Sierra’s tears had soaked through his shirt, leaving a cold patch right over his heart. And long after her sobs had quietened, her body still trembled as if coming apart. All Benji could do was hope that by holding her tightly he could keep enough of her together.
Time passed as they sat there, chest to chest, crying and holding on. But when her tears slowed and then eventually stopped, he shifted so that he could rub slow circles over her back.
Sierra sighed deeply, and for the first time in forever, she nestled closer instead of pulling back. ‘You used to do that,’ she whispered. ‘Towards the end, when I was so big that I couldn’t find a comfortable position to sleep in. You wouldn’t even say anything. You would just reach under my shirt and start rubbing my back.’
He remembered. Of course, he remembered. In those last few weeks, he had barely slept. He had been too full of emotion – of excitement and worry and fear – to quieten his mind. And Sierra’s restlessness hadn’t made it worse. Comforting her had helped, it had given him something to do, even if that had just been reaching for her in the night and reminding her that everything would be fine because they would always have each other.
Or, so he’d thought …
Now, all he said was, ‘And my arm would go numb because I had to reach over that stupid pregnancy pillow.’
Sierra released a small, amused puff of air. ‘I still sleep with it. It makes my bed feel … not so empty, I guess.’ As he mulled that over, she shifted and tried to reposition one long leg. ‘I’m too old for this,’ she commented. ‘I can’t feel my knees.’
When she moved to climb off his lap, Benji placed his hands on her hips and held her in place. Sierra raised one eyebrow, but Benji didn’t let it deter him. He couldn’t bear to let her go yet, and he wasn’t above begging. ‘Stay with me.’ When she hesitated, he pushed. ‘Please, Si. We don’t have to read more into it if you don’t want to. I just …’ How did he tell her that he would give anything to just hold her again? Or thatheneededhertoo. It wouldn’t have been fair, so he didn’t. Instead, he told her another truth. ‘I care, and I don’t want you to be alone tonight.’
Sierra bit the inside of her cheek, considering.
‘I won’t bring Her up again,’ he promised, and when a stray tear slipped down her cheek, he reached up and brushed it away with one thumb. ‘We can drive up to the lake, lie in the bed of the truck, and just … be close, I guess.’
She looked away, and for one awful moment he thought she was going to refuse. But then she swiped at her face and gave him a wobbly smile. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay?’ he rasped.
‘Do you have the blankets?’ she asked and shifted off his lap to climb back into the passenger seat.
‘They’re in the bed box,’ he replied, referring to the metal box secured to the bed of his truck.
The boxes were traditionally used by tradesmen for tool storage, but Benji had bought one years ago so that he had somewhere to store all the things Sierra discarded in his truck. Because she hadn’t always been so pristine. Once, not so long ago, his truck had been Sierra’s personal storage unit. Lonely socks, single boots, numerous lip glosses, earrings, hoodies … She’d forget them for months at a time – until she needed that pink sock or Tacova boot or Stevie Nicks hoodie and had no idea where she’d left it. So, Benji had installed the seventy-inch toolbox to keep all her things in one place. ‘I think there’s a pair of your Ugg boots in there too. And’ – he passed her his jacket – ‘if you give me five minutes, I can run to the tack room and grab some coffee.’
Instead of agreeing as he’d expected, she said, ‘I’ll come with you.’
He stared at her in surprise as she picked up his jacket, opened her door and climbed out of the truck, but when she started walking towards the big structure without him, he scrambled out and hurried to follow.
They entered the barn side by side, but while Benji flicked on a single light and detoured to the tack room with its fancy espresso machine, mini fridge, and snack bar, Sierra kept going.
She hunched her shoulders as she approached Ty’s stall, her long hair falling in waves down to her waist, her three-inch heels clicking on the concrete floor. And when she came to the stall and stopped to look in, Benji stepped into the tack room, giving her space.
He took his time making coffee in to-go cups before stuffing the pockets of his jeans with junk food from the snack bar, Snickers bars for Sierra and KitKats for him. He grabbed a bottle of water and two aspirins to ward off the worst of her hangover.
But when he stepped back into the main breezeway, he stopped.
Sierra stood just outside of Ty’s stall. The horse’s huge head was draped lovingly over her right shoulder as if he was giving her a hug or trying to keep her close. Sierra’s face was buried against Ty’s neck, and Benji didn’t have to see her eyes to know that she was crying again. Both her hands ran over Ty, soothing, comforting.
Benji’s boots clicked as he approached them, and although her voice was lowered just for the horse, her words travelled in the big barn. ‘I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. It wasmy f-fault.’
Her words hit him like a horse kick to the gut. It didn’t take a psych degree to know that there was a reason she hadn’t seen or ridden Ty since their baby had died, but he had thought it was depression, which is why he had tried to nudge her through it. Never, not once, had he stopped to consider that she might be blaming herself – for any of it. The idea made his heart ache in an entirely new way. Wasn’t it enough for them to have lost so much without her taking blame for it too?
Always so unsure of how he would be received, but unable to leave her thinkingthat, he came up behind her and stroked one hand down Ty’s face. He took a long moment to sort his words in his head before he spoke, and when he did, he kept his voice low. ‘Her umbilical cord knotted.’
Sierra’s head snapped up. Her eyes, so big and dark, pleaded with him to stop.
Benji gently took her from Ty and wrapped his arms around her. ‘I won’t mention it again, but I won’t listen to you talk shit about yourself either.Enough, Sierra,’ he rasped.
‘I rode,’ she argued. But she didn’t pull away. She rested her face against his chest, defeated.
‘Si, we researched this when you were pregnant. You’re not supposed to ride after the first trimester because the risk of something happeningifyou fall off is so high. And you never rode. You sat on Ty’s back … What?Twice?And you never fell.’
‘But—’
