Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 02 - Out of the Darkness (3 page)

And now he’s not sure if he can’t breathe because of the adrenaline or because of the sobbing. He needs to pull himself together. He’s in a public parking lot, and people are waiting for him, and he’s letting
them
down, too, and then he thinks of his sister and how lost she’d been when their mom got sick and how much worse it must have been for Krista when their mom
died
, but Dan hadn’t been there. He’d been off dealing with his own stupid crap instead of taking care of his family. And his mom herself, what had she thought about her runaway son? On top of all her other worries, he’d just heaped a little more on. Had she wondered where he was, wondered why he hadn’t come to find her? Maybe
her
last thought had been of him, with all the people that she cared about gathered around her except one, her stupid faggot son who didn’t care about anyone but himself, who she had done her best for and loved and tried to guide, and who had yelled at her and left her to face sickness and death without his support.

Jesus Christ, he feels like his chest is going to explode. He’s still hanging on to the steering wheel, sobbing and gasping, and it reminds him of falling apart behind the funeral home, except this time he’s all alone. There’s no Chris or Jeff to help him. But that’s only fair; why should he get help when he’s never helped anyone else? But then he feels a cool hand on the back of his neck, and he tries to pull away a little, but the hand stays there, not pulling, just resting and rubbing a little, and he hears Jeff’s voice.

“Shit, Dan. It’s okay, kiddo. She’s fine.” Dan tries to stop crying, knows he’s making a fool of himself, and a part of him wishes Jeff would just go away and leave him to humiliate himself in peace, but another part of him is so, so glad to not be alone. “I know, sweetheart, it’s not just her. Shhhh….” When Jeff gently pulls on Dan’s neck, he thinks about resisting but he can’t, and he lets his head be shifted over to Jeff’s shoulder. Being there, smelling Jeff’s familiar scent, feeling the warmth of his neck and the cool of his fingers—that’s what lets Dan calm down a little. He takes deep breaths, lets Jeff’s presence wash over him, and it’s better. Dan’s still a crappy lover, brother, and son, but at least he can breathe.

His sobs taper off into crying and then into snuffles. He feels like a little kid. A stupid little kid. Jeff finds a box of Kleenex under the seat and hands a few over, and Dan tries to clean himself up. He pushes back to a sitting position, and Jeff doesn’t argue, but his hand trails along with Dan, staying on the back of his neck. “You okay?” Jeff sounds like it’s a casual question, like Dan tripped or something.

“Yeah, sorry.” Dan’s voice is a kind of hoarse, his throat sore. “Shit, you should be in with Tat….”

Jeff just shrugs. “She’s in with the doctor, and Robyn’s in the waiting room. They’ve got my phone number if anything comes up, but it won’t.” Jeff shakes his head. “I think you were right about the collarbone. Sucks that it happened so early in the summer.”

Dan groans. “I shouldn’t have let her jump. Or….”

“Yeah, or what, Dan?” Jeff doesn’t sound impatient, exactly, but he doesn’t seem to have much use for Dan’s train of thought. “She’s riding eventers. If she’s doing the sport, she needs to jump. Was there
anything
that could have been safer about today and still have it be eventing?”

Dan doesn’t get a chance to answer, though. There’s a rap on the window on Jeff’s side of the car, and Dan looks over to see Evan standing there. He looks pissed off, and Dan really can’t blame him.

Jeff sighs and rolls down the window. Before he can talk, Evan grits out, “Where is Tatiana, and why aren’t you with her?”

Jeff looks like he’s done about enough soothing of Evan for the day. “She’s with the doctor, and I’m not with her because she’s a fifteen-year-old girl with her shirt off. Robyn’s in there.”

“And you’re out here? Jesus, Jeff, what if she needs you?” Evan glances across at Dan, but Dan’s busy looking out the windshield, and Evan doesn’t see his face. “And Dan, what the hell? This happens on your watch, and you’re hanging out in the parking lot?” Evan turns back to Jeff, and now he sounds more hurt than angry. “Is this… is this your priority now? Is this more important?”

“Jesus, kid, Tat’s fine….” Jeff trails off, and Dan knows he has to step in. He can’t let Jeff take the fall for this.

“It’s my fault, Evan. I was… I don’t know… but Jeff came out to check on me, that’s all.” He still can’t quite bring himself to look Evan in the face, knows that if he did, his swollen eyes would make it immediately obvious just what Dan had been doing in the truck and why Jeff had felt it necessary to sit with him.

Evan just shakes his head. “Yeah, whatever. I need to go see my sister now. Are you coming in?” He’s pretty clearly talking to Jeff— probably wouldn’t care if Dan fell off the edge of the planet, and Dan can’t blame him.

Jeff looks torn. Dan wants to tell him to go, but he doesn’t think Evan would appreciate that in his current mood; he’d probably see it like Jeff was waiting for Dan’s permission or something. So he shrugs his shoulders a bit, knocking Jeff’s hand off his neck, and hopes that the man gets the hint. He seems to, but he doesn’t seem to like it. “Okay, they won’t need Robyn in there anymore. Why don’t I send her out, she can drive home with you?”

“Jeff, I don’t need—”

 

“Yeah, I know,” Jeff says. “Stay put anyways—she needs a ride.” He opens the door and steps out.

Dan turns to watch him go, just as Evan bends down to the window, saying, “We’re gonna have to have a talk about—” He breaks off when he sees Dan’s face, and Dan quickly turns back to the front of the truck. Evan doesn’t continue, and Dan tries to fill in the gaps.

“Okay, yeah. I’m sorry, man.” He knows that doesn’t help at all. Jeff is pulling Evan along now, calling back to the truck, “Stay put, Dan.”

Dan stares out the windshield again. Stay put. He doesn’t really want to, but he’s got to accept the bitter truth that he has nowhere better to go.

Chapter 2

R
OBYN
chatters the entire drive home. Did Dan know that Tat had never broken a bone before? How was that possible? Robyn had broken a bone in her foot when she fell off a wall at the beach at this summer house her family used to rent, and there was a boy there who used to sing all the time, and then she saw him on
American Idol
last year, but he didn’t even make it to the first round. And she broke a finger one time, her friend Nicole pushed her, and they were just playing but Nicole still felt
so
guilty….

At first, Dan is a bit annoyed by it all. Why does Robyn think he cares about any of this? But then he realizes that his shoulders have fallen from where they were hunched, and his legs aren’t shaking anymore, and… he still doesn’t care about any of Robyn’s stories, but maybe that’s the point. Nothing she’s saying is important, but it fills the air and occupies at least part of his mind and lets him relax a little.

By the time they get to the barn, he’s calmed right down, but he still doesn’t really feel up to going inside and dealing with Michelle and Devin. Robyn hasn’t said anything, but he knows there’s no way his face is back to normal. And it’s okay that she saw him; she knows him, and she knew Justin. But Dan doesn’t really feel like advertising his weakness to virtual strangers.

“I’ve still got some cleaning to do at the guest house,” he says. “I’m gonna go do that now, then come down to the barn and ride this afternoon. Okay?”

Robyn gives him a searching look. “Do you want some help? I’m not cleaning your toilet, but other than that….”

Dan laughs a little. “Nah, I’m good. I only lived there for a couple weeks, and I mostly cleaned as I went. It shouldn’t be too bad.” He pauses. “Thanks, though. For….” He waves his hand vaguely, hoping that she understands.

Robyn just smiles. “No problem.” She gives him a careful onceover before he leaves, as if making sure that he’s not going to fall apart again. Yeah, she understands.

He spends a couple hours cleaning the house. As he’d said, it’s not really dirty, but he appreciates the simplicity of the tasks and the chance to regroup in private. When he’s done, he splashes water on his face and looks at himself critically in the mirror. He still looks a bit off, but probably nobody will notice if they aren’t looking for it.

His phone rings just about when he’s starting to get hungry; it’s Chris. He must be phoning with information about the contract, and Dan can’t really make himself pick up the phone; he doesn’t want to explain how, once again, he’s managed to take a simple situation and make it complicated and unsure. Chris can leave a message; one-way communication sounds just about right, and for this call, Chris is being Dan’s lawyer, not his best friend, so it should be okay to ignore the ring.

When Dan’s done at the house, he finds himself strangely reluctant to go down to the barn. Horses have always been his sanctuary, but he has too much evidence to pretend that they can’t be dangerous as well. He’s not sure he wants to be reminded of them right now, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to deal with any of the people he might run into. But he thinks of Sunshine and how she had clipped her feet on the jump and could be sore, and he heads out the door. There’s one responsibility he won’t shirk, at least.

He gets down to the barn and finds Sunshine in her paddock. She whickers a little when she sees him coming toward her, and it makes him smile. There are lots of great horses that don’t care one way or another about people, but Dan can’t help preferring the ones who seem to like human contact.

She doesn’t have a halter on, but he wraps a hand around her nose and asks her to follow him, and she does. He starts to speed up a little, breaks into a jog, and she keeps up with him, trotting beside him with only his hand under her jaw to prompt her. He looks back and can’t see any sign of strain in her movements. Then he takes his hand away and jogs out the side a little, trying to get a better view. She follows him, so he really can’t see any better than he could, but he doesn’t think there’s a problem.

She speeds up a little, and he grins.
Oh, it’s like that, is it?
He doesn’t know why he bothers trying, but he speeds up, too, going at almost a sprint, and he manages to get in front of her a bit. Okay, if she’s toying with him, he’s gonna see how far he can get. He takes off at top speed, racing across the field, arms and legs pumping fiercely, and then she’s beside him, cantering easily, and she looks over as if she’s wondering when he’s going to start trying. Then she gives a little buck, hooves carefully aimed away from Dan, and goes.

She’s still not at her top speed; there’s too much bucking and head tossing and fun for her to be totally flat out, but she’s galloping, and she leaves Dan behind like he’s standing still. He takes a few more steps and then stops, watches her running for the sheer joy of it. She circles around and finds her friends quietly grazing and charges toward them, looking intent on running them down. She plows to a stop not five feet from them in a move that would impress a cowpony and then tosses her head dramatically. The mares all look up and then mostly look back down to their grazing, but Tulip, a four-year-old Thoroughbred, decides to join in the fun. She and Sunshine give a couple mock rearings and bucks, and then they’re both off, tearing around the field.

Dan has been forgotten now that Sunshine has found a more able playmate, and he makes his way back to the fence. It has been a useful trip to the pasture; he’s found out that Sunshine is anything
but
sore, and he’s remembered how much he loves horses.

It’s not until he’s almost to the fence that he realizes that he’d had an audience. Robyn and Tat are standing by the railing, and Evan and Jeff are a little further back toward the barn, but they’re all turned toward the field, watching him messing around instead of worrying about Tat. Great. On the plus side, if Tat is standing there, she must be okay.

He heads over to where she’s waiting, and as he gets closer, he sees her huge smile.

“That was incredible, Dan! Did you see how fast she went? And when she was racing with you—it’s like she was letting you win for a bit!”

“Yeah, for a bit. But I’ve never managed to outrun a horse yet.” He gives her a quick once-over. Her arm’s in a sling, but the rest of her looks okay. “How’d it go with you?”

She makes a face. “Broken collarbone. They said I have to wear the sling for at least four weeks, and no riding!”

He nods. “Yeah, that sucks. But it gives you some time to catch up on your theory, at least…. I’ve got some books you can borrow, or maybe we could make a list, see what you can find to buy.” He’s making a bit of a leap of faith here, assuming that Evan isn’t going to get scared off the horses entirely, but he feels like it’s justified. He’s got to say something to cheer her up. And maybe if he pretends that nothing’s wrong, it will all go away.

Tat nods, and then goes back to telling Robyn about the colors she’s thought up for the barn. Dan is a bit afraid to hear about those, so he ducks through the fence and heads up toward Jeff and Evan. He might as well get it over with.

Jeff smiles at him as he approaches, but Evan’s expression is harder to read. “I guess she didn’t get hurt, huh?” Jeff says, nodding to the field.

“No, she seems fine. She clipped her back feet, so I’ll check her tomorrow to be sure no lameness comes on overnight, but I think she’s good.” Dan tries to talk to Evan as well as Jeff. She’s Evan’s horse, after all, even if Jeff is the one who knows about the animals.

Jeff nods and then glances at Evan. “Well, I promised Tat I’d take her in for ice cream this afternoon. So maybe I’ll do that now. Unless you guys want to come?”

Dan says, “No, thanks. I’ve got work to do.”

Evan just shakes his head, and Jeff shrugs and walks down to collect Tat. He seems nonchalant, but Dan sees his worried glance as he and Tat turn and head for the car. Jeff and Evan have been together for years, so if Jeff’s worried, Dan figures there’s something to be concerned about.

Evan’s still not talking, and Dan decides he might as well bite the bullet. “So, uh… I’m sorry. I’m really glad Tat’s okay. I mean… not okay, exactly. But… she will be… and, uh… at the doctor’s, that was… that was my fault, I just….”