“Jules, don’t you know? This is our home, and yeah, we might argue from time to time. This right here, though, having you in my arms, us compromising, is the best feeling in the world.”
“Oh, gosh, I love you so much, Hudson.” I faceplanted into his neck while he absorbed my worked-up energy that turned me into a sniveling mess.
Hudson laughed and said, “I love you, too, Jules. Even when you are a mess.” It made me laugh and work through my muddled emotions.
He wasn’t wrong, either. We sat down and wrote down a list of what we both liked, and if it was different from one another’s, we worked through it until it was.
Today, I’m working at the shop. My eighties playlist is playing in the background that Hudson loves to tease me about. He’s lucky I don’t pull out leg warmers, headbands, and my vintage band t-shirts to wear every day. Hudson stayed at home with Beau, of course. That dog, I swear he loves Hudson more than he does me now. He’s waiting for the tilers to come in and finish up the bathroom. It’s the one thing we’re waiting on before he can get the painters inside.
I had a new shipment come in today, anyways, and there’s no time like the present to get to work. Hudson would kick my ass if he saw me unloading all the boxes that I did, not to mention the heavy statues that were shipped in from Ohio for the garden area. They are gorgeous in their natural stone color.
I finish placing everything where it needs to go before I start hanging the pictures that came in. I’m working on the last picture to hang. It was only supposed to take an hour, if that, to hang all of these, but for some reason, today, anything that could go wrong does go wrong.
“Are you kidding me?” I say out loud to no one. Today has been a slow day for the shop. I try to adjust the heavy picture I’m trying to hang at the right angle. Why do they have to have two screws put in the wall? This is so frustrating. I hate crooked pictures. Obviously, there’s stuff here and there, mismatched in variety in my shop, but I can’t seem to get this straight. I feel the wobble of the rickety step stool I should not be using, but I didn’t want to get the big ladder that Hudson brought for five seconds.
I should know better. Heck, even my cell phone isn’t in my pocket like it usually is, and I know I’m tee-totally screwed when I hear the crunch of wood splintering in half. I try to catch myself, but it’s too late. I’m falling backward, my hands flailing in the wind, and I let out a screech as the wind is knocked out of me.
My eyes are closed as the feeling of fuzziness overtakes my body. I attempt to sit up, but that doesn’t help any. In fact, it makes me feel worse.
I lie back down, resting my eyes until I can find the strength to get back up.
25
Hudson
“Come on, Beau. It’s about time we go see your mom and take her some lunch,” I tell him. Jules’ dog is fast becoming both of ours. I hear her mutter “little traitor” all the time. It makes me laugh; she’s not wrong.
I pack a lunch for the both of us—a couple of sandwiches, some fruit, chips, and even the chocolate chip cookies she baked yesterday, along with the lime-flavored mineral water she’s been devouring night and day lately.
Beau’s ears perk up. The tilers are upstairs making noises, but what he hears is different. There’s a car coming up the drive.
“I wonder who that could be.” We barely get any visitors unless it’s the construction crew, but everyone’s here that I know of. I make my way outside and see Sheriff Shepard’s truck come to a stop.
I walk down the front steps, trying to figure out what could be happening to make him come this far out that he couldn’t call me first.
Elliot Shepard steps out, takes his hat off while running his fingers through his hair. “Hudson, I hate like hell I had to come out to tell you this, but Jules is in the hospital,” he blurts out.
“Give me five seconds. I’ll put Beau back in the house and follow you into town.” I turn around without letting him speak another word.
“Come on, Beau. Time for a treat, and I’ll go figure out what’s wrong with your momma.” I clap my leg, and he follows me in. He goes right to his dog bed. I throw the food in the fridge, give Beau a treat, pat his head, grab my keys, and go back out front.