Unsteady in Love: Fairlane Series #3

by Layne, Harlow

  “It doesn’t feel like enough, but I’m happy I could help even if it’s just a little bit. Keep me updated.”

  “Will do. Bye, Alex.”

  “Bye, Prue.” She disconnected.

  On a mission, I headed out to get my dog and the technology that would hopefully make Holden talk to me and eventually come back to me again.

  24

  PRUE

  For the past two days, I’d been holed up in a rental house in San Diego waiting for Holden to finally get stateside. Now that he was finally here, I was nervous about whether or not he’d refuse to see me.

  “Mrs. Montgomery, I’ll take the computer and phone, but I can’t promise you anything else. Sergeant Montgomery has expressed explicitly he wants no visitors. It will be up to him if he chooses to contact you.”

  “I understand. Thank you for helping me out. I don’t know any other way to get him to talk to me,” I confessed, looking down at the floor.

  “It happens more than you realize. These warriors have their pride, and after being injured, they push the ones they love away. It takes a strong spouse to get their mate through the tough times.”

  “I’m trying,” I croaked out. “I only saw him once, a month ago. I snuck into his room. He refused to see me and then…”

  “Stay strong.” The nurse patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll make sure he gets the items, and that he knows they’re from you. Are you going to stay in the area or are you going back home?”

  “For now, I’m going to stay here. I’m hoping Holden won’t take long to at least contact me. If he changes his mind, I want to be able to get to him as fast as I can,” I explained.

  Giving me a small smile, she turned to set down the box I’d brought for Holden. I’d brought his favorite movie, music, a new phone, and computer, along with some new clothes.

  “Good luck, dear. I’ll keep you in my prayers. You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

  I nodded because I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but if I didn’t try, I’d always wonder and regret not trying to convince him that we could have a life together. A life I wanted desperately no matter the damage.

  “Thank you, Rebecca for all your help.” I wanted to hug her for being so nice and seeming to want to help me. I could use all the help I could get.

  “You’re welcome. I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

  * * *

  Every few days, I called or went by the hospital, and every time, I received the same news: Holden still didn’t want to see me. Rebecca informed me Holden hadn’t opened the computer or turned on his phone. He spent most of his days staring at the ceiling, saying nothing.

  Every day I wrote Holden an email. Sometimes I wrote him multiple times a day saying little things I thought he’d like to hear or that would move him to talk to me. I left voicemails in case he turned on his phone first. I was desperate for anything to work. But as days turned to weeks, I slowly started to lose hope. I’d rented a house close to the beach. Atticus and I spent most of our time walking along the water line or sitting outside. It was as if he could feel my pain and wanted to stay close. As far as I was concerned, he was the best dog anyone could ask for.

  Then one day as I was leaving the hospital, I saw one of the vets with a service dog. When I got home that night, I researched everything I could, and the next day I contacted a local program that trained dogs for veterans. I was hoping they would take Atticus into their program and train him for Holden. If I thought Holden had PTS before the accident, I was sure he had it now, and he could use all the help he could get. Atticus was the sweetest dog, and I knew he could help if Holden gave him a chance. The only problem was, it would take at least a year or two to train Atticus. I knew it wouldn’t take Holden that long to be released out into the world, and I wanted to be ready for him whenever that was.

  I put in an application for Holden and enrolled Atticus into training. Even if he couldn’t be totally trained, I wanted him to be able to help as much as possible. Luckily, we could afford a dog unlike most of the vets who needed them. When I found out how many relied on grants to get the dogs they needed, I decided to donate money to help out a few others who needed one. It was the right thing to do, and Holden had plenty of money.

  We were sitting outside on the deck, Atticus chewing on a rawhide while I watched children run in and out of the surf, when my phone rang. I reached over to answer without looking. Alex was the only person who called me, and it had been a few days since we’d last talked. When a gruff, pissed-off voice answered from the other end my heart nearly stopped.

  “Why do I have an email stating that I’ve applied for a service animal?” Holden growled out.

  “Holden,” I gasped, jumping up from my seat. Atticus barked and jumped up as well. His little tail wagged thinking we were going to play.

  “Answer me,” he snarled.

  “I wa-wanted to help,” I stammered out. “At first, I was going to try to train Atticus, but the…”

  “I don’t give a shit what you were going to do. I don’t want or need a fucking service dog, Prue. And I don’t need you or your help.”

  “Oh really?” I shot back. “And what do you have planned for when you get out of the hospital? Do you even have a house to stay in?”

  “What I do doesn’t concern you,” he spat.

  “Everything you do concerns me, Holden. Just because you want to be an asshole doesn’t make that any less true. Do you really want to lose what we have?” My voice broke on the last word. How could he be so cruel to me after everything we’d gone through? More than once, he’d told me I was his life. That I was what got him through the day. What was getting him through it now?

  He sighed with annoyance. “We don’t have anything. Not anymore. Why can’t you understand that? It’s a simple concept.”

  “Because I have loved you since I was fifteen years old. Why can’t you understand that?” I asked annoyed.

  “You don’t want me,” he answered softly.

  “But I do want you, Holden. I’ve wanted you for so long, and now when I finally got you, you’re trying to slip out of my grasp.”

  “How can you want half a man?” His voice was broken.

  “Even if you were a quarter of a man. A quarter of you, I’d still want you. But you’re not half a man. You’re so much more than you’re giving yourself credit for.”

  “Prue,” he scolded.

  “No,” I interrupted. “I understand you need time to come to terms with losing part of your leg. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but I want to be there for you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he choked out.

  “I don’t think you know what you’re asking by trying to make me leave. I should have the right to choose what I want to do with my life. You’ve already done this once and that didn’t work out well for either one of us.”

  “This is for the best. I’m a mess and don’t want you to have to spend the rest of your life taking care of me.”

  I knew that if I were standing in front of him in that moment, I would have seen tears in his eyes. My chest ached at the thought, and I wanted nothing more than to see him and pull him into my arms.

  “Holden,” I said softly, “I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it isn’t always going to be this way. In a couple of months, you’ll be healed up enough to get fitted for a prosthetic. In the meantime, you can walk with crutches or other devices. Yes, life will be different for you, but I can promise you’ll have a good life. We’ll have a good life. One with endless possibilities. All you have to do is stop trying to push me away because if you keep pushing, eventually, you’ll get your wish.”

  He was quiet for several long minutes. At one point, I pulled my phone away to see if he’d hung up. “Do you really believe that?” I could have sworn I heard hope in his voice, or it might have been my own hope reflecting back at me.

  “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t believe it.”

  Bee
p. Beep. Beep.

  He hung up.

  25

  HOLDEN

  I couldn’t take the hope in Prue’s voice, so instead, I hung up on her. I knew I shouldn’t have called her, but I was so pissed-off and had been staring at her phone number scribbled on a piece of paper since I’d arrived in San Diego. I picked up the phone and spat my venom at her only for Prue’s words to slowly start to sink in.

  Most of the time I knew that, of course, I could have a life; a good life with part of my leg missing, but it wasn’t the life I’d envisioned having with Prue once I got home. From the time I saw her in the parking lot after her father’s funeral, I knew I’d do everything within my power to get her back. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, and it hadn’t been, but I’d finally gotten my girl. For months, I’d fantasized about the first time I would see her again. The first time I would have her in my arms. I was going to ravish her for hours on end until we both couldn’t move and then start up again until she was pregnant with my child.

  Now I couldn’t imagine having her look at me with the sheet not covering me up, let alone letting her see me without clothes. What would she think once she finally saw my leg? Would she leave once she saw how grotesque I was? Those were the thoughts that had run through my mind since I’d woke up and learned they’d had to amputate my leg halfway between my ankle and knee. But after getting off the phone with Prue, I couldn’t help but think maybe she wouldn’t run when she finally got a good look at my leg.

  For the next week, my mind was on a loop of what she’d said. Could she really see me the way she thought she could? Could I let her? Finally, I couldn't wonder anymore. I sent her a text asking her to come visit me the next day. Her response was immediate, and I wondered yet again if I’d made the right choice.

  I didn’t sleep the night before. My insides twisted in knots as I imagined the horrified look on her face when she saw the new me. Once the sun came up, I didn’t have long to wait until Prue peeked around the door of my room. Her eyes were bright, but I could see her apprehension as she took her first step into the room.

  “Hi,” she said quietly.

  My eyes trailed over her slim figure. She’d lost more weight, and I knew I was to blame. Even being too skinny and with no makeup on, she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to me. Her hair trailed down her back. She wore a baggy t-shirt that I knew had once fit her, short shorts, and flip flops. Every inch of skin was a nice, golden brown.

  “Hi,” I answered back just as faintly.

  “Thanks for asking me to come.” She stepped closer with unsure steps. “I wasn’t sure if you ever would.”

  “I wasn’t either. I’m still not sure if this is a good idea or not,” I confessed.

  Standing at the edge of the bed with her eyes locked on mine, she asked, “What would you do if I lost an arm or a leg?”

  “You know what I’d do,” I answered a little too harshly causing her to step back. “It wouldn’t matter to me.”

  “Yet, you still want to push me away.” Her voice conveyed how that broke her heart,

  “I don’t want this life for you. You could have so much better than me. This is just the beginning. Who knows how fucked I’ll be out there in the real world? I can barely function here in a hospital. What’s going to happen when I leave?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll be there with you every step of the way if you’ll let me.”

  “Prue,” I shook my head and let out a deep breath, “how many times can I tell you that I don’t want that life for you? You spent so long taking care of your dad, and now me?”

  “I’m a nurse, Holden, I like taking care of people.” I started to interrupt her, but she continued on with narrowed eyes. “I don’t get some sick, perverted feeling from it, but I’m not one to run away from taking care of the people I love. Yes, it sucked taking care of my dad day and night in the end, but only because I knew he was going to die. Those were my last moments with him. Now it’s so hard to remember him healthy.”

  Tears slowly trickled down her face as she became lost in the thought of her dad. He had meant everything to her. They were each other’s worlds and never fought.

  “I hate that that’s your final memory of your dad. If I could change it, I would. That’s why you should leave and not look back. I don’t want you to think of me—”

  “You’re being ridiculous, you know that?” she interrupted, her mouth set in a pissed-off line. “You do realize you’re not dying, right?”

  “Some days, it sure feels like it,” I murmured.

  Prue’s face went soft, and she slipped around the side of the bed. Her warm hand wrapped around mine. “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest. Can you do that?”

  “Of course, I can be honest with you.” That’s all I’d ever been with her.

  “Even if you don’t want to.”

  “Yes, I promise to answer you honestly. Just ask your question.”

  She nodded to herself as if she was preparing herself for what she was going to ask. “Do you love me?”

  How could she ask that? I’d always loved her and knew I always would.

  “I love you with everything that I am. I don’t see what that has to with anything.”

  A slow smile spread across her gorgeous face. “If you didn’t love me, then I would have left. It would have hurt immensely, but I would have walked away.”

  “And now?” I asked almost inaudibly. I wasn’t sure how she heard me.

  “And now you’re not getting rid of me.”

  “Wait until you see what you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life before you promise you won’t leave. I won’t blame you if you leave once you see.” And I wouldn’t. It wasn’t pretty and not something anyone would want to see every day of their life.

  “I vowed to stick with you through sickness and health.”

  I laughed bitterly. “You didn’t marry me out of love.”

  Her eyes grew big before narrowing into slits. “Did you seriously just say that, Holden Ford Montgomery? You think I didn’t love you? I just told you that I’ve loved you since I was fifteen years old. I never stopped.” She turned away, her face falling, and for a moment I saw how much my words had hurt her.

  “You didn’t want to get married,” I reminded her.

  Her head whipped my way. “Yeah, I didn’t want to get married for you to then divorce me. At the time, I thought you were marrying me out of pity.” Her eyes filled with tears once again. “We should have talked before.”

  I scoffed. “If we would have talked, you wouldn’t have married me. You would have stayed pissed at me and then never talked to me again.”

  “Well, I want to clear this up once and for all, okay? I loved you when we got married. I was sad because I hated that you were marrying me for money and out of pity, and that you didn’t love me. Which I now know wasn’t true. Yes, I was mad at you, but…” Angry tears streamed down her flushed cheeks. “Damn if you’re right in the fact that I probably wouldn’t have married you.”

  “Why don’t you come over here?” I patted the right side of the bed. I hated to see her cry, and it seemed like that’s all she’d done the past few times I’d seen her. I hated being responsible for her tears.

  Prue took in a ragged breath before she quickly moved around the side of the bed and curled up next to me, burying her head into my chest. And fuck if she didn’t feel perfect. She still smelled like vanilla after all these years, and it was like coming home. My arms wrapped around her shaking form and held her to me.

  “I missed this,” she mumbled into my t-shirt.

  My lips tipped up. How had I thought I could give her up?

  Then a nurse walked in with my pain medicine, and I remembered why I had pushed Prue away. This was my life now. It wasn’t love, hugs, and snuggles.

  26

  PRUE

  The moment the nurse walked into the room, I felt Holden tense underneath me and knew he was going to try and
push me away again. A-fucking-gain.

  “Oh, it’s so nice to see you with a visitor. Is this your wife?” the nurse asked.

  He grunted, not even answering as he took the cup, threw back the meds, and then the water. His hands laid at his sides, no longer around me. I missed their warmth and the way they made me feel hope for the first time in weeks.

  Once the nurse left, I sat up to look at him, only to find Holden looking out the window with his mouth turned down, his face tight.

  I’d lost him again.

  But this time, I wasn’t giving up.

  I wished he’d realize his life wouldn’t be like this forever.

  “Hey,” I called, placing my hand on his stubbled cheek, “come back.”

  Endlessly dark brown eyes met mine with a frown.

  “Prue…”

  “No,” I stopped him, “don’t you dare say it. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re fucking stubborn,” he grumbled.

  “And so are you. A nurse walks in, and you’re ready to give me up?”

  “I’m never going to want this life for you. I can’t help that.”

  “And I can’t help that I’ll always want to be in your life. So, accept that and stop being an ass.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  I shifted around so that I was facing him on the bed. “Tell me something. What were your plans once you finally got out in a few months? Don’t hold back.”

  “Why are you asking me that now? It doesn’t matter.” He scowled and tried to look away, but I turned his face back to me.

  “Tell me,” I demanded.

  “Fine. I was going to come straight to Fairlane. Happy?”

  “And then what?” Because I knew there was more.

  “You don’t want to know.” He laughed bitterly.

  “Stop that shit. If I didn’t want to know, then I wouldn’t ask. Now tell me.”