“No, no medicine,” I said. “Just need to be still for a minute. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” Ozzie sat next to me. “I don’t like to see you in pain.”
“I’m sure.”
“Let me at least get you something cool on your forehead. It’ll help.” Ozzie rose to his feet. “If you’re going to stay, please don’t upset him any further. We can handle the criticism, but he should be resting right now. Can we at least put it off until morning?”
Ozzie disappeared into the bathroom. I cracked an eye open. Emma was glowering at me.
“You coldhearted son of a bitch,” she whispered. “Let’s screw up our kid more than we already did when he was growing up. All the back-and-forth between us and a broken home. Why do you think Carter’s the way he is?”
“Carter’s an adult now, Emma. He can hardly blame us for his choices. He knows right from wrong, and we both know damn well he was only marrying Ozzie because that’s the only way he would get his share of his inheritance early.”
“What?”
Ozzie’s gasp echoed in the room. Oh shit. He’d heard me? I sat up, only to drop back to the pillow as the room spun around me. “Ozzie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Shh.” Ozzie placed a cool rag over my eyes with trembling hands. The soothing chill seeped into my skin, easing the hot pulse of my headache. “Let’s get you better.”
“But I—”
“Not now, Gr-Gray.”
But his voice breaking on my name told me everything. He knew. He now knew the whole truth behind his engagement with Carter. Did he hate me? But he stroked my head tenderly, as if my words hadn’t hurt him when I knew otherwise. Ozzie was a sensitive man who wore his heart on his sleeve. His reactions were always sincere, which was one of the many things I loved about him. I could tell by his silence the news had hit him hard.
He’s too good for any of us. I don’t deserve him either, but I’d damn well try to.
“She’s gone,” Ozzie whispered. “You can relax now. Should I call the doctor?”
“No. She told us this might happen and that it’s a symptom associated with the concussion. I’ll be fine if even just so you can be upset I didn’t tell you the truth earlier.”
“I always suspected there was another reason he wanted to marry me.” His voice came out as a whisper. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking when you have a headache.”
“It’s okay.” I caught his wrist. “I love hearing your voice. As long as you speak softly, it doesn’t hurt. Tell me.”
Ozzie lay next to me, his head on my shoulder. “I thought Carter and I were going to break up. We’d been fighting a lot, and I felt at my worst from the way he treated me. That was just before we met. I thought for sure after that Christmas and the way I confronted him about how he behaved toward you, he would break off our engagement as we never made any concrete plans.”
“I remember.”
It was after Ozzie had spent almost two hours with Pascal and me. We’d taken him back into town when the snow eased up. Carter had been drinking, oblivious to how much snow had fallen, since he allowed Ozzie to drive alone at night in an unfamiliar place to bring me Christmas gifts. I’d overheard Ozzie snapping at him that his behavior and the way he was treating me were unacceptable. I’d been in awe of him at the time. How often had I wanted to say those exact words to Carter but bit them back? And there he was, a young man who didn’t know me at all, who had come to my defense.
I’d excused myself to use the bathroom and admitted to Pascal that I’d found the one but he was already in a relationship with my son. Pascal had laughed. I had too. But deep down, I’d believed it, even though I’d made it into a joke.
“It was weird, but after that Christmas, he kind of changed. He treated me better, and I thought he was learning to appreciate me, so when he settled on a wedding date, I agreed. I should have questioned it, but a part of me was scared no one would ever ask me to marry them again.”
I removed the wet rag from my eyes and reached for his hand. “Marry me?”
“What? Gray, I didn’t mean that you should ask me that.”
“I know, but I want to. Ozzie, I knew you were the one from the first time we met. It’s sappy as hell, but I could feel it. Nothing has changed.”
Seconds ticked by, the silence stretching between us. His hand was warm in mine, and his breath hitched as he turned his face toward me.
“Gray, I want to, but…”
My heart fell, and I deflated against the mattress. “I see.”
“It’s just that I said yes too soon the last time. We have something beautiful between us, and I want to get time to know you, date you, and live with you before we make such an important decision. I was about to marry for all the wrong reasons. Please don’t be mad.”
