AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He didn’t look at her, but she saw his lips tighten slightly. And her mother obviously saw it for the peace offering it was, because as they were leaving after a delicious meal of carne asada and the best beans this side of anywhere, she announced she needed to stop over at Good Boy! for some dog biscuits for Dodger, and instructed Dad that she needed him to accompany her.
“To carry a bag of dog biscuits?” Dad said, bewildered.
“Yes. You won’t mind running Britt home, will you, Cody?”
Of course he minds.
But her mother gave him no chance to really get out of it. And Dad seemed to have finally gotten what she was up to and went along.
“I’m sorry,” she said when she and the chair were loaded up into his car and he’d gotten into the driver’s seat. “About my mother, I mean.”
“Seems like she had a plan,” he said, not looking at her, nor making a move to start the engine.
“I know you must be tired, after the long drive.”
For a moment he just sat there, silent. Then he turned his head and met her gaze. “I’m tired,” he said flatly, “because I didn’t get much sleep. And what I got sucked.”
“I know the feeling. And I know why,” she added before he could say anything else that would add to her guilt. And she realized abruptly that she was getting a bit of the same feeling he must have had, when he hadn’t told her the truth. Guilt, she realized, was a very powerful force. “I need to tell you—”
He looked away without speaking, and she couldn’t finish. Her heart sank as he reached out and started the car, which seemed a clear indication he didn’t want to hear what she needed to tell him.
Without looking at her again he maneuvered out of the parking lot and onto Laurel, heading toward the Hickory Creek Spur. But when they got there, he turned away from home, surprising her. He surprised her again when he turned off the road onto a dirt track. She knew where it led, to an overlook with an amazing view of her beloved Hill Country. It was a special place to the residents of Last Stand, a place they left off the tourist maps and information brochures. A place they kept to themselves, a place to find peace, to look out over the hills, to storm-watch, or this time of year to marvel at the seemingly endless carpet of bluebonnets.
When he’d parked and shut the car off, he flicked off the safety belt and turned in the seat to look at her. And spoke as if they’d never moved.
“Tell me what? That you hate me again?”
“No! Tell you I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” At his look she amended her words. “All right, I did at that moment, because…because I was hurt. Not this,” she said, lifting her left hand and moving her right knee, “but…my heart. At the thought that you were only staying with me because you felt guilty. That, on top of…everything else…I just lost it.”
“You’re worried about all your plans falling apart because of this.”
“Yes. That I might not be able to compete this year, which would put me way behind, or maybe not compete at all, which could ruin everything, and whether Ghost is too crazy and will pass that on to her get, and—”
She stopped when he held up a hand. Stayed quiet. She hadn’t listened before, but she would now. She owed him that, and so much more.
“And I felt guilty because I thought I’d caused your accident. I was ready to dump the drones altogether, I felt so sick about it—”
“No!” she exclaimed again. “You can’t do that. You do too much good with them.” She was a little surprised at her own vehemence; she hadn’t realized she’d arrived at this conclusion. And he looked startled as well, enough so that she added, “And…I know now why you’re so dedicated to it. You can’t give that up.”
He stared at her for a long, silent moment. Then, slowly, he said, “You know what I was really thinking when Chance sent me that picture?”
Her brow furrowed. “You said…it was that it wasn’t your fault. Which it wasn’t,” she added firmly. “If it’s anybody’s, it’s mine. I never should have ridden Ghost—of all horses—up there with a storm coming in. It was as much my fault, but Ghost’s most of all. Outside an arena she’s too touchy for anybody’s good.”
“That’s been a long time coming,” he said, his mouth twisting wryly.
“I know. Too long.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m told I have too much patience with that horse and not enough with people. And now I believe it. I blew up at the one person I shouldn’t have. The person who did more to help me than anyone. The person who…turned a lifetime around in the space of a weekend.”
She got a slight smile then. “My mom said when you turn twenty-eight years of squabbling and bickering on its head in a day, there’s bound to be some confusion and uncertainty.”
She felt a burst of relief, then surprise. He’d talked to his mother about this? About what had happened, what had grown between them? Did Maggie Rafferty see the same thing her own mother had seen?
What he’d said a moment ago came back to her. “What were you thinking when you got that picture?”
He met her gaze head-on and held it. And when he spoke, the pure, simple honesty in his voice and words made her throat tighten. “I was deliriously happy. I was glad it wasn’t my fault, but not because of the guilt. Because I thought it meant we could go on without that shadow hanging over us.”
…all I need to know is that he looks at you now the same way your father looks at me.
“And now?” she asked, her voice sounding as tight as her throat felt. She was afraid of the answer, afraid she’d ruined it, ruined them.
