Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hunter
Straight to voicemail again. I toss my phone onto the passenger seat and let out a frustrated sigh. I’ve been trying to get a hold of Lucy all day. She won’t return my calls or texts. She’s not at either one of her coffee shops or at home, and I am starting to worry. What if she’s changed her mind about us. I am the first man she has said, “I love you” to since her husband. She’s already had reservations about us being together. I thought we were past all of this. Hell, we were joking about how many kids we were going to have just this morning. I want three. I know we can handle four kids. It will be a loud, crazy house. I’ve stopped travelling for work, so I can focus on being there for Lucy and our family. That is, if I can find her. I just pray she hasn’t changed her mind.
I pull up outside my sister’s house. This is my last hope. If anyone knows where Lucy may have gone, it’s Brooke. Brooke must have seen me pull up, because she is opening the door before I make it to the walkway. My heart jumps in my throat when I see her face. It’s the same look she had when we found out mom was sick. The closer I get to the door, the sadder Brooke’s eyes grow.
“We need to talk.” Nothing good has ever come from those four little words, especially coming from a woman. Today they are like a kick to the groin.
“Brooke, what the fuck is going on? I can’t get ahold of Lucy, and why do you look like someone died?” Panic rips through my voice.
“You are going to want to sit down for this.” She can’t look me in the eye as she says the words. Brooke has easy tells. I always knew when she was hiding something from me or when she was lying. Her not looking at me means whatever is going on is big, and it’s terrifying me.
“I’m not doing anything until you tell me what the fuck is going on,” I growl.
“Colton is alive,” she blurts out. It takes me a moment to process the words, and as I do, my heart feels like a freight train drove right through it.
“Maybe I do need to sit down.” I find the nearest flat surface, which happens to be the coffee table, and sit down. The wood creaks under me. “Let me see if I heard you correctly. Colton, Lucy’s dead husband, is alive.”
“Yes, that is what I said. I saw him with my own eyes this morning at Lucy’s.” Brooke walks over to the couch in front of me and sits down.
“How is that even possible?” They had a funeral and buried him. What did he do, crawl his way out of the grave?
“Somehow, during the aftermath of the bombing, Colton’s records were switched with another soldier’s. When Colton woke up in the hospital a few days later, he couldn’t remember who or where he was. It was like someone went in and wiped his mind. So, no one knew he wasn’t Christian Ryan.” This all seems so unreal. I’m having a hard time believing all of this.
“How did this other guy’s family not figure it out the second he came home?” The wheels in my head are spinning out of control trying to put the pieces together of how any of this could have happened without anyone figuring out Colton wasn’t this other man.
“When Christian was a kid his family was killed in a car accident. There was no other family to take care of him, so he spent his childhood being bounced from one foster home to another, until he was eighteen and he enlisted in the Marines. He kept to himself and didn’t have many friends.”
“Jesus. So, for the past ten years he has been living someone else’s life. That is fucking insane. How did he get his memory back?”
“About a week ago, he took a ninety mile an hour baseball to the head. It was enough to break the dam in his head. This morning, he showed up at Lucy’s door.” This explains why I haven’t been able to get ahold of Lucy. I can’t imagine what she must being going through right now.
“Where is Lucy? I need to see her and make sure she is okay.”
“I don’t know where she is.” Brooke’s eyes shift to the floor. She’s lying.
“Brooke, I know when you are lying to me, so don’t even try to tell me you don’t know where Lucy is. She’s hurting, and I need to be there for her.” Lucy is probably losing her mind right now, and I need to get to her.
“I made a promise.” Her voice fades to barely a whisper, and she keeps her eyes focused on her hands. She’s chewing on her lower lips pretty hard, I expect to see blood peek out at any moment.
“Brooke, you are shit at keeping promises. You get that from me. So, stop chewing on your lip and tell me.” I use my stern Dad voice that I used to use on her when I would catch her sneaking out.
“I fucking hate when you use that voice, but I made a promise to her not to tell you or Colton where she is. Lucy needs time to process finding out her husband is alive. She has a lot of emotions bombarding her right now, and she needs some space to figure out what her heart wants. I know you want to be there for her, because you are a good man, but if you love her, you will give her this time.”
“Well I hate when you are right. Every bone in my body is telling me to find her and hold her until the pain goes away.”
Brooke reaches over and rests her hands on top of mine. “I know you do, but sometimes the best thing you can do is give the person you love some space. When she is ready, she will find you.”
I know Brooke is right, but I still can’t shake the feeling that I need to go find Lucy. It’s going to take every ounce of strength I have to keep from hunting her down. I don’t care what complications that are going to arise with Colton’s return, the only thing that matters is Lucy. His return won’t stop me from putting up one hell of a fight to keep the woman I love.