Page 43 of Bad Decisions & Back Roads

I stared at nothing, feeling everything.“We’re complicated.”

“What does that mean?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face.“Remember how you were when Erika left?How you tore yourself apart waiting on her?Like life was stuck on pause until she came back?”

Josh went quiet.Then softly, “Are you telling me that’s Gia for you?”

My throat burned.“She’d might’ve used to be a long time ago.Just makes us uneasy now.”

Too much had cracked open tonight.I leaned my head back against the wall and shut my eyes.“It’s been a hell of a night, Josh.”

“She’s here.Maybe you can figure things out.”

“Whatever we had feels like it might be gone.”I swallowed hard.“Hey, try to get some rest.Those babies are hard the first few months.”I hung up.

Gia’s words kept circling, relentless and sharp:Whatever it is that makes your heart belong somewhere else, I felt that for you.

For years, I’d built my hurt around the last words she’d said—that she couldn’t love me.I’d worn them like a scar that never quit aching, proof that I had somehow loved harder, needed more, and meant less.

Back then, I’d been drowning in my own grief with my youngest brother gone.Then the farm and HVAC business were suddenly mine.Fear rode my shoulders so heavy that I could barely stand beneath it.I’d barely survived.

I never imagined what survival looked like for her.In my mind, she’d gone somewhere safe.A relative.A family friend.Somewhere with walls and food and adults who gave a damn whether she made it through the night.Not a sixteen-year-old alone with no money in a homeless shelter.The cruelest truth of all was that she’d still been safer there than with the family she’d run from.

The resentment over what she’d done to me didn’t fade.I understood what she’d run from and why she felt she had to go, but maybe a month later, or a year—or even five years later—she could’ve reached out.If I had really mattered to her, she could’ve sent an email, made a phone call to the main house, or even sent a damn physical letter.Just something.

Instead, she’d cut me out.She’d left me alone in a hell that lasted years.

I refused to feel this insanity about her anymore.I’d compartmentalize her the same way I did every other rotten thing in my life.I’d seal it up, shove it down, and move on.It was done.Over.She’d said her piece.I’d said mine.That meant we had closure.As in, we were done.Forever over.

Why, then, did I still feel like nothing about this was settled?

ChapterFifteen

GIA

Everythingabout last night circled through my mind.No matter how I tried to sort through it, I ended up in the same place—a hollow ache of loss so sharp it felt like the end of something far deeper than my two-year marriage ever had.It was a grief that didn’t make sense, a sadness tangled up with longing and regret.I was too emotionally wrung out to fight any of it.

I’d dragged myself in for a morning shift at the small animal emergency clinic to help cover for Erika and then slept all afternoon.

When my phone rang at five-something, the name on the screen pulled an unexpected smile from me.

“Hey, Gia,” Hudson said.“I’m coming through Vision on my way home.Let’s grab dinner.”

I sat up in bed, suddenly aware of how tired I still was—bone-deep tired, the kind that had nothing to do with sleep.

“I’d like that,” I said softly.“But, Hud… I could use a friend right now.I don’t think I can handle something serious yet.”

“I can do that,” he said easily, without hesitation.“Can I pick you up?You can tell me where you want to go…in town or out.”

Relief loosened something tight in my chest.“I’ll drop a pin to my address.”

Once sent, he said, “Looks like about twenty minutes.That work for you?”

“Sounds good.”I did my best to make my voice sound lighter than I felt to hide the exhaustion and the lingering emotional wreckage from last night’s insanity.To my own ears, there was no disguising how drained I was.

Hudson picked me up, and we drove to the next town over for dinner at a little diner tucked off the highway.We talked about our recent cases and the minutia of life through dinner.Suddenly, he studied me across the table, concern softening his usual easygoing expression.

“What’s wrong?”he asked.“You look like a woman who just got dumped.”