Page 14 of Entwined Hearts
I stormed back outside, burning heat simmering in my veins as I paced along the barn. This was fucking ridiculous. I couldn’t ride. Couldn’t dress myself. Couldn’t even take a shower alone.Thank God I could wipe my ass. I let out a humorless laugh at the minuscule miracle. Maybe Anna should come get me, since I was about as useless as four-year-old Henry.
I spotted a thick oak tree near the barn, and before I could even think about it, my fist was flying into the bark. Once. Twice. And again. Over and over until the pain in my shoulder was masked by splitting pain in my knuckles, until the nagging thoughts in my head went quiet.
“Now what’d that tree ever do to you, huh?” Beau’s voice came from behind me.
I turned, breathing hard, my vision spotty. “Go away.”
He scoffed, ignoring me and placing his hands on his hips. “You need to calm down before you hurt yourself more.”
“I’m not one of your ranch hands you can boss around,” I snapped, hating the way he was looking at me. Like I was a bird that got kicked from the nest too soon. It was the same way everyone stared when I was a kid and my parents ditched me.
Beau’s nostrils flared, his jaw tensing, as he took a step closer. “No, you’re just an idiot who can’t keep a lid on his temper.”
I looked at the ground, at the blood dripping from my hand. “I’m useless, Beau,” I said quietly, the shame I felt making it hard to speak. “I can’t get dressed by myself, can’t work, can’t tack a horse, can’t do anything. I hate being so reliant on y’all.”
“I know, but you just had surgery. Nobody is expecting you to bounce back like nothin’ happened. You’re not invincible. No one is.”
“I was expecting it!” I yelled, his eyes widening with shock as I exploded on him. “If I’m not on the back of a bull, then what am I?Nothing!” The words cracked as they came out, just as broken as my shoulder was.
Beau’s head tilted, eyes soft with something that made me want to disappear. “You’re my brother. That’s what you are,” hesaid gently. “Our brother, and you’re too important to us to go wreckin’ yourself.”
His words touched that painfully raw part inside me. The part that was still a boy who got taken in by a family and treated like he was their own. I clenched my teeth, looking away from him.
And saw Savannah.
All the air left my lungs. She was standing on her porch, her eyes wide, frozen like she’d just walked in on something she shouldn’t have, that something being me.
Our eyes locked, and I was hit with the same rush of longing I had when I saw her at the rodeo. But she just turned around and went inside, and my stomach hollowed out with realization. “She saw all of that, didn’t she?” I asked, still staring at the now-empty porch.
“Yup.”
Fuck. My eyes drifted shut, head hanging as I let out a heavy sigh. I fought the need to go after her, to explain, to dosomething. But I was stuck in place, bleeding and broken.
Fucking coward, I scolded myself, just like I had in the weeks I hid from her after her mother died. But I just couldn’t face her. Not then. Not now.
“You talk to ‘er?”
I peered over at Beau out of the corner of my eye and scoffed. “Of course not. She doesn’t give a shit about me.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “God, you really are a dumbass, aren’t you?”
My eyes narrowed at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“What do you remember? From the accident and the rest of the night?”
I glanced around, thinking. It was such a blur. I remembered the shock of seeing Savannah, then flailing in the air, but notmuch else until I came home. “Bits and pieces, but it’s foggy,” I admitted quietly. “I thought I’d dreamt it all.”
His mouth went into a hard line. “You don’t remember it then.”
“Remember what?”
He gestured with his head towards the Hayes house. “Her.”
My brows shot up. “Savannah?” He nodded. “What about her?”
“She was there.”
What was he getting at? “I know she was there, Beau. I saw her across the arena. I didn’t hit my headthathard.”
