At that, Savannah brightened. “Oh good! I’ll be here baking.” She made a face as if to say that shouldn’t be a surprise.
Except, you know, today she’d been there with the girl who’d destroyed my world.
“Hunter,” she called out when I turned for the steps.
I didn’t look back at her, and I didn’t move.
I wasn’t mad at Savannah . . . I just wasn’t sure I could look at the door behind her for one more second before going for it again.
Before going to Madison.
“There are a lot of things I don’t know still,” she began, voice soft as she moved to be at my side again. “Like, how long she’ll be here. But she needs time.”
I slanted my head in her direction, eyes narrowed in question.
“And seeing you looking at her like you’ll do anything to get to her? Needing your brother to physically stop you from going to her?” Savannah moved her head slowly. “I’m not sure that’s something she should be faced with. Not yet.”
“She’s been gone for thirteen fucking years,” I seethed. “How much more time does she need?”
Savannah raised a brow and lifted her chin, transforming from sweet and gentle to the firecracker she could be. Looking at me like she would gladly tear me down to size. “She has a lot going on right now,” she said slowly, making sure I heard and understood every word.
“What happened to her?” I demanded.
In an instant, her expression shifted back to that kind understanding. Her head slanted as sympathy swam through her features. “I love you, but . . . no.”
“No?”
“No.” She patted my arm. “I know what she meant to you. Anyone in that room could feel what she still means to you. So, give her what she needs.”
My jaw ticked from the pressure I was putting on it. After a moment, I gave a sharp nod and stalked down the steps and across the walkway to my truck.
Not long after I settled in there, Cayson climbed into the passenger seat and loosed a low sigh.
“I’m sorry, man,” he said. “But it’s like you said before we went in there—kids change things. If it had just been Madison standing on the sidewalk yesterday . . . just her in the house today . . . I would’ve stood back and let whatever happened happen. But that ring and that kid change things.”
I didn’t respond as I started down the long drive and back to my place, where we always met up on the Mondays we went to Blossom. I didn’t say anything at all until I’d made it back to the ranch.
Cayson sensed that it wasn’t the time to fill the silence and let it be.
When I put the truck in park, I sat back, leaving the engine running.
Instead of getting out, Cayson stayed. Waited. Unclicked his seatbelt and got comfortable like he was in this with me.
Minutes passed in silence filled with confusion and pain before I admitted, “Cays, I dunno what the fuck I’m gonna do.”
“She’ll come around.” The words were all a gentle offering. “She’ll take the time Savannah said she needed, then she’ll come talk to you. And y’all can get all the shit from the past out there and put it to rest.”
“That’s not it,” I muttered as my stare drifted to the house. The ache in my chest growing and growing as I wondered how I was supposed to survive this.
“Timing . . . it’s cruel.”
Cayson grunted.
“I love her.”
“Know you do, man.” He shifted to face me, brows twisted up tight. Looking at me like he was wondering if I expected him to doubt that.
I tried to clear my throat. Tried to swallow past the fear and the decade of secrecy as my head moved in a slow shake. “Izzy,” I corrected. “I’m in love with Izzy.”
Shock burst from Cayson and slammed into me.
A stuttered laugh crept up his throat before he was able to close his mouth. After a moment, his head listed and his stare moved to the house before meeting mine again. “I know I hinted at Isabel earlier . . . but in love?” He drew back. “Hunter, you’ve never even . . . shit.”
“I know—”
“Does Sawyer know?”
“No one.” The response was immediate and filled with a mixture of regret and warning.
“Then what the hell?” He put his hands out in front of him as if a thought had just come to him. “Does Isabel know?”
“The fuck, Cays? Of course, she does.” But as soon as I said the words, I wondered if she did.
“Well, Sawyer told me you’re practically a monk. Since I’ve been back, you’ve remained firm on the whole I’m-still-waiting-for-Madison shit. And you’ve made it really damn clear that you want nothing to do with anyone in Amber.”
“Izzy doesn’t live in Amber.”
A disbelieving sound caught in his throat, his head shaking as he realized how I’d hidden my life from him without ever actually lying. After a while, he asked, “And what are you planning on telling Isabel now that Madison’s here?”
I tried to swallow.
Tried to breathe.
Everything felt impossible as I remembered the pain she’d tried so hard to hide from me. “She already knows,” I admitted. I searched out the house where the girl in question was tucked away. “Cays, she knows that I’ve been waiting for this.”
“Waiting . . .” He sneered some sort of laugh. “And she was just okay with that? Just accepted it and went on with her day? What other kinda bullshit did you get her to agree to? In case you forgot, she works for you. I can’t wait to watch this lawsuit play out.”
“Enough,” I said through gritted teeth and forced myself to meet his disappointed glare. “I wanted your help. I needed to talk. But if you’re gonna be the same asshole you’ve been our entire lives, then go home.”
He ground his jaw and then roughed his palm over it, nodding as he did. “Sorry.” A harsh breath punched from him as he leaned against the door, his hands palm up on his legs. “But think about how it looks, Hunter. She works for you. You’re in a relationship, but she knows you’ve been waiting for your ex to come back.”
“That’s because things were different for us. It started different.” It was all a low murmur as I thought back to the beginning for the second time that morning.
Cayson remained silent as I glossed over ten years with Isabel.
That first night and how she’d started working for me. Our friendship that had steadily built, and her addicting temper. How, from the beginning, we’d been brutally honest and open.
How we’d kept our lives separate. Work. Friendship. Fucking.
Throughout all of it, I’d known where her heart was, and she’d known where mine was. With people we could no longer have.
Then the changes this past year and how I’d fought like hell to ignore them. Ignore the way I’d started feeling alive again around her. The way her heart had started calling to mine. The way I’d started needing her on a much deeper level than physical.
All of it ignored.
All of it a daily, constant denial.
Until a week ago.
“I spent so long only loving Madison that I almost lost Izzy because I was afraid of admitting what she meant to me.” My jaw worked as that night blasted through me, dominating my mind and pulling at my chest. “When I realized I couldn’t lose her, it was like we just . . . snapped. Like a fog was lifted from between us.”