“I did that, Blaize. Not you.” She noticed his habit of blaming himself every time something went wrong. An eldest-child fault? Or did he blame himself in some way for his wife’s death? “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”
“For how long?” he asked, his tone so low she almost didn’t hear him.
“I’m right here,” she said in the most reassuring tone possible. After what he’d been through, it wouldn’t surprise her if he was afraid deep down to get close to anyone for fear of losing them. That fear would bubble to the surface in comments like the one he just made.
He surveyed the area. His muscles were so tense if they were cords they would have snapped by now.
“Do you want to sit in my car for a few minutes before we drive back?” she asked.
“Let’s move this barrier first.”
With both of them working, it took all of five minutes to clear the road.
He walked over to the driver’s side and opened the door for her. She took a seat. Blaize rounded the front of the vehicle before settling in the passenger side. She rolled the windows down a crack. Just enough to keep fresh air flowing, while making it easier to hear if someone came up to surprise them.
Blaize kept his gaze focused on the stretch of road in front of them. They sat there, quiet, for a long moment. Pushing him to speak would only cause him to withdraw further. In her two years on the job, she’d witnessed people who experienced trauma. They needed space. They needed a gentle nudge.
He was a good person, someone who took care of everyone around him without asking anything in return. It might not have been her job to help him, but she could be there for him. She could lend an ear. But only if he wanted to take that step.
She’d also learned on the job that she couldn’t fix other people. They had to want to fix themselves.
“Holding my wife’s hand while she faded was the hardest thing I’ll ever be asked to do,” he said.
“I have nothing to compare it to,” she said quietly, reverently. “And I can’t begin to fathom how that would feel.”
“There was so much medication by the end,” he said. “She was doped up all the time to stay out of pain. One night, the lights were low. I sat next to her, head down, eyes on the phone. And I missed it. I had a work email that I was writing a response to. She said my name a few minutes earlier, and I just kept staring at the screen. Held my finger up to tell her that I’d be with her in a second. By the time I looked up, she was gone.”
Damn.
Carys exhaled a slow breath as the weight of those words descended around her, cloaked her. The amount of guilt he carried around made even more sense now.
“You were by her side,” she said to him. “That would matter the most.”
“What did she want to say to me?” he asked slowly. “What did I miss? Was she in pain? Was there something I could have done to ease it? To help? Did she need something from me? Or did she want to tell me that she loved me one more time, and I robbed both of us of the pleasure of hearing those words out loud?”
Carys didn’t respond. Those questions were rhetorical. It was him thinking out loud. Needing to say those words to someone.
“I spent so much time with her and missed the most important moment of her life.” He was beating himself up. Words of encouragement wouldn’t help right now, so she tucked them away for when he might be ready to hear them.
Reality nailed her.
Once Rue was settled wherever she was supposed to be, Carys and Blaize would likely lose contact. They lived in two different worlds, and he had the responsibility of turning the ranch around along with the self-imposed duty of taking care of Kit for the rest of her life.
She hoped his grandmother would be around for a very long time. Kit was wonderful. And yet Carys wished Blaize could have time to heal from taking care of his wife. It was obvious he loved her. And no matter how strong the attraction was between Carys and Blaize, she would never be able to compete with a ghost.
An emptiness she’d never experienced before filled her chest, and suddenly all the oxygen sucked out of the vehicle.
Chapter Ten
Blaize never talked about Lynn. He thought about her every day, almost every minute of every day. But he didn’t talk about her.
Until now.
Saying those words out loud chipped some of the thousand-pound weight off his shoulders.
“Ever notice how we’re always harder on ourselves than we are on other people?” Carys asked.
He nodded. She’d been quiet.
