Page 46 of Hometown Cowboy
He had a point, but Ryan was a grown man who made his own decisions, and the depth of Alan’s guilt obviously went further back than two days ago.
“You know what I think? I think we just have to focus on him getting better, not pointing fingers and blaming one another. No one forced him onto that tractor. So, you had a fight? Big deal. So did we. I could just as easily blame myself because what sent him to you? Was it Gabe taking pieces out of him? Was it me and our argument?” At Alan’s instant refutation of that idea, Darby continued, “See? We’re all just as worried about him, and we’re all too quick to place the blame on ourselves.”
“It must have been such a shock seeing him standing on your doorstep like that, after all this time.”
Alan hadn’t said much to them about the events leading up to Ryan’s accident, only that he’d come to see him in Bialga. If she opened the conversation, maybe he’d let her in and let her help a little.
Alan nodded and scraped at his drawn face. “I know you think I’m the bad guy here, that I didn’t care about him.” He looked at Darby, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I did, I do. I always have.”
He shook his head and breathed out slowly. He seemed to shrink, folding in on himself in his chair. “We were so young—Julie and me, that is. She was only eighteen when she got pregnant. I was only six months older. We made some dumb mistakes and made some even worse agreements later on. We got married because it was expected, not because it was the right thing to do. We let the whole town pressure us into something we knew wasn’t going to work long term.”
He sat back and smiled sadly at the man in the hospital bed.
“It fell apart spectacularly. We weren’t in love. It had been a fling, a couple of dates, and if Julie hadn’t fallen pregnant, it would’ve ended quite fast. We separated when he was three because neither of us wanted him growing up thinking that such a broken relationship was normal, and we didn’t want to hate each other, not when we had Ryan to think of. So, I left.”
Darby’s heart ached at the thought of all the pain they’d gone through at such a young and impressionable age.
“But that doesn’t explain why you cut him out of your life completely? Surely—”
Ryan twitched and his eyelids fluttered. The monitor beside the bed beeped loudly and Darby jumped at the sudden high-pitched noise.
She reached forward again and grabbed his warm hand where it lay on top of the hospital blankets.
The fingers flexed in hers, but his eyes stayed stubbornly shut. Dismay flooded her.
A warm, gentle hand curled over her shoulder. She tried to shove the disappointment out of her mind.
A nurse bustled in, brisk efficiency and competency oozing from her. She smiled in Darby’s direction. “It’s extremely unlikely he’ll wake tonight, not properly,” Alan said. “Isn’t that right, Amanda?”
The nurse glanced at him and nodded. “He might stir a few times, but with the stuff he has running through him, he’s not going to be coherent tonight. I’m sorry, Darby.”
Amanda pressed a few buttons in an order that seemed to make sense to her and nodded again, to herself this time. She faced Darby and Alan sitting at the other side of the bed. “You may as well go get some rest. He won’t be lucid until at least the morning. And I know you in particular,” she pointed to Darby, “haven’t had enough rest. So, go have a nice bath—not too hot—and rest up. Spend some time with your family.”
Darby went to argue, but Amanda shook her head. “Go. Rest. We have your numbers if anything happens—which it won’t,” she added at Darby’s frown. “Come back tomorrow when you’re all refreshed. He’s not going anywhere.”
Darby squeezed Ryan’s hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. She stood and straightened her shirt. “I guess you’re right.”
“She is,” Alan interjected.
“Fine! I’m going. Will you still be here?”
Amanda looked up from checking Ryan’s pulse against her watch. “I’ll be here again tomorrow from two pm.”
Darby sent her a tired smile. “See you then.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Ryan sucked ina deep breath and coughed, his eyes opening and focusing.
“Heya, Darb.”
She couldn’t help the massive grin at his croaky greeting. “Heya, yourself. You gave us a pretty bad fright there, cowboy.”
Ryan frowned and looked around, as if seeing the room for the first time. “Why am I in hospital?”
Darby squeezed his fingers. “You had an accident. That ancient tractor of yours tried to plough you into the paddock.”
“Oh,” Ryan said, vaguely. He looked around and saw Alan beside her. His face tightened. “What the hell are you doing here?”