Page 56 of Hometown Cowboy
Couldn’t.
“No. I—”
“He didn’t stay away because he gave up on you or didn’t love you enough. He stayed away because I made it impossible for him not to.”
Ryan grabbed his crutches. He shook so badly he worried he’d fall over. He clenched his teeth so they didn’t rattle out of his head.
“How could you do something so reprehensible? And to sit there like that as if… I need to be away from you right now. Before I say something I can never take back.”
He struggled out the door as fast as he could, his crutches catching on the bottom of the flyscreen door.
He jerked it away and stumbled, then swore at the pain that followed the sharp movement.
“Ryan, please!”
“No. Just… no more.”
He hobbled away from her house as fast as he could, not caring what direction he went. His whole life had imploded catastrophically in under half an hour. Nothing was what he thought it was. His mother wasn’t the person he’d thought she was.
The things he’d grown up believing as truth were anything but.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ryan pushed outof the physiotherapist’s clinic into the warm early summer morning. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and breathed deep as he walked slowly along the Riverwalk. He’d been off the crutches for a week now and was starting to feel a little more like himself. He’d been given the all-clear to drive a couple of days ago. It sure felt good to get his independence back.
He hadn’t spoken to his mother since the day she’d revealed what she’d done, fully eight weeks ago. They passed each other in silence, where before he’d spoken to her daily. The little waves she sent him as he drove past had the power to swirl anger, frustration, and regret through him faster than a cyclone.
A lilting warble sounded above his head. George the currawong sat on the edge of the guttering, peering down at him.
“Mornin’, George.”
He was rewarded with another warble.
“Yeah, it’s that kind of day, isn’t it?”
He’d religiously attended three physio sessions a week since he’d come home, over two months ago. He rolled his shoulders. It was going well. He’d regained most of his strength and his fractures had healed well. Some lingering aches and twinges that pestered him if he pushed himself too hard were all that remained of the accident. That and the memory loss.
He glanced into Cat’s shop as he passed. She waved happily at him, a platter of funky cupcakes perched on one arm as she filled the central display.
He grinned and waved back.
The door opened in front of him and a fully laden Belle Davis backed out. Ryan hurried forward and pushed the heavy door further into the shop, his arm stretched over her head.
Belle looked around and smiled. “Thanks, Ryan.” She motioned with her chin to the huge pile of boxes in her arms. “I thought I was going to drop these for a moment there!”
He grabbed a couple of the more precarious boxes and settled in beside her. “I’ll carry this lot. Where are you parked?”
“This end of the car park.”
They walked in comfortable silence along the wooden boards of the Riverwalk. While Belle and Cat were younger than him, they all knew the same people. Growing up in a small town the way they had meant that everyone knew everyone else. The school went from kindergarten all the way to year twelve, so you knew the whole cross-section of younger people in the town by the time you were a senior.
“How’s the restaurant going?”
Belle sent him a quick smile. “Yeah, good. Busy. I don’t have time to cook the desserts anymore, so Cat and Mrs Jameson did me a great deal on stocking their yummy things.”
“And your mum?”
Her expression saddened, a heavy weariness flashing past her eyes. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back. He knew that look.