Only His: A Second Chance Romance (Second Chances Book 2)

by Amelia Wilde

  What a mess I made of that. Instead, I’m the one who ended up tearing out both of our hearts and grinding them to pieces underneath my heel.

  There’s another flash on the side of the road. I take the opportunity. As far as I can see—which, granted, is about ten feet in any direction—there are no other cars coming behind me.

  I turn the wheel carefully to the right and guide the car to what I’m pretty sure is the edge of the road. The texture of the snow shifts underneath the tires. This must be the shoulder, where they let the snow build up a little bit more than on the main road.

  I scan the road behind me one more time, angling my rearview mirror so that hopefully—hopefully—if someone comes up behind me, I’ll see them in time.

  Then I slide my phone out of my pocket.

  Just as I suspected, the message is from my mother. It’s not from Crosby. I don’t think he would have sent me a message knowing what I’m driving in right now, but the last bit of hope that’s been flickering underneath the heartbreak dies in my chest.

  Hope you’re safe at the hospital or working from home!

  I heard the worry in my mom’s text.

  I’ll be more than okay. :)

  I can’t bring myself to lie to her, to tell her that I’m not in either of those places. But I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth—that I’m somewhere between the hospital and my house, stopped on the side of the road, trying to catch my breath and failing miserably.

  I suck in a big gulp of air, then another, then a third, and press my hands against my eyes. The tears are threatening to leak out, but I can’t cry right now—I can’t let that happen, not in conditions like this. I shouldn’t even be sitting on the side of the road. I should either be moving or I should be at home.

  The twisting pain in my chest takes a few minutes to ease down from its peak, but it still writhes and stabs at my heart. Crosby. I’d give anything to be back at home with Crosby right now, instead of sitting here in this rented Jeep on what I think is the side of the road, but it could just as easily be the center of the road.

  A gust of wind whips against the side of the Jeep, rocking it from side to side, and I throw it into drive. I’ve got to get out of here. Time is running out, I can feel it, and I just…I have to do something.

  I ease my foot onto the gas, but it’s like I floored it. The front wheels of the Jeep catch and then spin, jerking to the left, and my heart is suddenly in my throat. God. I could die out here. This is exactly what Crosby was trying to prevent, and I couldn’t listen to him. I wouldn’t listen to him. I didn’t think about the fact that he left me the first time to try and save me. I didn’t think about anything but myself, anything but proving that I can do it all, I can do whatever I want. Why did that seem so important?

  Right—because he left me in the first place. If I’m not ready to face it now, I never will be.

  I try again, my foot feather light on the gas, but the wheels just spin.

  Shit.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Crosby

  “Fuck.”

  I pace around in Lacey’s house for what seems like the longest minute of my life.

  There’s no reason for me to be standing here any longer, now that she’s—Christ—she’s fucking broken up with me and then left for work.

  Fine.

  If this is what she wants, then this is just fucking fine. This is probably better for everyone, in the long run. It’s better for me because I know now that it was never going to work out, and it’s better for her because I’ll never be able to hurt her again.

  Even though—

  I slam my fist against the wall next to the door.

  Then I go upstairs, take my phone off the bedside table, and go back down, my boots heavy on the steps.

  My face feels bright with rage. I can’t fucking believe she took it that far. I’m just reacting, not thinking, and I know I should calm the hell down and think about this, but I can’t. It’s like stabbing a knife in my heart. It’s like stabbing a knife in my back. It’s Lacey reaching right into my guts and twisting them in her fist so they’re nothing more than a burning knot.

  This is worse than leaving her the first time.

  The first time, when I couldn’t stop Chris from getting beat up, the blow to my face made me realize that not only was I a dangerous piece of shit to be around, there was no way I could protect Lacey from it and stay with her at the same time. I’d known I could never be good enough since the day Marci—

  I can’t think about Marci right now.

  It’s too much. It pushes me over the edge.

  I go out the front door, slam it behind me, and then lock it with the spare key I had made at the beginning of all this. There was a while when I thought I’d never have to use it. That rips a bitter laugh from my throat. I toss the useless chunk of metal into her mailbox out by the sidewalk, and then I stalk across the street to where my truck is parked.

  It’s half buried in the snowdrift from last night. I didn’t shovel it out when I came earlier, I just scraped off a few inches from the top of Lacey’s driveway. It was the only reason she could get out at all, and not for the first time, I curse myself for being a damn gentleman about it. The shovel slices into the snow, and the anger bubbling up in my gut fuels the lifting and the throwing. The truck is free in record time. I should go into snow removal. I’d be able to channel this sick feeling into even more money that I’ll never need, since I’ll never have a fucking family at this rate. I never wanted one, unless it was with Lacey.

  She made me think—

  It’s fucking stupid, but she made me think that I could do that. She made me think that with her by my side, I’d do all the right things. I’d stop making the dumbass mistakes that have haunted me for my entire life.

  I wrench the truck’s door open and climb inside. In a startling turn of events, the engine actually starts, so I’m not trapped at my ex-girlfriend’s house.

  My ex-girlfriend a second time.

  Fucking wonderful.

  I throw it into drive and yank the wheel hard to the left, pulling a U-turn in the middle of the street.

  I’m going home.

  I don’t know what I’m going to do there, but nobody is going to expect me to show up for any jobs today. Do I even have anything set up? No. There was that emergency job yesterday, and no calls have come in today, which isn’t a surprise, considering all of Lockton is about to be buried under ten feet of snow.

  I make it exactly two blocks, then brake hard, the truck’s wheels skidding a couple of inches in the snow. What the hell is this stuff, snow mixed with ice? A layer of ice underneath? Whatever it is, it’s not good.

  I can’t go home.

  Lacey is driving to the hospital in that rented Jeep. I don’t love the looks of the tires on it, and she’s driving in the middle of this snowstorm. I can’t see fuck-all in the bursting wind, and she’s not going to be able to either.

  She must be at least halfway there by now, if nothing has happened.

  But in my mind’s eye, I can see all the icy roads between here and the hospital, see the bridge…

  The bridge.

  The bridge is notoriously icy in the winter, and more than one person has died there. It’s a bitch of a thing, a T intersection bounded by concrete on one side. I can’t tell you how many wrecks I’ve seen scraped across that barrier. If anything happened to the Jeep while she was crossing the bridge, I don’t know—

  I shouldn’t have let her go.

  If she was at home right now, she’d be pissed, but she’d be safe.

  I fucking failed Marci again.

  No.

  Not Marci.

  Lacey.

  I let her go out into this, and I didn’t even tell her how much I love her. How much I never stopped loving her, every single day since I turned my back on her, thinking that was the best way to protect her from me. To protect her from a guy who couldn’t choose his friends with any sense of right and wro
ng, who couldn’t stay away from the bars, who didn’t have the kind of big dreams she deserved in a man.

  That was the wrong choice, and it was the wrong choice to let her go.

  How long has it been since she walked out?

  My heart thuds, the blood running loud in my ears.

  I have to get to her.

  If nothing else, I have to follow her, make sure she got to the hospital all right. If I have to sit in the parking lot for her entire shift, then so be it.

  I waited eight years for her to walk back into my life. I can wait another eight hours.

  If I even get the chance.

  I pull another wide U-turn, but it’s impossible to see where the curb is. Something crumples underneath the front wheels of the truck—a trash bin left out—but I don’t stop.

  I can’t stop.

  I’m out of time, and Lacey is out there without me.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Lacey

  I can’t get the Jeep out of whatever rut it’s trapped in, and with every second that passes, my heart beats harder.

  The snow is relentless, filling the back window, and I can’t see. I can’t see.

  I slap both my hands down onto the steering wheel.

  I try one more time.

  I throw it in reverse, like my mother told me to do back when I was in driver’s training, and then throw it in drive as fast as I can, trying to rock it out. It’s a strategy that’s obviously better if you’re driving a stick, but it’s the only thing I can think of, and the ice beneath the wheels seems just slippery enough to give me a fighting chance.

  It doesn’t work.

  “Shit!” I shout into the silence of my car, but saying it doesn’t help me.

  I turn my body in the seat to look through the rear windshield.

  No traffic.

  So, electricity jumping through every muscle, I put my shoulder against the driver’s side door and push it open. It’s a hard sell because the wind is so strong, but I make it out anyway. As soon as my feet hit the ground, the wind is blowing the door closed against my body. I slide out, and it slams shut.

  This is by far the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.

  Except for letting Crosby leave college without an explanation.

  That’s on me, as much as it is on him. I could have chased him down the hallway. I could have chased him down the street, back to his dorm, back to wherever he was going that night. I could have demanded that he explain himself.

  Instead, I crumpled up into a little ball on the floor and cried. A part of me is still crumpled on the floor, crying like a little girl, wondering when he’ll come back. Except this time, I’m the one who threw him out.

  God, this is so stupid. I wish he were here right now. I’d tell him how stupid he is. I’d tell him how stupid I am.

  I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, standing out here. It’s a great way to get myself killed.

  I pull my hood tight around my face and fight the wind all the way to the front wheels, looking below them like seeing the snow will offer some insight into how I can get myself away from here and to the hospital.

  Or back home.

  Anywhere, really.

  The wind sends tiny fragments of ice into my eyes, and I blink them away, then straighten up, kicking ineffectually at one of the drifts that’s already built up near the front wheels.

  Holy shit. Is that the concrete barrier?

  I whip around, trying to peer down the road the other direction. In a massive howl of wind, the snow clears for a single moment.

  Oh, my God.

  I’m on the bridge that crosses over the Lockton River, which flows underneath the concrete structure. My Jeep is parked right in front of the concrete that signals the end of the line for Evergreen Road, which intersects with M-66…right here.

  This is probably the worst place in all of Lockton to be stuck. People have died here, and in this weather…

  Headlights.

  Headlights are approaching from the direction I came, and I’m standing here in the middle of the highway. The headlights are dimmed by the snow, which means I’m equally invisible.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  A cold wash of adrenaline floods my veins. Where the hell should I go? Do I run toward Evergreen? No. No, don’t be stupid. Get back into the car.

  Get back into the car.

  I flatten myself against the side of the Jeep, the wind pummeling my back, and force my fingers underneath the handle. It sticks for a split second, and I scream, the sound lost in the wind. Is this seriously how I’m going to—

  The door opens and I throw myself into the front seat, my hip banging painfully against the steering wheel. It takes me an interminable second to get my ass on the seat and reach for the door handle. The wind has changed directions, and it’s hovering six inches open, just waiting to get hit by whatever vehicle is coming up behind me.

  The headlights flicker in and out as the wind blows the snow straight across the highway. Oh, shit. Maybe I should have run toward Evergreen. I can’t remember what’s there, though, and I can’t see any buildings through the snow. Is there a ditch? I can’t—

  Whatever vehicle it is, it is bearing down on top of me, and I take a deep breath and hold it in, eyes glued on the rearview mirror, hands on the wheel. I don’t know what I’m trying to prepare for. I could turn the wheel at the last moment, I guess, but what will that do if my tires are on a sheet of ice? Can the other driver even see me, or is the Jeep totally concealed by the snow? Do they know where the edge of the road is? Or will they notice me, but only when it’s too late?

  My fingers clamp tightly around the wheel, so tightly that my knuckles go white and the dry skin there threatens to crack. How fast are they going? Too fast. Too damn fast for weather like this.

  “Slow down!” I shout into the windshield, eyes frantically casting back and forth between the rearview mirror and the side mirror, which is half coated in snow. “Slow down!”

  It’s coming, it’s on top of me, it’s—

  It’s passing me by.

  It’s a massive SUV, silver, and whoever is driving it must be pretty damn confident in the ability of SUVs to stay upright in the event of a ditch because they’re hauling ass.

  They go by so close that the Jeep rocks on its wheels, but they’re gone in seconds, their taillights disappearing into the swirling flakes in front of me.

  I let out the breath I’ve been holding in and gasp in the next one. I need to get out of here. Think, Lacey. Stop freaking out and think.

  My phone. The Maps app. It’ll tell me if there are buildings nearby, and I’ll be able to see if there’s a sidewalk or a ditch that I need to watch out for. Storm or no storm, I have to get out of this Jeep. Some business is going to be open, right? I can call, if I do it quickly. But I have to do it very, very quickly.

  I’m so busy making this plan, so busy being relieved about the SUV, that I don’t notice the next thing coming until it’s too late.

  Chapter Forty

  Crosby

  The snow, the fucking snow, is going to be the death of me, and it might already have been the death of Lacey.

  My stomach curls and twists around itself, I’m so damn scared of what I’m going to find. The best-case scenario is that I’m going to get to the hospital just behind her and find her car in the parking lot before I spew pure acid onto the ground. It’s already rising in my throat.

  I want to call her, but what if she’s still driving? What if she’s one of those people who would take out her phone, just out of habit, and lose control, spinning into the ditch? What if there was oncoming traffic?

  I grit my teeth. If I called her, I could convince her to stop, to turn around. It probably wouldn’t take nearly as much persuading this time.

  I can’t bring myself to do it. There are too many risks.

  Sweat beads on my forehead. What the fuck should I do? My mind reels with options. Call her. Don’t call her. Slow down. Speed up. Jes
us, I want to speed up. I want to get to her as fast as possible. But what if she’s still out here on the road, and I overdo it? What if my truck sends her Jeep careening into one of the wide ditches on the side of the highway, or—even worse—the concrete barrier on the bridge?

  I’m driving as slow as I can bring myself to drive. The truck is handling it, which is the best I can say for this day from hell. At least my truck isn’t letting me down. The damn thing has been rock solid for six years. Only a year old when I bought it, practically no miles, and a clean record.

  I get out of the neighborhoods and onto the highway.

  Things are immediately worse.

  The wind is blowing snow directly across the open space, making it absolutely impossible to see anything. So much of the damn stuff is dumping down from the sky, pouring in from the empty lots on either side, that it’s no surprise that hardly anyone is out.

  Except me.

  And Lacey.

  If I could be sure that nobody else—

  No, not even then, because she’s driving a rented Jeep. Who knows what could happen if she catches the snow the wrong way and goes off the road? Who the fuck knows?

  I have to get to her. My whole body wraps around that truth, coiled tight, movements snapping out of me. I’m driving on autopilot, eyes glued to the road. If she’s in the ditch, fuck, I might have already missed her, but I haven’t seen any tracks in the snow veering into the shoulder. Not that they’d be easy to see, already drifted in.

  My heart kicks up another notch until I’m pretty sure I’m having a damn heart attack, but I don’t have time to have heart failure right now. The only thing that matters is getting to Lacey and getting her—

  Into my truck, for starters. And then I’m going to take us to somewhere safe, and then we can…

  I don’t know if she’ll want to talk to me.