“I know you’re hurting, and I don’t mean your hand.”
Her voice was quiet and strong, measured, like the nightmare we’d just experienced hadn’t touched her. Yet, looking into her eyes told me a different story. Whiskey pools stared back at me, soft and shining with unshed tears. Understanding and sympathetic. Love.
She took a breath and continued. “I won’t allow you to shut me out, though, Gunner. Grief is something we’ve both experienced before and we’ll deal with this together.”
“No one died,” I snapped back.
“But Ariel did, and she was your horse, your friend.” She stretched her neck and unzipped the hoody, blowing out her cheeks. “She was your connection to your mom. Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter,” she said quietly. “Because we both know it does.”
Her words landed like a physical blow, not because they were cruel, but because they were true.
She shrugged off her hoodie, draping it over the gurney. “God, it’s stuffy in here.” Despite her complaint, goosebumps pebbled her arms. She nodded toward my bandaged hand. “What did the nurse say? Did she give you care instructions?”
The clinical question was an olive branch, a way forward that didn’t require either of us to bleed any more than we already had.
“Keep it clean, clean dressing every day, Tylenol for the pain and don’t pop the fucking blister. I can deal so like I said you can go home. You have the Uber app, right? Best organize one for yourself.”
Her cheeks blew out and her nostrils flared revealing her frustration. “I’m not going anywhere, no matter how much you act like a huge dick to me, so suck it up cowboy.”
Reaching out for a chair, she dragged it to her and sat down with a bump.
“I guess I can’t force you to leave,” I mumbled out.
“Nope you damn well can’t, so don’t even try.”
And that, it seemed, was that.
Once I’d been given all clear for my lungs and a printout of care instructions for my burn, I was free to go. Just like she’d said, Cassidy stayed with me the whole time. Quietly taking everything in while she observed from her seat in the corner.
“You manage to speak to Wilder?” I asked Nash as we both signed our insurance forms.
“Yeah, the fire’s out and the horses are safe bar a couple of stragglers, but Mikey is going to look for them at first light.” His gaze lifted to mine. “I’m so sorry about Ariel man.” His Adam’s apple bobbed on a big swallow. “I know how much she meant to you, how much you loved her, but I couldn’t let you do it, you know that right?” Nash’s pen hovered over the form his hand suddenly unsteady. “I thought I was going to lose you in there,” he admitted, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “When that beam came down and I couldn’t see you...” He cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. “Don’t ever make me have to tell my kids that their uncle’s gone, Gun. I couldn’t bear it.” The rare crack in my older brother’s armor made my chest tighten. He’d always been the strong one, the steady one. “I couldn’t let you do it.”
Images of me desperately trying to get to Ariel, made my blood run cold. The look in her eyes would haunt me forever more, but seeing Nash so shaken rattled something deeper inside me.
“I know. You were right to pull me out of there.” He’d have killed himself saving me if he’d had to and that was not an option. “How did you manage to get Lily to stay home?”
He chuckled which led him to start coughing, looking anxiously around for a nurse, adrenaline tearing through my body. “I’ll get someone.”
My brother shook his head. “I’m okay. Seriously, Gun, I’m fine. As for when I get home that’s a different matter. I think Lila will finish me off for not letting her come here. She’d already called her mom to come and stay with the kids. Cal and Ella are there now, apparently. Oh, and Cal said he’s got a few of his hands coming over first light to help with the cleanup.”
I inhaled slowly, ignoring the ache in my lungs. In moments like this, the tangled web of people who’d come together aroundus felt like armor, the kind you don’t know you need until everything’s literally burning around you.
“How’s Lily holding up?”
Nash’s expression tightened. “Hearing her cry on the phone...” He rubbed a hand across his mouth, the gesture erasing whatever he’d been about to say. “She thought I was lying about being okay. Thought I was worse off than I was letting on.” His eyes met mine. “I imagine Cassidy wasn’t much different.”
I raised a brow. “More determined than anything.”
“Not when I saw her.” He dropped his pen onto the form and pushed it back across the nurses station. “She was inconsolable.”
“She came in to see you?”
“Nope. The nurse left the door to my examination room open, and I saw her. Folded in on herself crying.” He slapped a hand on my shoulder. “Seems like she might really like you, little brother.”
Cassidy then appeared around the corner with a bag of my clothes, making my heart jump as warmth wrapped itself around me. It was comfort, it was happiness, it was love. It was me needing to make another huge fucking apology.
Chapter 45
