Page 91 of Valley of Dreams

“I came to Hope Springs to get help,” he said. “I came so my family could help me conquer this.”

“And have they?” she asked. “Or do they not know, either?”

“Well, that takes me back to being a villain, doesn’t it?”

Lydia peered around her ma’s skirts. Eliza nudged her back into the kitchen and away from the door. Away from him. His little angel. He was losing her too.

“I’m trying,” Patrick said. “But it’s a demon I’ve wrestled with for a decade. I’ve lost that battle too many times to claim an easy victory now.”

“I am well aware of the struggle some people have with alcohol. That is not what bothers me. What bothers me is that this was something affecting me in the very moments we were interacting. And it was affecting Lydia. And you kept it from me.”

“Eliza—”

“No. You don’t get to excuse this away. I know the ways drink changes people. I’m aware of the need for a little extra wariness and watching for warning signs. You didn’t even do me the courtesy of telling me that I needed to be a little on guard. You didn’t let me decide if I wanted to place myself in that situation. More than that, you spent time with my child, holding her and caring for her, after you’d been drinking. You robbed me of the ability to decide what was best for her.”

Her words pummeled him mercilessly but deservedly. He kept silent as she delivered one blow after another.

“I cannot even look back on the time we’ve spent together without wondering if I ever saw you, therealyou, or only the alcohol. During those personal moments between us, were you ever sober?” The defensiveness in her posture didn’t abate in the least. “Are you sober now?”

He couldn’t bring himself to answer.

She released a breath, the tensest he’d heard from her yet. “You should leave, Patrick.”

“Please, Eliza.”

She shook her head. “I cannot allow myself to trust someone who has already broken that trust. Not again.”

She closed the door, leaving him shattered on the other side of it. Alone. He leaned his head against the door.

“Eliza.” Her whispered name broke as he spoke it.

She didn’t come back; he knew she wouldn’t. But he needed her. He needed her to return and to believe in him the way she had from the first moment on the stagecoach, and in countless moments since. He’d come to Hope Springs to try to save his own life. But what if his wasn’t a life worth saving? What if no one wanted to be part of his life?

He knew one surefire way to escape the pain at least temporarily, but doing so would prove him to be precisely what he’d been trying to convince Eliza he wasn’t. Yet, what else could he do?

He dragged himself off the porch. His mind grew heavier the farther he walked. With each step, his heart cracked deeper and deeper.

These past months, he’d held himself together, pushed forward through his growing struggle against the bottle. It was time he quit trying so blasted hard.

The house looming in front of him wasn’t his, but it was the only destination that made sense. He was too torn down to be nervous at the possibility of further failure. He had very little left to lose.

He knocked on the door, misery hunching his shoulders. Yet again he waited for a door to open and a person to appear who could, with a word, crush what little hope he had left.

When the door opened, he looked up and saw precisely who he needed.

“I’m in trouble, Ian.” Tears thickened his throat. “I need your help.”

Ian’s hardened animosity disappeared on the instant. “What’s happened?”

Patrick could see Biddy inside the house, talking with their daughter. “Could we maybe go out to the barn, or somewhere else a little less . . .”

Ian gave a quick nod and stepped out, pulling the door closed behind him. They walked side by side toward Ian’s fields. Patrick could feel despair creeping into the cracks of his heart. If Ian wouldn’t help him, he was done for.

“What sort of trouble are you in?” Ian asked after a painfully long bout of silence between them.

“It’ll take a while to fully explain.”

“I’ve plenty of fields to walk through. They’ll give you time enough to talk.” The Ian he’d depended on so much had always been willing to listen. He neededthatIan now.

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