SHE HAD BEEN DIVORCED. She had gone through the dissolution of a ten-year marriage. She was literally sitting in a hospital waiting room, where her brother was in a coma in the next room. And she was...disintegrating inside. Over Wyatt Dodge.
He didn’t love her. He didn’t want to love her. And she just now thought that maybe he should. And she didn’t have any time to marinate on that desire. Because the dream was already over. She felt like a tragic song from the nineties.
She was supposed to somehow still do this barbecue thing. She wondered if she could get Sabrina or Bea, or even Olivia to act as her envoy.
They were supposed to be able to deal, like grown-ups. That had been the agreement. She was the one who had broken it, and she knew that. But she couldn’t help it. She had changed, and it was his fault. And because she had changed she wanted to fight for what she felt like they both deserved.
But apparently, Wyatt was going to keep pretending that everything was just what they had agreed on in the beginning. Easy. Physical. Sex.
It wasn’t that. It wasn’t, and it never had been. She knew that. She felt it. Believed that in her soul.
And she should probably think about Dane, who was still in a precarious state right now. And not think about her broken heart.
“Are you okay?” Sabrina asked quietly.
“No,” Lindy said, honestly.
“You didn’t miss anything while you were gone. I mean, there wasn’t any change. Damien left a couple of hours ago. But he did stay for a long time.”
“I’m surprised,” Lindy said.
“I am too. But I’m glad.”
“Is Bea sitting in his room?”
“I think she is,” Sabrina said. “She came out for a while but she... Mostly she’s been with him.”
Lindy’s heart hurt. For herself. But for Bea too. Because in so many ways the situation with Dane was impossible. But she knew that Bea felt it all keenly. It didn’t make it less real.
“I’m sorry that your mother didn’t want to come,” Sabrina said. “I know that... I know that that’s a really hard relationship.”
“I seem to be replete with hard relationships,” Lindy said. “It’s my lot in life. But then, I guess I’m kind of a hard person.”
“No you’re not,” Sabrina said, standing up from the pink seat she was sitting in and moving to the light blue one next to Lindy. “You’re a wonderful person. And more of a sister to me than Damien has ever been a brother. Our family is difficult. You know that. My dad disowned me for the better part of a decade. Wouldn’t speak to me over Christmas dinner. We might be fixing things now, and it might be better, but it’s still...weird. You’ve always just loved me. No strings attached. You have no idea how much of a revelation that was, Lindy.”
“I might,” Lindy said. “Because it’s probably pretty close to knowing what you and Bea have done for me.”
“Is something else wrong?” Sabrina asked, a little bit too insightful for Lindy’s liking.
“Wyatt,” she said.
“Oh no,” Sabrina groaned. “God spare us all from pigheaded cowboys.”
“Yeah, I know you went a few rounds with one yourself.”
“True. But I ended up engaged to mine. And that made all of the stuff we went through worth it.”
Lindy laughed softly. It was either that or cry. “I don’t think that’s going to happen for Wyatt and me.”
“I didn’t think you wanted it to,” Sabrina pointed out. “I thought that you were strictly anti-relationships. Sisters doing it for themselves and all of that.”
“I was. Until I fell in love with him. The idiot.”
“He made you fall in love with him?”
“Yes. With his incredible bedroom skills and his fantastic personality, and his ability to help me see the value in myself.”
“That bastard,” Sabrina said.
“I know, right?” Lindy huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know. I just wish that... I don’t want him to be different. I love him like he is. But I wish that he could let me. I wish that whatever it is that causes him so much pain... I wish he could let it go. I don’t want him to be different. I just want him to love me.”
“I...might understand that a little bit. Liam had...a hard childhood. And it was difficult for him to let go of that. It was difficult for him to let someone in. And we didn’t come together easily. But we did. I think as long as you don’t give up completely, as long as you don’t shove him out of your heart altogether... There’s always hope.”
“But what if...what if it doesn’t work? It worked for you and Liam eventually but that’s not how it is for most people. And it scares me. Because I’m trying this thing where I...where I let people in. I don’t know if you know this about me, Sabrina, but it’s hard for me. To connect with people.”
“Lindy, I don’t know what you think about yourself, but you’re not cold. And you certainly don’t push people away. It takes a little bit of work to get to know you, but you’re worth it. And I’ve always thought you were. I don’t know absolutely everything about you, but I know what kind of person you are. I know that you’re a good friend. A good sister. And you were definitely a better wife than my brother deserved. Don’t second-guess that now. We all have things that we can work on, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve given nothing or done nothing in the lives of the people you love for the past ten years. You have. You were there for me when I was going through stuff with Liam. You’re the one who bailed me out after he took my virginity and left me without a car. You were there for Olivia when everything was going down with Luke. You’ve never made Bea feel silly for harboring this intense crush on Dane for all these years. You... You took care of us. You cared for us. Maybe it’s hard for you to sit down and talk, to share, but it’s not hard for you to love. And you’ve done that. Truly, deeply. For as long as I’ve known you. When no one else was there for me, you were. I love you for that. Forever.”
Lindy’s heart felt like it was expanding. “Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me.”
Bea appeared in the waiting room, looking between Sabrina and Lindy. “Did you get bad news?”
“No,” Lindy said, shaking her head.
“You both look sad.”
“We’re contemplative,” Sabrina responded.
“Okay,” Bea said. “They said the swelling in his brain went down enough that they didn’t need to keep him under anymore. He’s been off the ventilator for about an hour.”
“Oh,” Lindy said, scrambling to her feet.
“I thought you might want to sit with him, instead of me. He would rather see you when he wakes up.”
Bea in her practicality, even through that fierce love that she felt for Dane, touched Lindy’s heart, and it made it feel like it might break a little bit more.
“Okay,” Lindy said. “I’ll go.”
She rubbed her hands on her legs, trying to infuse her limbs with some feeling, trying to drag the horrific pain away from her heart, and then walked back slowly, taking her position by Dane’s bed.
The nurses explained the process to Lindy, how they had eased him off the barbiturate drip a few hours earlier, that he’d been breathing on his own since the effects had begun to wear off. She nodded, like she understood, but she wasn’t sure that she did. It didn’t matter. Either way, they were going to do what they had to. And she just had to trust that. As difficult as it was.
“Oh, Dane,” she said, reaching out and touching his hand. It was the first time she had touched him since she’d seen him in that hospital bed. The first time she’d touched him in a while.
“We’re such a mess. The two of us. Except, I think I might be a little more broken than you are right about now.”
She inhaled sharply, the scent of hospital antiseptic and stale air filling her lungs.
“I love you,” she said, sliding her thumb over his hand. “And I think you know that. At least, I hope you do. You are amazing. What you did with your life. On your own terms. I’m so proud of you. I also think you’re an idiot and I’m going to punch you in the face when you wake up. But I also think you’re incredible. And I just hope that... I hope you realize that. And it better not be too late for me to tell you. You better wake up, and you better know who I am. If this is a 50 First Dates situation I’m not going to be walking you through your life every morning. Because I love you, but I’m also very busy. I don’t have time to walk you through the steps of daily life every darn day.”
There was a rusty chuckle, followed by a groan, and Dane moved beneath her touch.
“Dane,” she said, leaning forward and touching his face. “Can you hear me? Do you know who I am?”
“Shit,” he croaked. “Where the hell... Lindy?”
“You do know who I am,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his words slurred.
“You’re in the hospital. Where else would I be?”
He made a noise that sounded like a question. She couldn’t be sure.
“You had an accident.” She hit the button to call the nurse, because she was sure that Dane being conscious, at least, mostly, was something they needed to attend to.
“Shit,” he said again. Apparently the part of his brain that controlled his cowboy vocabulary was intact. “Did...someone else win then?”
“You sure as hell didn’t win,” she said, incredulous that that was his concern. “You got trampled.”
“I do feel like I got trampled,” he said, groaning again. “I wanted to win Pendleton.”
“You weren’t in Pendleton,” she pointed out.
“I wasn’t?”
“No,” she said. “You were in Sisters.”
“No,” he said. “Sisters is in June.”
“It’s June,” she said.
“Huh?”
Worry sliced through her, because she wasn’t sure what year he was even remembering. Or if he was just jumbled up in general.
But, they would have time to sort all that out later, and whatever he did or didn’t remember they would sort out too.
The door to the hospital room opened, but it wasn’t a nurse who walked in. It was their mother.
“I figured out how to get here,” she said.
“Mom,” Dane said, his voice croaky.
“You really got yourself in a tangle,” she said, looking at him, holding herself stiff, her pale blue eyes filling slightly.
Lindy was not used to her mother showing emotion. And just that little bit of it about undid her. “Your sister was right,” she said. “You do look bad.”
“Thanks,” Dane returned.
“Thank you for coming,” Lindy said.
“He told me to call him if I needed a ride.”
“He?” Lindy asked.
“Your man,” she said.
Lindy’s heart slammed against her breastbone. “Wyatt brought you?”
“He left already.”
“How did he get you to...come?”
Her mom frowned. “He told me it was selfish not to. I never thought of pride that way.”
Lindy looked down at her hands. “I don’t know what hurt you, Mom. Not the first time. But I am sorry. I’m sorry that I was part of it. That I had too much pride to come back and talk to you after we fought. That I wanted to protect myself more than I wanted to fix us.”
“No, Melinda. I’m your mother. I was supposed to be the adult. And I never could be. I just wanted to be safe. Loving people doesn’t let you be safe. Just wait until you have kids. You’ll see how dangerous that feels.” She looked over at Dane. “They grow up and leave you. And then this happens.”
“I’m okay,” Dane mumbled, but then his eyes drifted closed. The monitors showed his heart beating strong still, and that at least was a comfort, in spite of how rough he looked.
“I want you to be happy,” her mom said. “I really do. I’m sorry that my own issues kept you from that.”
I’m sorry wasn’t going to erase so many years of pain. So many years of hardship. But, it was a start to fixing what was between them. It was a start to moving on. After all of this, all Lindy wanted was to move on.
“We can start over, Mom. And whatever you need... I’m going to try to give it to you. And try not to give you more than you want. But if I offer you something...try not to be offended.”
“I’ll try,” she said.
But Lindy knew that she had already changed. And she also knew that she had to figure out what that meant for the future. What that meant for Wyatt. What that meant for herself.
Wyatt had brought her mother here. Whatever he said...it didn’t matter. What he did told her just what kind of man he was. She had no idea what to do about it.
She supposed she had until the barbecue to figure that out. And now that she knew Dane was going to be okay, at least she could focus on that.
More time to reflect on her broken heart. Lucky her.