The pain in her side was excruciating, but the stab of his words gutted her. “Cole—”
“You need to go.” He slapped the arm of her chair. Rylan cried out as the vibration rippled up her side and through every ragged end of her bones. Gasping and stunned, she struggled to stand. Cole buried his head in Birdie’s side, her small pale hand like a fallen leaf in his darkened, rough palm. Tears filled Rylan’s eyes, blinding the path to the door as she shuffled out. She should stay and fight. She should wrestle Cole’s pain and win. But she couldn’t because she didn’t deserve it.
Maeve moved to stop her, but Rylan shook her head. Cole’s broken voice sounded from inside the room. “Birdie… Oh, baby.”
“I’m sorry.” Rylan palmed the wall, feeling her way in the hall through a curtain of tears. Tucker and Jaxon rushed to grab her elbows, but Rylan shook them off.
“Rylan, where are you going?” Jaxon’s soft voice cut through her misery. “The doctor hasn’t released you yet.”
Cole gave an agonized shout from inside the room, and something crashed. Tucker swore under his breath and raced to Birdie’s room. A moment later, Rylan heard the thud of two big bodies coming together, and Cole’s soul-shattering cry. Her knees went weak, and she slipped to the floor. Her fault. All her fault.
“I’ve got you.” Jaxon’s arms slipped around her.
“Drive me to the ranch, please.”
Jaxon opened his mouth to protest, his huge eyes shimmery and sad. He nodded and helped her into a wheelchair. “Anything for a hero. That’s what you are, Rylan, through and through.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Birdie took forty-eight hours and fifteen minutes to finally open her eyes. When she curled her thin fingers around Cole’s hand, he felt the way he had the first time he’d held her—awed, dumbstruck, and so very, very thankful that she was healthy and alive.
He struggled with Rylan’s role in what happened. Tucker and Maeve had tried to talk to him about it, but he’d kept pushing them off. He wasn’t ready to hear it, didn’t want to know Rylan’s excuses. All the times she’d told him that she couldn’t be a mother again ripped him from the inside out. She wouldn’t have let harm come to Birdie on purpose, but what if she wasn’t as ready to be with them as he’d thought?
Cole watched Birdie sleeping, the beeping of her heart monitor lulling him into a daze. Rylan had been hurt, too. Broken ribs, Maeve had told him, though he’d cut her off before she could explain how. Cole pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to think about the woman he’d come to love so much being hurt or how she was connected to what happened to Birdie.
“Hey, bro.” Tucker gripped Cole’s shoulder. “I’m headed home. You need anything?” He slid a white Styrofoam cup into Cole’s hand.
Cole shook his head. “No. Thanks.”
Tucker hunched by the bed and trailed a finger over Birdie’s sleep-pinked cheek. “See you soon, honey.” He turned to Cole, his voice low as he flicked a toothpick between his lips.
“You haven’t even asked about Rylan.”
A wallop of guilt hit him in the chest. “Nope.” Cole dismissed it, putting a hand on the chair handle to get up. Truth was his gut twisted like a cyclone at the thought that she’d been hurt. But she’d been well enough to go back to Paint River, and that was good enough for now.
Tucker shook his head with a disbelieving snarl. Cole stood and left the room, making it just outside the door before Tucker grabbed his wrist. Cole’s face went hot.
“Don’t, Tuck.”
Tucker jerked Cole close. “She broke two ribs, you asshole! She threw herself on top of Birdie and got stomped on by that raging lunatic of a stallion of yours!” Hands landed on Cole’s chest with a resounding slap as Tuck pushed him back against the doorframe. “Wake the fuck up! She loves that little girl, and she loves you, though hell knows you don’t deserve it.”
Cole grabbed Tucker’s wrists and spun him. The veins on the sides of Cole’s neck throbbed violently.
“What?” he hissed. Tucker swiped his arms wide, breaking Cole’s grip.
“If Rylan hadn’t thrown herself on Birdie, Birdie would be dead.” Tucker’s voice was hard and even. “And if Pana had hit Rylan a few inches higher, he would have severed her spine and
she
would be dead.”
I took down a rapist and got a bullet
.
She’d saved Birdie and taken a bullet, from the horse and from him. “But, she… She let Birdie wander off.” He felt like sinking, wished the floor would open and swallow him into hell.
“She took Birdie with her to chase the chickens back in the coop. Birdie saw John with Pana and ran to the corral, probably thinking John was you. He couldn’t get your stupid horse to cooperate and had gone in for some grain. Before he or Rylan could get to Birdie, Pana kicked her.”
Cole looked up, bells ringing between his ears. “What?” The blood rushed from his head. He leaned against the wall as a flitter of dizziness passed. He’d automatically suspected the worst. He hadn’t even given Rylan, or anyone, a chance to explain.
I took a bullet.
For the first time during the whole ordeal, tears blurred his vision. Cole thrust a finger at Tucker, his lips twisted with an anger he couldn’t fully explain. Like a puff of smoke, it wafted away, floating out of him. Rylan put the life back in him, and now he’d likely sucked the happiness she was trying so hard to find out of her.
Tucker grabbed him in a crushing embrace. “You can make it right, big brother.”
Hell, what had he done?
…
Rylan struggled into a pair of yoga pants, careful not to bump her ribs. The pain was better today, but if she moved just so, her body reminded her that she’d lost the horse-versus-human rumble. She’d been on bed rest for all it was worth, feeling miserable and useless. Today, though, Maeve brought the news that Birdie would make a full recovery, and Rylan felt she could breathe for the first time in two days, if only in a figurative sense. Physical breathing still hurt like hell. Now if there was a way she could face Cole, her heart might start beating properly.
She just didn’t know if she wanted to.
She inched to the laundry room, cringing to see the unattended pile. It took great effort, but she got a load started and another out of the dryer. Her body ached, and Rylan quickly realized that being out of bed wasn’t that great after all. She’d thought being active would help the doubt that wouldn’t leave her alone. She took a quick look out the laundry room window. The sky was overcast, the mountains dark. Like her mood and the thoughts swirling around in her mind. Like the decision she was pretty sure she was making.
Maeve stopped her with a shout. “Oh no! No working!”
“I’m fine, Maeve. I can’t just lie around.” A stab of pain through her ribs reminded her she should be doing exactly that.
Maeve leaned against the doorframe, legs crossed at the ankles. She raked her teeth over her lower lip for a moment. “Rylan, you saved my granddaughter. Saying ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem nearly enough.”
Rylan bristled and let the basket in her hands fall to the ground. “No, my actions almost killed her.” Their eyes caught and held. Rylan put both hands on the dryer and bent her upper body low to ease the pain shooting through her side. Maeve walked over, put a warm hand on top of hers.
“I have so much to thank you for. For helping me. For making Cole happy again.”
Rylan groaned and placed her forehead against the cool metal of the dryer top.
Maeve sighed. “I’m not blind. I know he’s in love with you, Rylan. He’s not very objective where Birdie is concerned, and he didn’t handle what happened very well—”
“I wouldn’t have expected him to.” Rylan stood a little straighter, immediately regretting it and leaning back down.
“He’ll make it right, Rylan.”
Making it right with her probably wasn’t the best idea. The way she’d let him down was something she had to work on, not him. He had every right to be angry with her. She should have taken Birdie into the shed with her instead of trusting her to stay put.
“I’m just not sure that I can…that I want… Maeve, I need a break.”
She’d found purpose and new life at Paint River, but it didn’t mean anything without the people she’d come to love. She’d finally started to make peace with Rachel’s memory and let the painful bits of her past fade away. Everything inside was screaming that she protect that progress, even if it meant walking away until she could figure out what to do next.
“Rylan,” Maeve whispered, her voice shaky, “letting my son and Birdie into your heart… I know that’s really something, Ry. I do.” Their eyes met and Rylan saw nothing but respect and understanding reflected back at her.
Her lower lip trembled as a small space of silence stretched between them. Swallowing hard, Rylan gathered up her courage. Maeve gave a sad whisper of a sigh, the sound forcing Rylan’s tears to fall. The universe was testing her, fine. It was also giving her the opportunity to do something about it.
It was time to leave Paint River.
“Maeve…I quit.”
…
Time was something Cole was used to ruling with an iron hand. Up before sunrise, get everything on his mental list accomplished for the day, get home for supper. Read to Birdie. Go to bed. Now, the tick of the clock sounded a little maniacal and mocking. Each minute he spent away from Rylan was time wasted not trying to make up to her for his stupidity.
He’d never felt so torn between two people in his life—Rylan or Birdie—and was going crazy knowing they both needed him, though for completely different reasons. As the day ticked away with Birdie’s hand in his own, Cole thought of all the things he should have done differently. And of all the ways he wanted to kick his own ass for being such a fuckhead.
When Birdie slipped into an afternoon nap, Cole left her in care of the hospital staff and raced home. All thoughts of what he was going to say fled as the pure need to
just get there
became almost overwhelming. Rylan would probably be in bed, nursing her broken ribs, maybe trying to relax in the tub. Maybe she’d be sleeping and he could quietly wake her with apologetic kisses.
Parking in the rear of the house, Cole wrenched the back door open and raced into the hallway that led to Rylan’s room. He grabbed the doorframe of her bedroom to keep from crashing in too fast and losing it. Chest heaving, he thundered inside. His legs went weak. The silence in the room knocked the wind out of him. He gripped the white metal footboard to keep from sinking to the floor.
The room was empty.
Cole closed his eyes against the rush of pain in his head. It slithered down the back of his neck and built a mansion inside his chest. He flung open the bedroom closet, looked under the bed and inside the dresser drawers. All empty.
Jesus, she was gone.
“Rylan!” His voice ripped out of him, part sob and part demand. He sank onto the edge of the mattress and rubbed his forehead with both hands. He should have done things so differently—been honest with himself about Livy earlier, faced his guilt instead of trying to ignore it. He should have learned the entire story about Birdie’s accident before he took his anger out on Rylan. Could he fix this?
Cole looked up through a haze of foreign tears, a flash of red pulling his gaze. Beneath the small end table beside the bed, Rylan’s red boots sat neat and tidy. A letter lay folded on the end table, next to a stack of smaller envelopes. He thumbed through the stack. Her paychecks. Numb, Cole opened the letter addressed to him and Birdie.
Birdie, I have no doubt you’ll be an amazing woman one day. I’m honored to have known you and hope your daddy will put these checks into your college fund so you can live your dreams. I know that you will.
All my love,
Rylan
He counted the checks. They were all there, every single one since the day she’d started. He saw between the lines so easily. Birdie could live the life Rachel never had the chance to. In her own small way, Rylan was making sure Rachel’s lost potential lived on through his daughter.
And he had doubted her.
A soft shuffle drew his attention to the door. He stood, hopeful. But Maeve walked inside, her face blanching when she looked at him. Cole rubbed his eyes.
“She left,” Maeve said in a voice rich with sympathy. Sympathy he didn’t deserve.
“Where did she go?”
Maeve frowned. “Jaxon drove her to the airport. Beyond that, she didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. I’m sorry, Cole.”
He shook his head, struggling to get a grip. The clench in his middle and the out-of-control panic in his brain were extensions of what he’d experienced when he had learned about Birdie’s accident. Birdie would be fine, but Rylan was gone.
“Don’t be. This is my fault.” He wanted to lean against something, sure his legs were going to give out.
Maeve’s soft voice made unease well in his stomach. “I told her, when she was ready, to come back home.”
Cole gripped the bed frame. A good eight feet separated him from Maeve, but Cole swore she’d just body slammed him.
Home
. Cole thought about the judge and how that life had sucked the breath out of Rylan. He didn’t want to be that man. He wanted to be the man who made her feel alive. The way she did for him.
Keeping Birdie so close, she should have suffocated, and afraid of getting hurt and used, he’d shut himself out of life. Until Rylan. Through her eyes, he saw the beauty of Paint River again. Through her struggle to hoist herself out of her past, he remembered what it was like to let someone in. He loved her, and this was her home. He just hoped it wasn’t too late to convince her of that.
“How long ago did she leave?”
Maeve smiled. “Half hour or so.”