Chapter 20

While his mother and Janey went to check on Maddie, Grant stayed with his father, staring down at the bed and willing him to wake up. Cal had said he could be out of it for a while, but Grant kept talking as if his father could hear him.

He stopped talking only to answer text messages from his brothers, Adam and Evan, who were en route to the island and were looking for updates on their father’s condition.

“Adam and Evan will be here later tonight,” Grant told his father. “They said to tell you they don’t appreciate you scaring them this way.” He smiled, imagining his father’s response to that.

“How’s he doing?”

Grant spun around and found Abby standing in the doorway, looking nervous and adorable. He wanted so badly to feel her arms around him, to hear her say everything would be okay. No one had ever understood him the way she did.

“About the same,” Grant said.

“How’re you doing?”

“I’ll be better when he wakes up.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

Grant knew she was just being polite, but he couldn’t miss the opportunity. “You could tell me what you’re thinking hitching yourself to that overgrown cowboy.”

Her expressive eyes flashed with anger. “You have no right to ask me that.”

Behind Abby’s back, Stephanie appeared, holding a container. Grant shook his head, and she ducked out of sight.

“I have every right to ask that,” he said to Abby.

“I waited years for you, Grant. I put my whole life on hold hoping you’d get yours together so we could move forward with our relationship. But that never happened, and I got tired of waiting.”

“You can’t honestly expect me to believe that you love him more than you love me.”

“I love him differently than I loved you.”

Her use of the past tense was another knife to his heart. “What the hell does that mean?”

“He’s there for me. He supports me rather than expecting me to support him a hundred and ten percent without anything in return.”

“I never expected that.”

“Oh come on!” Glancing at his father, she lowered her voice. “That’s all I was to you—your muse, your enabler, your lover, your housekeeper. It was never, ever about me.”

“It was all about you. You were everything to me, Abby.”

At that, her cool composure finally began to waver. “You had a funny way of showing it.”

Grant went around the bed to get closer to her.

She took a step back, discouraging him from touching her.

“Give me another chance. I’ve sold my house and car. I’ve left LA, and I’m back to stay for now.”

“For now? What does that mean?”