hands are folded tight in her lap, fingers knotted together in a grip so tense her knuckles have gone white.
She hasn’t spoken since we dropped Dallas off for a impromptu sleepover at Mama’s with the boys—and Mercy, who insisted on tagging along like the chaos-loving menace he is.
The moment that door closed behind them, it was like someone flipped a switch in her.
Her body went still, but the air around her shifted.
Heavy. Tense. Loud in a way silence rarely is.
She hasn’t said a word, but her body is telling on her—loud and clear. It’s written in the tight set of her jaw, the way her leg bounces once, twice, then locks still again. That quiet, anxious energy fills every inch of the cab, pressing against my chest until it’s hard to breathe.
“Lou—”
“No.” Her voice slices through the quiet, sharp and immediate.
I inhale slowly, trying to keep my tone steady, gentle. “Just listen to me—”
“I said no.” This time it lands heavier, colder. Final. Like a slammed door. Like the sound of something locking from the inside.
Too fucking bad for her. She’s had well over ten years to close the door, to shut me out, to keep her walls up like they were gospel. But now? Now it’s my turn to blow that bitch wide open—and I’m not asking for permission.
I press harder on the gas, the cruiser’s engine growling as I flick the lights on, ignoring the sharp look she shoots at me and the way her hand flies to the oh-shit handle. Good. Let her hang on.
With jerky, pissed-off movements, I whip the car into the sheriff’s office lot and throw it in park, unbuckling fast enough to make the belt snap back into place.
“Don’t you dare fucking move,” I bark, voice like gravel and fire, slamming the door behind me before she can say a damn word.
I storm through the side entrance, straight to the supply room where Cece keeps all her organizational shit. Paper, clipboards, markers—and a stack of cardboard boxes tucked in the back corner. I grab the whole fucking pile and stomp back out.
I toss the boxes into the back seat like kindling and climb back in, the engine growling as we head home.
I barely put the car in park before grabbing those damned boxes out of the back and dragging her behind me, the gravel crunching beneath our feet as we cross the thirty-six shitty little yards that sit between her house and mine.
Reaching the hiding spot, I pull the spare key free and barrel through the door without waiting for an invitation—like I am storming a damn fortress. I don’t wait for her, I just start packing her shit up.
“What do you think you are doing?”
“Moving you in,” I reply without missing a beat, tossing another box onto the kitchen table with a thud that makes her flinch.
“Henny—”
“No!” I turn to face her, breathing hard. “You don’t get to do that.”
She freezes in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest like armor, jaw clenched tight, but I push forward, every word stripped bare.
“I’ve played by your rules. I sat back while you tried to give me up—telling yourself you weren’t good enough, that you didn’t deserve me.” I point at her. “God damn you, Lou, I’m done. I won’t do it again. I can’t.”
“My heart doesn’t break because you can’t have kids.
It breaks because that’s what you reduced me to.
Like all I ever wanted from you was a baby, like that was the only version of a future I could live with.
” My voice cracks. “And that’s on me. I should’ve made you feel like you were enough.
I should’ve loved you harder. Louder. Bigger.
So you never had to question it for a single fucking second.
I should’ve looked at the distance you put between us and laughed at it, because nothing in this damned life matters without you to share it with wildflower. ”
She stares at me, glassy-eyed, then looks down at the box in her hands and says flatly, “I was just going to say…don’t manhandle Sophie’s baby pictures like that.”
I blink. She smirks, and I let out a sound—half laugh, half broken groan—before whispering, “I love you…but fuck you.”
“You know what?” she snaps, the words cutting out of her like glass. “Aunt Joe was right. Surrounded by all this God damn love—people showing up for me, over and over—and I still couldn’t pull my head out of my ass long enough to see it.”
I watch her pace, knowing she needs to just get it out.
“I let my fucking uterus—or lack of one—decide my value. I convinced myself I was broken, like I had nothing left to give, so I buried myself in grief and used Daddy’s death as a God damn smokescreen. Then the hysterectomy? That was the ammo I needed to push you out for good.”
Lou jabs my finger at me, voice shaking now. “I used it, Henry. I weaponized my pain and built a fortress with it, and you still kept showing up. Kept fucking standing there. Waiting for me.”
Her eyes glisten as she clenches her fist at her sides.
“I made myself the martyr. I fed myself the lie that if I couldn’t give you a baby, I couldn’t give you a life.
You know what’s worse? I let that lie keep me from the one God damn thing I’ve ever really wanted.
” Her voice breaks on the last word trembling. “You.”
She stands there, trembling with everything she’s buried for years, and when her eyes finally meet mine, I swear to God—it hits me harder than any punch I’ve ever taken.
“I love you,” she said, voice wrecked and trembling. “But I love you enough to step back and let you have what you deserve.”
It guts me.
“That makes you a damned fool, Louisiana.” My voice is rough, uneven, like I’m dragging years of frustration and pain out of a hole I’ve been burying myself in.
“Because what I deserve isn’t some perfect life or some shiny, polished version of happiness.
It’s you. All of you. The scars, the fights, the messy, broken parts.
Every damn piece. They are fucking mine, and you have spent the last ten years keeping them from me. ”
I close the distance between us, chest tight, lungs burning like I’m holding my breath too long. The air thickens, heavy with everything we never said aloud—all the raw truths that lived in shadows between us.
“You carry more love in that fucked-up, beaten-down heart of yours than most folks carry in their whole damn bodies. Look at Dallas—you gave him all of you, even when it felt like there wasn’t anything left to give. That’s not weakness. That’s fucking strength. That’s who you are.”
My jaw clenches tight, and the weight of all those years, all the fights, all the silence and pain, crashes down. “I told you once—I was the gamble, never him.”
I grab her hand, rough fingers curling around hers like a lifeline. The calluses on my palm brush her skin, grounding me. It steadies me. It steadies us.
“So, I won’t have biological children? I don’t give a fuck about that. Biology doesn’t mean shit.” My voice cracks, raw and real. “It shouldn’t be the excuse to shove your love on a shelf like some damn decoration.”
My thumb moves slowly over her knuckles, every touch a promise.
“You have so much love to offer and if you decide you want more kids, we’ll rescue the ones hidden in the darkest corners and raise them with grit and unconditional love.
If you don’t, I don’t give a damn. Me, you, Dallas—that’s everything I need. ”
My voice drops to a ragged whisper, “Because you? You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted. The only thing that’s ever mattered.”
I lean in, the world narrowing until it’s just us, breath mingling, raw and real. My eyes catch the light in hers—wet and wild. “Not what you can give. Not what you can’t. Just you, wildflower, in every fucking way I can get you.”
Without warning, she yanks me down, her lips crashing against mine—fierce, desperate, and full of everything we both needed.
When we finally break apart, I grin, nodding to her finger. “So, here’s what’s going to happen—you’re moving in, and that ring? It’s getting swapped out for a real one.”
She blinks, completely unsurprised. “You aren’t even going to ask?”
I shake my head, a smirk pulling at my lips. “Hell no. We’ll hit the justice of the peace first thing tomorrow and make it official.”
She gives me that look—the one that says you crazy motherfucker—but her eyes are soft, full of something that wraps tight around my ribs. “I love you, Henry Wilder,” she whispers, voice edged with wonder and something deeper.
“I love you too, wildflower,” I say, the words low and rough, scraped straight from the bone. They’re not just a confession—they’re a claim. My hand slips into her hair, slow and deliberate, curling tight at the base of her neck as I pull her to me, mouths just a breath apart.
“You’ve run long enough,” I murmur, voice like gravel and heat. “No more hiding. No more holding back.”
I drag my eyes over her, hungry and unrelenting. “Now take off those clothes.”
A beat of silence hangs thick between us before I lean in, lips grazing her ear.
“I want that pathetic little scrap of fabric you call panties in my hand. Tonight, I want every inch of you—bare, open, mine.”
I tug again, firmer this time, just enough to make her gasp.
“Show me how deep it goes, wildflower. That love you swear you’ve carried all this time. Show it to me, and fucking give it to me.”