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“Spur,” Blaine said. “This is a hundred percent different.”
“How so?”
“You’re you, and I’m me.”
“I don’t get what that has to do with anything,” Spur said.
“I know you don’t,” Blaine said. “You’re the oldest, Spur. You’ve always had ten times the confidence I have. You’ve been married twice. No one has ever cheated on you.” He stopped talking, because Blaine didn’t need to go on.
“You asked me if I wanted to do the right thing,” Spur said. “I know you do too. You told me I didn’t want to hurt her. I know you don’t want to hurt Tam either.”
“Already did that,” Blaine said, his throat sticky. “She hates me.”
“She does not.”
“She said so,” Blaine said, collapsing onto the bed and running his hand down his face.
“She did?”
“I was cruel to her,” Blaine said. “I reacted instead of thinking. I—I don’t deserve her anyway.”
Spur took the longest time to respond, and when he did, all he said was, “Follow your heart.”
Blaine nodded and let his phone fall to his lap. He looked around the hotel room, trying to find the right thing to do. He didn’t want to get hurt either, and he was definitely hurting.
“I miss her already,” he said out loud.
He and his brothers had not always gotten along. When problems happened, Blaine had learned how to apologize and ask for forgiveness. He thought of his mother, who had been working hard to be better than she’d been before.
Blaine had spoken to her and cleared the air. Could it really be that simple for him and Tam?
He didn’t see how. Ever since he’d shown up on her doorstep and kissed her, everything had been so complicated. Blaine took forever to work complicated things through his mind, and he really disliked that about himself.
Right now, he disliked almost everything about himself, and he didn’t even know how to live and breathe through the next minute. Somehow, that happened, and he focused on the next breath in, and then out.
If he could do that for long enough, he might be able to figure out how to do something besides breathe.
* * *
That evening,he ate alone in a booth in the corner of a sports bar. The restaurant was loud, with TVs mounted on every available surface. He ignored the baseball on the screen, because the only sport Blaine cared about was horse racing.
He wasn’t even really sure he cared about that. He thought he should, because he was a Chappell, and Chappells had been working in the racehorse industry for generations. He did have the love of horses in his blood, and he’d miss the Kentucky sky if he didn’t go back. The white fences and emerald green grass. Featherweight and his whole family.
He’d go back to Bluegrass Ranch; there was nothing out here for him.
The real problem was, there was nothing back there for him either.
22
Beth paced in front of the barn, throwing a look toward TJ every now and then. The boy was right where she’d told him to stay. Having the kittens living out of the woodpile helped, and her son reminded her so much of her husband.
As usual, whenever Beth thought about Danny, her pulse quickened and then stopped. She pulled in a shallow breath and held it, the world spinning for just a moment. As quickly as the vertigo had come, it dissipated, and Beth could breathe again.
The whole episode had lasted three or four seconds, but Beth hated them. If she had enough of them throughout the day, they left her drained and exhausted. Trying to maintain the hundred-acre ranch did that by itself; she didn’t need episodic grief to take her down too.
She’d asked her therapist on Friday afternoon how much longer she’d have to deal with the panic, depression, and random tightening of her chest. Sam hadn’t given her a timeframe.
“You know, Beth, everyone deals with things on their own timetable.”
