World going black and raging in a way I couldn’t even remember doing the first time she’d left. Sawyer of all fucking people had had to slam me to the ground to talk me down from driving to Seattle right then. To calm me enough until I agreed to give her time.
Time.
Felt like that was all I ever did with Madison . . . but I’d agreed to another week before I was catching a flight to Seattle and having it out with her there. A week of her taking care of the bullshit with Rafael and trying to ease Avalee into what was happening in their lives.
Not even three full days later, and I was battling over what Madison needed and the lethal mixture of crushing regret and crippling fear coursing through my veins.
My apology calls to Sawyer, Emberly, and Rae for not being there to help with the ranch that night ran through my mind as I let another peach fall. My gaze pulling down for a moment as I reached for another. Before I could grab one, I finally registered the man waiting at the base of my ladder.
An aching breath forced from my lungs as I looked at Isabel’s dad. Staring up at me as if he had all the time in the world to do exactly that. As if we weren’t in one of our busiest times of the year. As if he hadn’t just shown up hours late.
“¿Estás bien?” I asked, more worried about making sure he was okay than the fact that he was late since it was the first time in ten years he hadn’t been on time.
He pulled off his hat and turned it around and around in his hands for so long that I jumped off the ladder to get on his level and immediately felt the ground shift beneath me.
My stomach dipped and twisted. My lungs strained from the lack of oxygen.
Because he was looking at me like he hated me. And he’d been crying.
I looked around the orchard as though Izzy might suddenly appear in the middle of the trees. Because I knew whatever had put this look on his face had to do with his daughter.
“Isabel?” I asked, voice weak as I faced him again, silently pleading with him not to shred my soul.
He inhaled softly, never breaking eye contact. “She came to us last night . . . told us everything. Everything about the two of you and how it began. How it continued. How it grew,” he said slowly and then worked his jaw a few times. “I’d known. I told you, I knew. But I hadn’t known. Not really. I never have known my daughter, I guess.”
My mouth parted, but he held up a hand, silencing me. And I respected him too much not to give him that.
“I knew about your Madison . . . from back then. I remember her.” He eyed me meaningfully, and I gave a slow dip of my head.
Swallowing uncomfortably.
Remembering the morning he’d stumbled upon Madison and me. Asleep and still tangled up together in the bed of my truck with only a blanket covering us.
He’d just barely saved us from my dad catching us. Saved us from our parents finding out we’d snuck out again.
I’d forgotten all about that before his reminder, and now I couldn’t help but wonder how many times he’d thought about that morning when talking to me about Izzy.
“I had a real bad feeling in my gut when my daughter kept talking about her. Kept bringing up how you would talk about her. But I understood that’s what the two of you did. It was your thing. Still, I felt it.” He gestured to his stomach and cut a hard glare at me. “I get why you tried to stop something deeper from happening with my Isabel. I get it now. But she deserved something better than you for all those years.”
“I know she did,” I said softly, gravely. “I wanted her to find something better.”
“Then you should’ve let her,” he snapped. “You should’ve stopped your foolishness before she got in too deep. If you knew you would dismiss her the second this other woman walked back into your life, you never should’ve dragged my daughter down that path with you.”
I rubbed at my jaw and then folded my arms tightly across my chest when everything felt too thick. Too much.
Making it hard to breathe or think or form words.
Members of the crews had stopped working and were watching. Some had even dropped from their positions on their ladders to get closer. And I couldn’t find it in me to care.
To tell them to get back to work.
Because everything Alvin Estrada was saying to me was everything I already felt—had already told myself dozens of times.
“It’s hard, Hunter,” he continued, nodding quickly. “It’s real hard. Because I respect you as a man and as my boss. I do. And a part of me even respects you for the way you cared for my daughter. The way you showed her mercy in this situation. But she never should’ve been in this situation. And because she was, I’ve now lost my girl.”
My stomach bottomed out.
My heart wrenched painfully.
“W-what? I don’t—what do you—what?” I stammered, unable to form a coherent sentence.
He jerked his chin, his stare never losing that contempt for me. “She said she couldn’t be here anymore, and she left.”
My arms fell like dead weights. “What do you . . .” My head shook sharply, and I ground out, “The hell do you mean she left?”
“I mean, I don’t know when I’ll see my daughter again because of you,” he shouted in Spanish.
I was gonna be sick.
I took a step back. And then another, stumbling a little as my head moved in slow, wide shakes.
But the denial disappeared when I focused on Alvin again. On the pain and blame pouring from him.
Before I realized I’d even moved, I was sprinting through the trees and out of the orchard. Getting in my truck and flooring it to my house as I called her over and over again, only for it to go straight to voicemail. And each time, I felt another piece of me chip painfully away.
I hissed a curse when I neared the house and saw that Izzy’s car wasn’t parked in the back. Pressing harder on the gas, my tires kicked up dirt and rocks as I tore off the property and onto paved streets. One of my hands gripping my hair as I raced away from Amber and to the neighboring city. Never slowing down despite the changing speed limits until I reached the complex she lived in.
I’d heard her dad.
I’d seen his expression.
But there was a part of me refusing to believe it until I saw for myself.
I left my truck running with the door open as I ran up the walkway to her door, calling her name before I even reached it. And then I was pounding on the door and ringing the doorbell over and over and silently praying that it opened.
“Izzy,” I called out pleadingly. “Izzy, open up.”
I looked up and then to the side when I heard a door open, my movements jerky and frantic as I found an old woman peeking out at me from the door at the other end of the short path.
“Have you seen her?” I begged, knowing I probably sounded and looked like a deranged stalker.
She opened the door a little wider, studying me with a pitying expression. “You’re that boy who helped sweet Isabel move in.”
That had been years ago, but I still nodded sharply. “Yes, ma’am.”
A slow sigh escaped her as she folded one hand over the other, wringing them gently. “Love is funny . . . it’s tricky.” She nodded and then inclined her head as she gave a slight shrug. “And painful.”
My hands relaxed and then flexed into fists as I fought the urge to yell for Isabel again. “Ma’am, have you seen—”