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The steady beeping of the machines lulled me to sleep.A jolt of pain woke me. Everything was clearer than before, but that also meant the medicine wasn’t dulling the pain as much.
I winced at my throbbing arm and tried to pick it up, only to have it feel like it weighed a ton. Peering to my left, blonde hair spilled over my waist, and her upper body had my arm pinned under the blanket.
I hadn’t been dreaming. I glanced around the room to see Drew on the opposite side of the bed, fast asleep.
Excruciating pain shot through my side as I attempted to take a deep breath.
Tori jerked and sat up. “You’re awake.” Her worried expression softened, and her hand caressed my face.
I closed my eyes and leaned into her touch. I’d missed her so much over the last week. It was like a part of me had frozen when she left, and it was beginning to thaw. I opened my eyes and studied her face. Tear tracks stained her cheeks, and her eyes were puffy. My chest tightened.
“Princess, is it really you? Are you really here?”I still couldn’t believe she wasn’t a trick of my imagination.
“It’s really me.” She sniffed and gave me a watery smile. “I flew here as soon as I heard. How are you feeling?”
“Stiff and sore. My head hurts, and I think I broke a rib or something.” I winced. Talking too much didn’t help. “So, I guess I’m the same old, same old.”
A short burst of laughter escaped her lips, and the sound brought some light into the dark that had taken over my mind since she’d left.
She leaned in as though to drop a kiss to my cheek and then hesitated. Then she turned away. “I’ll let Andrew fill you in on what’s going on with you.”
My gaze tracked her every movement, starving for her. Tori stood and moved to the other side of the bed to shake Drew awake. He nearly fell out of his chair, and I had to fight hard not to chuckle. The pain in my ribs wouldn’t allow for that just yet.
Drew’s sleepy eyes blinked awake. When he noticed me staring, a huge grin split his face. “Dude, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Like I fell from a horse. What’s the damage?”
My brother's forehead creased with his question.“Two broken ribs, broken left arm…”
I mustered the strength to extract my arm from under the blanket when he said that. The cast had been what was weighing it down, not being pinned under the blanket. Well, that fucking sucked.
“A few cuts and bruises. The one on your forehead needed a few stitches, and you got a concussion to go along with the knot on your head.”
“That’s all?” I tried to laugh it off. That seemed like a lot, but it could have been worse. Memories bombarded me of just before I fell. We’d come upon a rattlesnake while we were searching for the lost cattle. “Did anyone get bitten by the rattler? Did they find the lost heads?”
“One of the boys scared off the snake. And they ended up finding every last one. They’d actually headed south, and Scott’s group found them near the fence line of the Brown’s.” Drew rubbed his forehead and sighed. “I’m sorry for what happened on the ride. It was my fault. I should have let it go until we got home.”
I gave a self-depreciating laugh. “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. We should have talked sooner. I was an ass.”
Tori’s head bounced back and forth at our conversation. She stopped at me. “What happened?”
“I wasn’t paying attention. I was thinking about how we’d ended things—”
Tori’s gasp interrupted me. A pained sob echoed in the quiet room. “I’m so sorry, Caleb. This is all my fault. I should have told you the truth from the very beginning, but I was scared. And I was hoping to find a way out of my own problems without dragging you into them. You didn’t deserve to be involved in my family issues. I—”
I slid the fingers of my good hand over hers and tugged her close. Staring deep into her eyes, I laid a finger over Tori’s lips. “I don’t care about any of that anymore.” Drew was right. Those were things we could work out and get past. What I wanted to know was if she still wanted to make a relationship with us work.
She sighed, and a smile curved her lips.
“Why did you come back?” I slowly lifted my finger away.
“Because the man I loved was hurt, and I wasn’t there for him,” she said without hesitation, and my heart soared.
“You love me? After what I said to you?”
“Of course I do,” she insisted.
“But I’m a nobody from a small, country town with no money and nothing much to give you.” I didn’t exactly care about those things, but she’d grown up with a life we weren’t able to give her. I needed to know if this was really what she wanted.
