‘Are you a doctor?’ She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but his words had taken her by surprise, and she hadn’t been able to keep the dubious tone out of her voice. Thankfully he just laughed.
‘No, but I was a paramedic for three years, when I wasn’t sure if farming was ever going to be a possibility. I’ve probably forgotten most of it, but I saw my fair share of this kind of injury.’
‘Oh.’ She hadn’t expected that, but somehow it made him all the more attractive. ‘I just want to get back to the van.’
‘I can help you, but you really do need to get yourself checked out.’
‘I’ll be fine and I can’t drive anyway. I’ve had a couple of drinks.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting you drive. I can drive you.’
‘Have you forgotten that I’m the worst person in the world?’
‘I never said that.’ Tristan shook his head. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I overreacted the other night. It was just a shock to discover who you really are and it’s going to take me a while to get used to calling you Briony instead of Holly.’
‘Don’t then.’ She didn’t want to be Briony in Tristan’s eyes, notif it meant he looked at her the same way Bex did. God only knows what he’d been told about her.
‘Let’s not worry about all of that for now. I just want to make sure you’re okay.’ His words gave her hope for a moment, until he added a qualifying statement. ‘I feel like I owe a duty of care to all the guests on the farm.’
Briony gulped back the emotion that had bubbled up in her throat. She could so easily have burst into tears, because she suddenly felt incredibly sorry for herself. She was in a lot of pain, she’d had too much to drink, and Tristan was only being so lovely because she was staying on his farm. It wasn’t because he liked her – and she wanted him to like her more than she was willing to admit, even to herself. She swallowed again a couple more times, until she was sure she had control of her emotions, and then she looked up at him. ‘Okay. I can try leaning on you, but like I said, as soon as I put weight on my leg, it was agony.’
‘I think it might be easier if I just carry you.’ Tristan looked more than capable of carrying her. He was at least six feet two and built like someone who made their living working on the land. Briony on the other hand had always been careful to add the half, to her five feet one and a half inches of height. She joked that her small stature made van living ideal, but the idea of being carried by Tristan was disconcerting. It was so intimate, like a groom might do with his bride, not someone who had looked at her with the kind of disdain he had the last time they’d seen one another. But when she glanced up at him again, he was still watching her. ‘Would you be okay with that?’
‘If it gets me out of here.’
‘Right, let’s go then.’ Within seconds he’d hoisted her into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all, the two dogs following them as he headed back down the path. They were so close together she couldn’t avoid breathing in the woody scent of hisaftershave. Part of her wished he’d smelt of stale sweat, or wet wool, something off-putting instead of an aroma that just added to the attraction. It was what made her start talking when it would probably have been safer to stay silent.
‘I’m such an idiot. What kind of person agrees to donate their liver to save their mother and then goes straight out and gets drunk? What if this means I can’t do it?’
‘The liver is excellent at repairing itself and a one-off like this won’t have done any lasting damage, you just need to be careful from here on out, so it’s as healthy as it can be for you and for her.’ Tristan had an uncanny knack of making Briony feel as though he really cared about her, but it probably came from his years as a paramedic. His patients would have needed to feel he was invested in their wellbeing, in order to be able to trust him. Although she didn’t doubt for a moment that he cared about Donna.
‘I don’t usually drink much at all, but after seeing Bex… I guess I just wanted to numb myself against everything.’
‘I’m sure it’s been a really emotional time, and worrying so much about your mum will have made that even worse, for both of you.’
‘I’m not all bad you know, whatever Bex might have said.’ She couldn’t stop her voice from cracking, and she rubbed furiously at her eyes, desperate to stop the tears from falling. If Briony gave into them, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to stop. She’d messed everything up so badly, in a way that couldn’t be undone. She knew that now. It was all so awful and no matter how far she travelled and how many new places she saw, it turned out she couldn’t outrun her feelings. She missed being part of a family, and she missed Bex, but this was her life now and there was nothing she could do to change it. The kindness in Tristan’s tone when he answered almost made it worse.
‘I never thought that you were.’
‘Really? Because believe me, if I heard that someone’s sister had broken up their relationship, three weeks before they got married, by getting involved with their fiancé, I know what I’d think. But I didn’t do it because I had feelings for Liam, I did it because our dad messed us both up so badly. I could see what a terrible mistake she was making and?—’
‘Briony, don’t.’ It was the first time he’d used her real name so forcefully and it had the desired effect and stopped her in her tracks. ‘I don’t want you to tell me anything.’
‘Please, I want to explain that it isn’t how it seems and?—’
‘Not now.’ He cut her off for the second time. ‘You said yourself you’ve been drinking and it’s obvious you’re in pain. I don’t want you to say anything in the heat of the moment that you might regret later. So, if you still want to tell me, you can do it after the doctors have seen you and the drink is out of your system. But for what it’s worth, I already know you aren’t “all bad” as you put it.’
‘How can you possibly know that after such a short time?’
‘Because I’ve watched every online video you’ve ever made and you’ve shared more of who you are on there, and been more open than some friends I’ve known for years.’
‘People can present any image they want to online.’ Briony had no idea why she was trying to prove him wrong, when he was saying nice things about her, but she didn’t want this to just be lip service. She needed him to believe it.
‘They can, but after I found out who you really were, I did some more research and found out things you never talk about on your channels. I’ve read posts from people you helped to make a fresh start after their lives fell apart, either by giving advice, or free help with van conversions, and even someone who posted about you donating a big chunk of the money they needed tostart again after they lost their previous van in a fire. You don’t publicise any of that, so I had to read it from other people. That tells me even more about who you are. It also means I know you are very far from being all bad, and I’m ready to listen to what you have to say. Now just isn’t the time.’
‘Okay.’ Yet again Briony was crying, but this time she wasn’t sure if the tears were the sad kind or the happy kind. All she knew was that she didn’t want Tristan to see them. She’d get checked out and then maybe they could have the conversation she so desperately needed to have with someone who knew both her and Bex. She’d tried to talk to her mum and Ken over the years, but it was just too hard for them to form an objective opinion about whether what she’d done had been worth all the pain it had caused. Briony hadn’t taken Liam away from her sister because she’d wanted him for herself. She’d done it because she’d known that if she didn’t, someone else would. She’d been terrified that by then Bex would be in far too deep to just walk away, and that it might happen over and over again until it eroded everything her sister was. She couldn’t let that happen, no matter what stopping it had cost them both.
‘So, what did the doctor say?’ Matt’s voice carried down the hallway from the kitchen and Bex tried to work out who on earth he was talking to. A surge of panic rose up in her chest at the thought that it might be her mum or Ken, but she couldn’t imagine either of them having a conversation like that with Matt if she wasn’t there.
