Whispers of You (Lost & Found #1)(79)

The brutal pain of all those nights ripped through me. Wren and I had loved dreaming about our future. Thinking up names for our kids. She’d wanted to meet each of them before settling on one because their little personalities would shine through. We’d loved drawing up plans for our home. She’d demanded a front porch and swing that could be a couch or bed. Coming up with traditions that would be ours alone: Wren wanted a scavenger hunt for every Easter, and heart-shaped pancakes on Valentine’s Day. Every night at dinner we would share our highs and lows.

My dad’s face paled. “Holt—”

I held up a hand. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I just need you to understand. There’s no torture I wouldn’t live through for her. Because even in that, I thought it was right.”

“But now you know it isn’t,” he said quietly.

“I stole Wren’s choice from her. Not just that, I took her voice. I’ll hate myself for it for the rest of my days, but I’ll never do it again. Wren is the strongest woman I’ve ever known. And for some reason, she loves me.”

“Probably took a hard hit to the head as a baby. It scrambled her good sense,” Nash muttered.

I grinned, smacking the back of his head. “I think you were dropped on the head as a baby.”

“I know he was,” Dad shot back.

Nash scowled at him. “Rude.”

A little of the grin slipped from my face as I met Dad’s gaze. “I’m never leaving. Not unless she asks me to. And even then, I’d never go far. She has my heart. My soul. Everything that’s good in me. She’s where I feel peace.”

Dad’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “That’s all I could ever hope to hear. All I could want for her. All I could want for you.”

I felt the raw truth in his words. And I didn’t blame him for the doubt he’d had. Or for wanting to protect Wren—and me. My need to shield the people I cared about had come from my dad. He’d ingrained it in all his kids without even meaning to.

“Good God, I can’t take much more of this mushy lovefest,” Nash moaned. “I’d almost rather see you and Little Williams making out.”

Dad choked on a laugh. “We’ve really traumatized him today, haven’t we?”

I leaned forward, clamping my hands on Nash’s shoulders, and giving him a shake. “It’s good for you. Gotta work on that emotional intelligence.”

Nash cast an affronted look in the rearview mirror. “I have plenty of emotional intelligence, thank you very much.”

Dad hid his laugh behind a cough. “Sure, you do.”

“How about when he hooked up with Grae and Wren’s friend sophomore year?” I said with a grin.

Dad shook his head. “That poor girl.”

Nash gaped at us. “Poor girl? What about poor me? After one kiss, she made a photo collage of us by pasting my head on other people’s bodies. She basically stalked me!”

I couldn’t hold in my laughter now. The girl hadn’t been shy about showing her affections, but a person would’ve had to be blind not to see that she was in love with Nash before he even looked her way. She’d gone to every basketball game, painted his number on her T-shirts, brought him brownies for good luck. It was sweet, but Nash was not a commitment kind of guy, especially not in high school.

The breakup did not go well.

Dad grinned. “You inherited your old man’s charm. It’s a blessing and a curse.”

Nash scoffed. “Katie was off her rocker. I’m pretty sure she’s the one who slashed Maddie’s tires.”

My eyes widened. “Seriously?”

He nodded, the scowl deepening on his face. “What is wrong with people?”

“Broken hearts can lead us all to stupid decisions.” Dad’s lips twitched. “I don’t think Grae ever forgave you for costing her a friend.” He glanced at me. “It’s a miracle she didn’t stand in Holt and Wren’s way.”

Because Grae knew how I felt about Wren. Knew that I’d been in love with her forever. Before I even recognized the emotion, our friendship slipping into more, into everything, so seamlessly it was as easy as breathing. I’d dated before Wren and I got together, but it had never felt right, and it had taken that wrong to make me realize what was right in front of me.

“Holt always was her favorite,” Nash grumbled as he pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead.

I chuckled. “I don’t know about favorite, but I didn’t shamelessly flirt with all her friends.”

“That’s because you don’t have game.”

“It’s because there’s only one girl who has ever felt right.”

Something passed over Nash’s face, but he hid it quickly with a grin. “So, what you’re saying is that you’ve basically been whipped since birth.”

I shrugged, opening my door. “Happily.”

Nash gagged, but my dad gave me an attaboy.

Grabbing Shadow’s leash, I motioned for her to follow me out of the SUV. “Do you have maps of the area that we can go over?”

Nash nodded. “In the trunk.”

I moved around to the back hatch and opened it. There was a cylinder that I knew housed what we needed. It took me a minute to find what I was looking for. “Tell me the range of coordinates her parents gave.”