Chapter 26 #2
Soft red hair spilling out from beneath a faded Wilding Ranch cap, the color of peaches in the middle of July.
Freckles scattered across her cheekbones, wild and stubborn, like they just showed up one day and refused to leave.
That nose—turned up just enough to make her look perpetually unimpressed, even when she’s not.
And suddenly, there’s this hollow pit in my stomach because I remember exactly the last time I felt like this.
I met Julia during my second semester at vet school.
She was sitting on the floor in the hallway outside the lecture hall, passing around a bag of Skittles to a group of students as if they were her lifelong friends.
Most of them weren’t. But that was Julia—she made everyone feel like they’d known her forever.
Long black hair that waved well past her shoulders. Olive skin that flushed easy when she laughed, which was often. Big brown eyes that crinkled at the corners and made you feel seen—really seen.
I didn’t talk to her at first. Just watched from a few lockers down, wondering how someone like her could look so alive in a room full of over-caffeinated, burnt-out med students. I didn’t think she’d notice me.
But then one day, she did.
She caught me stuffing a half-eaten bagel into my mouth between classes, looked at me like I was an under-fed stray, and said, “You know, I’ve got better food than that in my car. Come with me.”
That was Julia. Warmth and force of will and no patience for anyone who didn’t feed themselves properly. She was everybody’s friend. But somehow—somehow—she chose me. And I don’t think I’ll ever understand why.
I loved her so fast it made my head spin.
And now…now I’m in a car, in a snowstorm, next to someone who makes me feel that same kind of ache in my chest. But this time, it’s slower. More dangerous. Like something sneaking in while I’m not looking.
Like something I wasn’t supposed to get again. But here she is—and I’m scared shitless.
I don’t want to think about Julia.
I don’t want to think about the way we met, or the way she used to braid her hair back when she was studying, or the way she’d roll her eyes at the term “nesting” while folding tiny baby onesies.
I don’t want to think about her round belly or how her hand used to rest on it without even realizing. I don’t want to think about Violet.
But it’s winter, and that’s when it happened. And it’s like grief knows how to read a damn calendar.
You’d think four years would be enough.
But no one tells you that grief doesn’t operate on a fucking schedule.
That it doesn’t care if you’ve moved houses or if you’re sitting next to someone with the kind of hair that looks like peaches and the kind of laugh that makes you want to hand over all your embarrassing secrets just to hear it again. It just shows up on its own time.
Wren’s got Hank asleep in the crook of her arm, his whole body slack against her like he’s been drugged by the warmth of her. Her eyes are on the book again, skimming the words.
I clear my throat. “Fruit Roll-Up.”
She blinks, looks over, one brow raised.
I shrug, keeping my eyes on the road. “I was a Fruit Roll-Up kid.”
“Figures.”
That makes me look at her. “What gave me away?”
She taps her chin, mock thoughtful. “You’ve got the quiet trauma of a Gushers kid, but the general trustworthiness of someone who likes their snacks less…explosive.”
I let out a loud laugh, my head tipping back against the headrest. “Tell me something.”
She quirks a brow. “That’s vague. Like what kind of something?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Something honest. Something you think about.”
She’s quiet for a second, flipping the book closed, her thumb marking her spot.
Then she shifts a little, like she’s debating if I really want to know something about her or if I’m just bored of the silence.
I don’t tell her that it’s both. That distraction is my favorite form of survival.
That this time of year always cuts me wide open, and right now, the only thing holding me together is her voice in the passenger seat.
She doesn’t say anything for a beat or two as she stares out the windshield at the snow-covered trees in the distance. Then she lets out this soft, barely-there breath. “I can’t have kids.”
Her voice is so calm I almost think I misheard her. But she keeps going.
“I had endometriosis. Really bad. It wrecked everything before I even knew what was happening. For years they told me what I was feeling was normal, but by the time they found how how bad it actually was…it was either live in pain forever or get everything taken out. I was nineteen.”
I glance over. Her face is still turned toward the window, her eyes focused on the blur of snow.
“I’m not telling you that so you’ll feel sorry for me,” she says, crossing her arms. “I know you’ll understand, at least clinically. You’re a doctor…well, kind of…”
That gets a quiet smile out of me.
“When I was little, Ridge and Sage were always my babies. I’d make us play house in the hay barn, and I’d be the mom, bossing them around, feeding them mashed up dandelions I pretended were soup. I thought one day I’d have that for real. The whole thing. A family that felt like it belonged to me.”
She finally looks over at me, and there’s nothing guarded in her face for once. Just something hollowed out and honest.
“The worst part isn’t that I can’t get pregnant. It’s that I never got to decide if I even wanted to. That choice—having it taken from me before I knew what I really wanted—that’s what hurts the most, I think.”
Something in my chest pulls tight. Not in pity, but in recognition. Because grief that steals before you ever get to want —it’s a particular type of theft. One that leaves a space where dreams used to be.
She turns back to the window again and adds, almost like an afterthought, “Anyway. I don’t usually talk about it. Most people get weird. Or say something like ‘Oh, but there’s other ways’ as if that makes it any better. But…that’s my honest thing. Something I think about.”
Fuck.
That’s the first thought that hits me. Not out of pity, not even shock—just this solid, gut-wrenching understanding.
I look at her, really look, and I get it.
Or at least…I can imagine what that grief feels like.
I can see how that would mess someone up.
How it would wrap itself around every single thing you thought you’d have someday and make you question whether you ever deserved it in the first place.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be a father again. That part of my life—the one with a nursery we never used and a name we’d already picked out—went up in smoke four years ago. I haven’t let myself imagine a version of the future that looks anything different since.
But then I think about Nora. My niece. Crew’s daughter.
Crew never planned on being a single dad, but life didn’t exactly ask him for his input.
He stepped up anyway, the way he always does.
Still foreman of the ranch, still dependable as hell, still the guy who says he’s fine even when his eyes are rimmed in purple and he’s on his third cup of coffee by 9 a.m.
Nora’s a full-time job all on her own—bright, loud, and endlessly curious.
A five-year-old blonde tornado in glittery rainboots.
She talks so fast you’d think there’s a prize for it.
And when she was smaller, I used to babysit her when Crew needed a break.
We’d build block towers she’d knock over before they were finished.
I once watched Finding Nemo four times in one day because she cried when Nemo got lost and she wanted to make sure he got home okay.
We made pancakes shaped like cows, which didn’t really look anything like cows, but she insisted they did.
It was exhausting. But it was also one of the only things that made me feel like I was still tethered to the world back then.
I think about all of that while Wren stares out the window like she hasn’t just said something that broke me open a little. About how there are a million ways life can gut you, and how maybe, sometimes, it still finds a way to hand you something soft after.
Even if it’s just a loud little niece in glittery rainboots.
Or a woman next to you in the passenger seat who just trusted you with her most honest thing.
“I guess…” I start, and it comes out more fragile than I mean it to. I swallow, gripping the steering wheel tighter. “I guess I’m scared I’ll end up alone.”
Wren doesn’t say anything, but I feel her eyes shift toward me. I keep mine on the road. The snow’s thick now—slow, swirling sheets of it—but I could drive this stretch blind.
“Not physically alone,” I say, glancing over at her.
“I’ve got plenty of people around, obviously.
My parents. My siblings. Crew never stops showing up unannounced with Nora asking if I have snacks.
But…” I exhale, slow. “I mean alone, where no one’s waiting for you at the end of the day.
Where no one notices if your shoulders are higher than they were that morning. No one sees you. Really sees you.”
I rub my thumb along the seam of the steering wheel, steadying myself. I don’t look, but I can feel her watching me.
“Is that why your marriage ended?” she asks, her voice soft, cautious.
I let out a breath, steady but a little jagged. “No. I’m not divorced.”
She glances over at me, confused.
“I’m a widower.”
There’s a beat of stunned silence. And then—“Shit.” She starts rambling almost immediately. “God, I’m so sorry, that was—stupid of me. So stupid. I wasn’t trying to assume, I just—your age, and the fact that you never said—”
“Wren.”
She goes quiet.
“It’s okay. You would’ve found out sooner or later.”
She’s still looking at me. I can feel it. I keep my eyes on the snow.
“I lost my wife,” I say. “And our daughter. Four years ago.”
A beat.
Then Wren furrows her brows. She looks…sad. “You don’t talk about them.”
“No.”