Chapter 17 #3
Miller doesn’t look up. Just folds a napkin with clinical precision and replies, “I’m always in a nice outfit.”
Ridge huffs out a laugh. “That’s true.”
Miller finally glances over at him then—slow, assessing—and lets her eyes drag down to his jeans and worn gray T-shirt.
She raises one perfectly shaped brow. “I guess the same can’t be said of others. We can’t all have my good taste, unfortunately.”
Ridge grins, stepping just a little closer—close enough that someone not paying attention might not notice, but I do. Ridge never moves without a reason, and Miller has always been his exception.
“You need help with anything?” he asks, voice lower now, like it’s just for her.
“Nope,” Miller says, popping the p like punctuation, still focused on adjusting the dishes around the cake box.
Then she scrunches her nose. “Get away from me. You smell like a cow.”
Ridge grins. “Be specific. Dairy or beef?”
“Whatever kind gets loaded into a trailer and driven straight to hell.”
Ridge just chuckles. It’s subtle, but I see it—his eyes flick toward her like she’s something he’s still hoping to figure out.
Before he can answer, Hudson walks in from the hallway and lights up when he sees Miller.
“Hey, Mills,” he says, giving her a one-armed hug that she returns with a real one. “You brought balloons and cake so you’re officially the best person here.”
“Finally. Some appreciation around here.” She pulls back and nudges his shoulder. “You washing your hands before dinner or just raw-dogging Thanksgiving like a wild animal?”
Hudson shrugs. “I rinsed.”
Miller narrows her bright green eyes. “That’s what people say right before they give everyone E. coli.”
Hudson just grins and backs away toward the sink. “Worth it for the brownies.”
Miller rolls her eyes but she’s trying not to smile.
Loretta and Mom walk in from the kitchen. Loretta’s dark brown hair is clipped back in her usual low-effort, high-impact style, loose strands framing her face. She claps her hands together, voice warm but commanding.
“Everything looks ready,” she says, scanning the table. “Go wash up before it all goes cold.”
Mom glances over at her with a smile. “And everyone tell Loretta thank you for making half this meal while the rest of us lounged around.”
“Thank you, Loretta,” comes the overlapping reply from pretty much everyone as chairs start to scrape back and silverware clinks.
Miller brushes past me, bumping her hip against mine as she passes. “How’s the fake wedding circus coming along?” she asks under her breath, a quick wink following.
I scoff. “Thrilling. Romantic. Everything I imagined it’d be.”
“At least you’ve got a sexy wedding dress to make up for it.”
Lark nods in agreement as she lifts Jack up onto the counter beside the sink, his little cowboy boots knocking together while she gently scrubs his hands. “Seriously. I’ve never seen you wear anything like that. You should more often. You’ve got the body for it and it’s hot.”
Miller raises a brow. “It’s very hot. Sawyer’s eyes are going to pop out of his skull. And that reaction definitely won’t be fake.”
Behind us, Ridge gags dramatically. “Can we stop talking about how hot Wren is now? Some of us are trying to keep our lunch down.”
He wedges himself between Miller and Lark to reach the sink, rinsing his hands with way more enthusiasm than necessary.
Miller rolls her eyes, washes her hands quickly after Ridge and disappears back toward the dining room. Lark calls out, “Hudson, your turn. Come wash your hands.”
“I already did,” he calls from the hallway.
“With soap?”
There’s a pause. Then the sound of a long, teenage sigh before Hudson trudges into the kitchen, pushing up his sleeves.
I turn to grab another towel and feel a small tug on the leg of my jeans.
Lainey stands there with her blue eyes wide and solemn, her blonde curls falling loose from the crooked pigtails Lark probably wrangled in with bribery and desperation. She doesn’t say anything—just lifts her arms toward me like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I bend down and scoop her up, settling her against my hip. “What’s up, bug?”
She rests her head on my shoulder for a second, all warm cheeks and sticky fingers. Then she peeks up at me while holding up both hands covered in frosting and says, “Dirty.”
“Yeah?” I ask, bringing her over to the sink. “You been sneaking dessert?”
She nods solemnly. “Cake.”
“Of course.”
I hold her steady against my hip with one arm and reach to turn on the water.
Her legs kick gently against my side, and she hums a little under her breath—a tune only she seems to know.
I guide her small hands under the stream, and she lets out a delighted squeal as the warm water hits her fingers.
She blinks up at me, then sticks her wet fingers in her mouth.
“Great,” I laugh, gently pulling them back out. “We worked so hard for those to be clean.”
I lather a bit of soap between her palms, moving her hands together in soft circles. She giggles—this bubbly, hiccupy sound that lives somewhere deep in her belly—and then leans her head on my shoulder again like the effort of handwashing has simply wiped her out.
“Think you can make it through dinner without covering everything in mashed potatoes?”
She claps once, then smacks a soapy hand against my cheek. I laugh, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She smells like baby shampoo and dinner rolls and that indescribable sweetness that babies seem to carry in their skin.
I dry her hands, then just…stand there with her.
Lainey settles against me like it’s the most natural thing in the world, her cheek tucked under my collarbone, warm and soft and wholly trusting. I sway a little, rocking her on my hip without thinking about it. The weight of her—small and solid—feels both grounding and sharp at the same time.
I breathe her in. That honey-sweet smell of toddler hair and graham cracker crumbs. And I try not to let it hurt.
But it does.
That quiet pang in the hollow of my chest. The one I keep buried most days, beneath work and routine and realism. The one that whispers: this won’t ever be yours.
Not like this.
Not a little girl with your eyes. Not a chubby hand reaching for you in the kitchen. Not bedtime songs or sticky kisses or someone calling you Mama with a voice still learning how to say things.
I close my eyes and hold her a little tighter.
Then, without really thinking about it, I start to hum.
It’s an old song—half nursery rhyme, half nonsense. Something my dad made up and used to sing to me when I was about Lainey’s size.
“Violets blue and violets red,
Spin around and go to bed.
Close your eyes and count to four.
Then jump up and spin some more!”
I twirl her gently, one slow circle in the kitchen, her little legs sticking straight out like she’s flying. She squeals, then dissolves into laughter, clutching my shirt in both fists.
When I stop, she claps her hands and shouts, “’Gain!”
I smile, catching my breath. “You liked that, huh?”
She nods, curls bouncing.
I shift her weight to my other hip and say softly, “Your Grandpa Lane used to sing that to me when I was your age. Just like this.”
Lainey giggles again, like she doesn’t fully understand but doesn’t need to.
“We used to dance around the kitchen,” I tell her, my voice going a little quieter. “Just me and him. We had so much fun.”
And we did.
I look down at her—eyes bright, cheeks flushed from spinning—and I wish, more than anything, he could see this. Her. Me. All of it.
For a moment, it feels like he’s here. Like maybe if I spin her again, he’ll be waiting on the other side, holding out his arms for one more dance.
But I don’t spin her again. Not yet. I just rock her. And remember. And let it hurt in the way that means it mattered.
After a minute, I hear footsteps behind me—soft and familiar—and then my mom’s voice, warm and matter-of-fact, the way it’s always been.
“Dinner’s ready,” she says.
I turn, and there she is in the doorway, her braid draped over one shoulder like it always is on holidays, the end tied with a little green ribbon.
I nod but don’t move. Lainey’s gone quiet in my arms, her head nestled against my shoulder, her breath warm through my shirt.
Mom tilts her head. “What’s wrong?”
I almost laugh. She always knows. Doesn’t matter if I’ve said a word. She just knows, the same way a storm knows when to break.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say quietly. “I just miss Dad.”
She steps closer, her expression shifting in that way it does when she hears his name. Like she’s flinching and smiling at the same time.
“I miss him too,” she says, voice soft. “All the time.”
I believe her. I always have.
They were the sort of love story people write books about—big and quiet and rooted in something deeper than chemistry. They fit in a way that made the rest of the world feel less overwhelming. Like they knew where they belonged and didn’t have to question it.
I hope I get one of those. Someday. Even if it looks different.
I glance down at Lainey, who’s started playing with the ends of my hair, and ask, “Do you think I’m crazy?”
Mom raises one brow. “Just in general, or…?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “For this whole wedding thing. I mean, it’s crazy, right? Normal, sane people don’t do stuff like this.”
She smirks, and for a second, she looks younger—like the version of her in the wedding album that used to sit on her dresser. Hair looser. Eyes lighter. The woman she was before loss tightened its grip. “Wren, you’ve never really been either of those things.”
I start to roll my eyes, but she cuts me off.
“Do you remember that time Sage split her chin open on the fence gate?”
I raise a brow. “Not really.”
“You were maybe seven. It was summer, hot and dusty, and you were all out by the trough with popsicles. Boone dared Ridge to jump the gate, and naturally, Sage tried to copy him. She slipped. Hit the metal latch with her face.”
The memory flickers back—blood, the sudden scream, the way everything froze.
“You didn’t yell,” she says. “You didn’t cry. You took off your favorite bandana, pressed it to her chin to stop the bleeding, and held her hand all the way back to the house so I could drive her to the ER.”
I swallow, the edges of the memory sharper than I remembered. The bandana was yellow with little red horses. I remember loving it.
“Then you made Ridge apologize,” she adds. “And told Boone that if he ever encouraged something that reckless again, you’d hide his boots in the manure pile.”
A reluctant smile pulls at my mouth. That sounds like me.
Mom shrugs. “That’s always been you. You protect the people you love, even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy. You just do it. No questions. No expectations.”
She reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear the way she used to when I was little and didn’t want to go to bed. Her fingers are warm, steady.
“So no,” she says quietly, “this wedding? It’s not crazy. Not to me. It’s just who you are.”
And somehow, that lands heavier than any logic could. It’s not a judgment. It’s not a warning. It’s just love. The quiet, unflinching kind I come from.
The unconditional kind. The kind I learned by watching her.
The kind I give without knowing how not to.