SHE WAS ALONE in bed.
That was Lindy’s first thought when she woke up. Her second thought was wondering why she had woken up. It wasn’t because of the empty bed. Wyatt had left as soon as they had finished making love.
Having sex.
He had made it abundantly clear that was all he was there for last night. She was fine with that. She needed that, in fact. So why it bothered her at all, she didn’t know.
It wasn’t why she had woken up, though. The little cabin was comfortable, and quiet, and for a moment she just lay there, puzzled by the faint background noise that was coming from...
Her phone was buzzing.
She scrambled to the edge of the bed, and grabbed the phone off her nightstand, where she had left it right before she had fallen into a fitful, lonely sleep in the unfamiliar bed.
She didn’t recognize the phone number.
She answered. “Hello?”
“Melinda Parker?”
“This is she.”
“This is Three Sisters Regional Medical Center. We’re calling because you’re on your brother’s list of emergency contacts.”
“What happened?” Immediately, she was up, her heart hammering sickly in her throat. “Is he okay?”
No, no, no. She started scrambling around the room, looking for her clothes, trying to make sense of what this call actually was.
“He had an accident tonight.”
“Car or bull?” she asked, fumbling with her bra.
“Uh...bull. And I apologize that it’s taken so long to call you, but the doctors have been working to get him stabilized, and he wasn’t able to talk to us.”
“To get him stabilized? Does that mean he’s... He’s not stable?”
“He is for now. He was intubated. He is not breathing on his own, and he isn’t conscious. He’s had some significant swelling around the brain, and other injuries...”
“I’m coming. Right now.”
“We can give you more information upon your arrival.”
“Thank you,” she said, hanging up the phone, sitting there feeling numb. Had she really just thanked someone for calling her and telling her that her brother was... Unconscious? In an accident? She knew that was a possibility. She always knew. That was the nature of playing at such a dangerous sport. But nothing had ever happened. Not until now. All this time and nothing had ever happened. He had always been safe. He had swelling on his brain. He wasn’t conscious.
“Oh... God.” She pressed her hand to her chest and sobbed the word. It wasn’t a blasphemy. It was a prayer. It was all she could think of. She said it, over and over again, because she didn’t know what else to say, all while she was getting dressed. And when her numb feet carried her to the front door of the main house, she wasn’t sure quite why.
Except that Wyatt knew Dane. And Wyatt was a bull rider. So Wyatt knew. He understood. Whatever the real reason, that was the one that she gave herself.
It was the one that worked.
She knocked, knocked until her knuckles were numb, until she heard footsteps coming toward the door. It was wrenched open a moment later, and Wyatt was standing there, shirtless and looking disheveled.
“What the hell?” he asked, looking and sounding dazed.
“It’s Dane,” she said. “He got hurt tonight in a ride, and I don’t know all the details, because I had to hang up the phone. Because I have to go. I have to go to Three Sisters Regional Hospital, wherever the hell that is, and I’m not exactly sure. But I have to start driving now.”
She wasn’t in control now. Wasn’t holding it together at all. She was shaking. She was about to come apart.
“The hell you’re driving,” Wyatt said, gruffly. “Come inside.”
“Okay,” she said, too shocked to argue. All she could do was what he said. There was nothing else to do.
“Just a second,” he said, disappearing from the room for a moment. He returned later with a T-shirt in his hand. He sniffed it and then gave her an apologetic look. “Grabbed it from the laundry. I’m making sure it’s not beyond redemption.” He pulled the T-shirt over his head and grabbed a jacket off the peg by the door. “Let’s go.”
“I have to... I have to tell Sabrina and Bea.”
“It can wait until morning,” he said.
“No it can’t. What if he dies? It can’t wait until morning. I can’t tell Bea that he’s dead.” She realized that she had moved closer to him, that she had grabbed hold of the edge of his jacket. She was losing her mind. No doubt about it. But she didn’t know how to hang on to her mind, not while her brother was lying in a hospital.
“Do you want me to drive your car?” he asked.
She nodded. And then, wondered why she was letting him do this in the first place. Sabrina would drive her. Or Liam could. She didn’t need Wyatt to do it. Except, she wanted him to. She needed him to.
She picked up her cell phone and dialed Sabrina, while she walked toward Bea’s cabin. She needed everyone to know. As quickly as possible.
Sabrina answered the phone. “Hello?”
“This is Lindy,” she said, uselessly, because of course Sabrina knew who was calling her cell phone. “Dane was in an accident.”
“Lindy! Oh no. What can I do?”
“Nothing,” Lindy said. “I had to tell you.” She hung up, knowing she was going to have to offer more of an explanation and soon. But she was right at the front of Bea’s cabin. She knocked on the door. “Bea!” she shouted.
The door opened and Bea appeared, looking rumpled, wearing baggy pajamas. “Lindy,” she said, looking immediately worried. “What’s going on?”
“Dane was in an accident,” she said, reaching out and grabbing Bea’s hand. And she realized then that she hadn’t just needed to tell Sabrina and Bea because they cared about Dane, but because they were her sisters. They were her family. It didn’t matter what their blood relation was, didn’t matter what the end of her marriage meant in terms of legal connection. They were her sisters. She needed them to know.
She needed them.
“Dane?” Bea looked faint.
“They said he’s unconscious,” Lindy said. “And I have to go to him. I have to go...”
“No,” Bea said, a tear falling down her cheek, making Lindy conscious of the fact that she hadn’t cried yet at all. “He...he’s going to be okay.” Bea was trembling, and Lindy didn’t have it in her to offer comfort.
“I hope so.”
“No... I can’t...” Bea gulped. “No.”
“I’m going to go to the hospital,” Lindy said.
“I will too,” Bea said.
“I’m going with Wyatt,” Lindy said, and Bea paused, giving Lindy a strange look.
She couldn’t have Bea in the car with her. She wanted her support, but she needed... Someone who wasn’t more of an emotional mess than she was, and she wasn’t entirely sure why she hadn’t realized it was going to be like that.
“Bea,” Lindy said. “I know you love him. He’s my brother. And I just need...”
“I’ll drive,” Bea said.
“No,” Lindy said. “Please don’t drive yourself.”
“He’s not really my brother,” Bea said, blinking hard. “I can drive.”
“Beatrix,” Lindy said. “I know you love him.” She repeated it, making the words more meaningful.
Bea looked away, blinking hard. “There’s nothing... It’s nothing.”
“Right now it’s not nothing. See if Sabrina and Liam will drive you.”
She turned and saw that Liam and Sabrina were already headed toward her. Liam was still doing up his shirt, and Sabrina was wobbling like she was in a daze.
“How far is the hospital?” Sabrina asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
Wyatt appeared then, his phone in his hand. “Two and half hours. We’ll be there around four.”
“Wyatt...” She looked around, “I’m sorry. You don’t have to...”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll drive you.”
She didn’t even think about the fact that everyone was there, she moved beside him and grabbed hold of his arm, took his hand. “Thank you,” she said.
No one said anything. Instead, Sabrina and Liam focused on collecting Bea, Lindy gently suggesting that she get dressed. Bea went back inside the cabin and Lindy stood there.
“Why don’t you and Wyatt go,” Sabrina said. “I’ll make sure that Bea gets there okay.”
“She... I don’t know if she’s going to be okay,” Lindy said.
“She’s going to be fine. You need to get to him. You need to make sure that you’re okay.”
She nodded mutely, and Wyatt led her over to her car. She handed him her keys, and they headed off.
If you need help...ask me.
His words echoed in her now. And she needed him. She did. She didn’t care if Sabrina saw it, or Liam. She had no idea what that meant. She just knew...
Wyatt Dodge had changed her.
She wanted to lean against him. Wanted for there to be nothing between them. No walls. No emotional boundaries. Life was...too damn short to hold back and even though she wasn’t sure she even knew how, she wanted to hold on to him.
“You really don’t have to do this for me,” she said as they made their way onto the main highway.
“I want to,” he said gruffly. “Hell, but for the grace of God go I, and stuff.”
“I want to know what happened. I... I wish I knew...what happened. How. I wish someone could tell me.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out what we can once we get to the hospital. And he’ll tell you everything once he wakes up.”
“What if he doesn’t wake up? She said his brain was swollen. What if he isn’t the same again?” Lindy asked, feeling desperate and frantic.
“I don’t know,” Wyatt said, his voice rough. “But I know you can survive it.”
She shook her head. “I might not be able to.”
“Listen to me,” he said. “You will. Because you don’t have another choice. My mother died. I lived through it. It sucked. But I lived through it. You’re going to live through this.”
“He’s the only person who knows me,” she said. “The only person who knows where I came from. Who knows who I am now. There’s not another person on this earth that knows all that, Wyatt. Not really. Not the way he does. He’s always been there for me. And it’s not... I wasn’t as good of an older sister as you are a brother. That’s for damn sure. I didn’t take care of him. I should’ve told him to quit riding. I should’ve told him to just take all the money that I had. Why was he even still doing that? He didn’t need to.”
“Maybe he wanted to.”
Somewhere, deep down she knew that was true. That Dane making his own way was something essential to him.
Right now, the fact she had no fault was hard to take on board. She was upset, and she wanted to blame something and someone. It seemed easiest to blame herself. All the shortcomings she was afraid that she had.
Wyatt put on music, they stopped once to get coffee, but otherwise had a silent drive. Lindy felt the weight of everything pressing down on her. Dane’s injuries. The way her feelings were shifting for Wyatt.
Everything.
They got there before Sabrina, Liam and Bea, and made their way from reception to the emergency room.
They met a doctor who sat them down and explained the extent of Dane’s injuries. He had been trampled. His head was not the only thing that was injured, though his scalp had been cut from his forehead on to the back of his skull, and his leg was broken. Completely mangled by the raging animal. But it was the brain injury that was causing the most concern.
“At the moment we’re going to keep him in a medically induced coma,” the doctor explained. “Depending on how things look. The best way to minimize damage in situations like this.”
Lindy nodded as if she had any idea what that meant. “Can I see him?” she asked.
“Yes,” the doctor said. “Though I feel like I should warn you that he’s in rough shape.”
Lindy nodded. “That’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all that her younger brother was lying in a hospital bed in rough shape. But she didn’t know what other response to have to that. She had to make it seem like it would be okay, so that she could see him. Because if she didn’t see him she wasn’t sure she would ever believe he was actually alive. She went back to his room, and Wyatt followed behind. At the doorway, she squeezed his hand. “Can you let me... By myself.”
She didn’t want him to see her break down. Of all the things, she didn’t think she could handle that. Didn’t think she could handle herself if Wyatt was standing there being a strong wall for her to lean on. She had never wanted quite so badly to lean on another person. If he was there to hold her up, then she feared she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own after.
Wyatt seemed to root deeper to the hall floor, crossing his arms. “I’m going to be right here,” he said, his expression grim.
She wanted to move closer to him. To kiss him. So she didn’t. Instead, she walked into the hospital room alone.
Her heart slammed against her breastbone. She hadn’t been prepared for this. Not really.
He was lying there, hooked up to so many things. The gash going down the front of his head was horrifying. The stitches only made it look worse. Like he was Frankenstein’s cowboy, all sewn back together. It didn’t look anything but grizzly.
His leg was elevated and completely encased in some massive brace, but she could see stitches coming out the top and the bottom.
And there was a tube down his throat. His mouth was open... The tubes.
He looked dead.
And that was when she started crying. Crying for the first time in her memory. All the tears she hadn’t shed for every pain she’d endured for the last decade suddenly spilled out and down her cheeks.
She cried in great, gasping sobs that she didn’t think would ever end. Her knees went weak and she slid down to the floor.
A nurse came in and grabbed hold of her shoulders. Or maybe the nurse had already been in the room. She didn’t know. “Do you feel faint? Are you okay?”
Lindy couldn’t say anything. She shook her head.
And then, it wasn’t a nurse holding on to her anymore. It was stronger arms. Familiar arms.
Wyatt was watching her cry. She should be horrified. But she wasn’t. He was the one she wanted to hold her when she cried. And it stunned her to realize it wasn’t embarrassing. She felt safe. She felt protected.
As she soaked the front of his T-shirt with tears, it felt like release.
One that had been coming for years. Maybe all of her life. She was being lifted now, brought up off the ground and still held, safe and close.
Wyatt held her tightly, leading her from the room, back out into the area where there were chairs for family. “He’s not awake,” Wyatt said gravely. “You don’t need to be in there.”
“I should be,” she said, feeling miserable. Feeling weak and so terribly inadequate.
“You don’t need to be,” he said firmly. “Don’t be a martyr.”
Bea, Sabrina and Liam came into the waiting room a moment later. Bea’s eyes went wide, her face going pale. “Is he...”
“He’s unconscious,” Wyatt said, sitting Lindy down, and taking a seat beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “He looks a bit of a mess. You might not want to go in and see him.”
Bea looked determined. “I’m going to see him.”
“Family only right now,” Wyatt said.
“I’ll tell them I’m his sister,” Bea said, smiling slightly. “It’s what he would say.” Bea went in and she didn’t return for a while, and Lindy wondered what that made her, that she couldn’t handle it, and Bea could.
Bea returned about a half hour later with a doctor behind her. “We’re going to take him in for surgery. He needs reconstruction of his femur, and he needs pins placed in his knee.”
Lindy nodded, as if they’d been waiting for her agreement. She knew they weren’t. None of this was up to her. She couldn’t fix it or make it better.
They couldn’t get out of this one on their own.
She and Dane had always gotten through. But she didn’t see how her whip-smart, funny younger brother was going to get himself out of this.
Not even he could charm away a head injury.
They sat in the waiting room until the sun rose. Wyatt sat there with them. No one asked Lindy why Wyatt had come. Sabrina didn’t tease, and Bea didn’t look speculative. Liam, for his part, was stoic, because that’s what he was good at.
At around 7:00 a.m., Damien walked in.
“I called him,” Sabrina said, her tone apologetic. “I just thought...”
Damien and Dane had been close once upon a time, and even though Dane had taken it as a personal affront when their marriage had dissolved, they had been like brothers once. Lindy only nodded.
“Thanks for coming,” she said.
She didn’t get up.
“How is he?” Damien’s eyes went to Wyatt, who was sitting next to Lindy, his expression questioning. She didn’t have any answers for him. She didn’t owe him any.
And that was that.
“Good,” Wyatt responded, his posture going stiff, energy radiating from his body. “He got out of surgery a few hours ago. He’s still unconscious, but they said they’re going to go ahead and keep him that way for a few days. Until the swelling in his brain goes down.”
Wyatt said that like he knew it would all go that way. According to plan. He said it with such confidence that Lindy was tempted to just blindly believe him.
It would be so nice to just believe him.
Then Wyatt put his hand over hers. She looked at him, and he was looking at Damien, his expression a subtle challenge.
She had stopped him from doing this in town when they’d hung up flyers. Had flinched when he’d been less than discreet by the campfire. And suddenly...suddenly she was grateful for his touch. Here, in public. In front of her friends. In front of Damien.
Not because she thought it might make him jealous. Because it felt good to have someone be there for her, in her corner.
Conversation was odd and stilted after that, but she was grateful at least that Damien hadn’t brought Sarabeth with him. Not that she couldn’t have handled it. Right now... Damien’s presence just made it slightly uncomfortable. It wasn’t painful. Nothing was painful in comparison to Dane being so badly injured he might never wake up. To Dane being in actual, physical pain.
“Have you talked to your mother?” That question came, suddenly from Damien.
“I... No,” she said, frowning.
It hadn’t even occurred to her to call their mother. She was a terrible daughter, but then, she knew that already. Wasn’t anything her mom hadn’t said to her many times before. Too good for them. Above herself.
Whore.
That was a good one her mother liked to use.
“I should,” she said, frowning.
“I could call her,” Damien offered.
Everything in her rebelled at that. She didn’t need his help. Of course he knew that she had a difficult relationship with her mom, but it wasn’t his job to try to help with anything right now.
“No, don’t worry about it.”
Wyatt tightened his hold on her, a show of possession, she had a feeling. She was okay with that.
It occurred to her then, why it was so different to take help from Wyatt, than it had been to accept it from Damien. If Wyatt saw that she needed something, he was there to fill the gap. He was a good man. It was who he was.
Damien would have used it against her. He had. She’d come into their marriage guarded. And the subtle ways he’d talked down to her over the years had trained her to strengthen her armor even more.
To build the walls higher.
To never look like she needed anything.
She looked between the two men. And again, she was stunned by how...little she felt for her ex-husband. There was no pang of longing. No feeling of nostalgia. If she saw him walking down the street these days, she wouldn’t even notice him. He was still handsome, but...not in the same way that Wyatt was. Wyatt affected her on a deep, visceral level. He scared her as much as he enticed her, and she couldn’t ignore him.
Damien was like white noise. Nothing of interest to her at all.
She placed her hand over Wyatt’s, rubbing it for a second before getting up and making her way into the hall. She dialed her mother’s number, and got an automated message telling her it had been disconnected.
She groaned. That was all she needed. To have to go and pay her mother a visit.
But she would have to. She couldn’t not tell her mother, no matter how frustrating she found the woman. Dane was her son. She had to know.
“Her number’s disconnected,” she said when she came back in. “I’m going to have to... I’m going to have to go and see her.”
“I can stay,” Bea said. “Everybody needs to take a trip home and grab their things, I can stay.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Damien said.
Lindy didn’t know why the small show of decency surprised her so much. Bea was his sister, and she looked...pale and determined, but like she might break at any moment. Damien would have to be heartless not to notice that. And no matter how much she felt like he lacked common decency when it came to her, he wasn’t completely terrible.
The fact of the matter was, he had been a decent man for most of the years she had been married to him. And she had loved him, in the way she could. She hadn’t married him for his things, whatever niggled at her sometimes now in the evenings when she couldn’t remember why in hell she had fallen for him in the first place, and the only answer she could come up with was his money.
No, he had been a good man. He maybe even still was. Not to her. And not so good that she would ever want to be with him again, even if that option were on the table. What he had done to her was terrible. But he hadn’t always been. And it wasn’t...the beginning and end of who he was.
He was Bea’s older brother. Sabrina’s too. He could see that his younger sister was upset, and he cared about that. He even still cared about Dane.
Maybe, in some weird corner of his heart, he cared about Lindy too. It didn’t matter either way. She was ready. Ready for it to be over and done.
Ready to quit hiding behind this particular wall.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” she asked.
Damien’s brows shot up. “Okay.”
Wyatt squeezed her hand, but released it, and she went out to the hall with Damien by her side.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
“He’s like a brother to me,” he said simply.
“I know. But thank you for not letting me keep you away. That was decent of you.”
“Thanks for not kicking me out.” He looked boyish when he said that. And it made her think of the boy he’d been when she’d met him. The boy she’d first fallen for.
Oh, that boy just wasn’t for her now. It was such a freeing thing to realize.
“We’re never going to be friends,” Lindy said. “I don’t want to be. I like being divorced. I like mostly not seeing you. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. You hurt me. And... I got to hurt you back when I took the winery. I’m not sorry about that. At all. But I don’t hate you. Not anymore. And I... I’m glad that part of the man I did love is still in you. He came here today. And I appreciate that.”
His jaw went tense, his eyes cool. “I didn’t come here to have a discussion about us.”
“Yeah. But you came. So... We never did have a discussion about us. And I think I’m due this moment. So you have to live with it. We had a lifetime together. Ten years is a long damn time, Damien. It really is. And I can’t look back on all of them with bitterness. Even though I’m tempted to. I wish so much that you hadn’t done to us what you did. I know that we weren’t happy, but we might have been able to fix it.” She closed her eyes. “But I’m glad we didn’t. Now. When all is said and done. I don’t feel like I owe you a debt of gratitude, and I don’t think it absolves you, but I’m happy we’re not together.”
“I have no idea how I’m supposed to take that,” he said.
“Good. Be confused for a little while. I’ve been confused for the last couple of years. But I think I’m finally not.”
“You’re with Wyatt Dodge now?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not really. I mean...you know. There’s something. But we’re not together. You know.”
He looked extremely annoyed by that, and she felt gratified. Gratified in a few ways, because he had shown that he had some decency in him by coming here, but it didn’t make her ache. And he was doing a good job of demonstrating now why she found him to be such a pain in the ass. Why she didn’t actually want to be with him at all.
“It’s a stretch to say I’m happy for you,” she said. “But I’m not mad at you.”
“I’m not mad at you either. For the winery. I can’t speak for my folks. But I don’t care. Not anymore. I don’t want it.”
“Thanks,” she said. But she didn’t mean it. Because she didn’t need him to not be mad at her about it. She didn’t really care if he was.
“You care about it more than I do,” he said. “God knows you’ll do a better job.”
“I do. And I will.” She wasn’t going to give him an out, wasn’t going to waste any time placating him. He didn’t deserve it.
“I’m glad it worked out like that. In the end.”
“Me too.”
She got the winery, but not the husband. And that had never been the goal. For some reason, all that had been clarified for her just now. Things had gotten tangled up in all of her anger. And there was something about letting that go, about clearing that all out that had brought a sense of real clarity to her. She had married him for the right reasons. She had divorced him for the right ones too. And everything else... It was just life. She didn’t need to prove herself. Not to anyone. Now that she knew...she felt different.
She had doubted herself, that was the problem. Had gotten lost underneath who she was versus what she wanted to be. Had bought desperately into the lie that who she was beneath her polished exterior wasn’t enough.
That wasn’t true, though.
And now that absolutely no part of her at all cared about spiting this man in front of her... It all seemed a hell of a lot clearer. She was finally ready to let him go. Oh, the love feelings she had let go of a long time ago. But the anger... Yeah, she was ready to let go of that too.
“I hope he gets better,” Damien said.
“Me too. Thanks for staying with Bea. It means a lot. She and Sabrina love you, you know. I mean, they love me too. And they’ve been angry at you. But they do love you.”
He nodded. “Nice to know they haven’t written me off completely, I guess.”
“Here’s the thing, Damien. It’s too late for us. And that’s fine. But they’re your sisters. And it’s not too late with them. So keep doing stuff like this. Keep being there for them. Really, be there for Bea right now. Because...”
He nodded. “I know.”
“Great. I’ll see you around.”
“See you around,” he said.
She went back into the waiting room, leaving Damien behind her. “I’m ready to go,” she said to Wyatt.
Wyatt nodded. “I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”