A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding

by Nicole Helm

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “To you,” Boone said. “When that kid told you what his dad did to them, he looked right at you. He watched you, and he waited for your response. He planned that all out. It wasn’t some accidental confession.”

  “Yeah. But why?”

  “He had it good, and he sabotaged it—well, tried to—because he didn’t know what to do with good. Or maybe he didn’t think he deserved it. I’m not a shrink. I can’t work all that out. I only know I’ve seen that look before—that look on his face when he told you about his dad. I’ve seen it in the mirror. In video. Felt it wash through me hard as a pelvis fracture. That was fear, plain and simple, and not of anything bad, but that good and right might be in front of you. Maybe even for you. Not everyone is comfortable with that, Shane.”

  Shane couldn’t help but wince at the idea of a pelvis fracture, but then it only made him angry again. Boone had never told them. He’d hightailed it away and thumbed his nose at them, and what had Shane done so damn wrong?

  Fear. But what had Micah hoped to gain out of . . . Clearly Cora didn’t want Shane to know. Clearly it was going to require some . . .

  Hell if he knew. He only wanted to fix it, but he’d never been so at a loss as to how.

  Molly’s head poked out of the door. “Um, Lilly convinced Cora to go get some coffee, and she said you two can come back and see Micah for a few minutes.” She glanced from Boone to Shane, offered him a little smile. “He asked for you in particular.”

  Something in Shane’s gut twisted so hard and painfully he couldn’t even respond. Wasn’t sure he was breathing as he strode inside to follow Molly, Boone at his heels.

  Molly led them through a maze of halls, to an open door. Inside, Cora’s sister was sitting in a chair next to a hospital bed. Micah was lying still on it, though the bed was elevated so it almost looked like he was sitting.

  His blue gaze drifted to the door, and Shane didn’t know what to say, or do. He only knew that his legs were propelling him next to Micah’s bed.

  “Hey, kid,” he managed to breathe.

  Micah stared, wide-eyed, before his gaze shifted away. Down. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  Shane breathed through all that horrible tightening in his chest. “It was an accident, bud. I think you learned your lesson, huh?”

  Micah shifted in the bed, looking small and helpless and just breaking the hell out of Shane’s heart. “Mom cried.”

  “Yeah, well, moms do that when they’re worried.”

  “I’m sorry I messed it all up.”

  Shane stepped forward, bending over the bed. He placed his hand over Micah’s forehead since it seemed the best place to touch him without hurting him. “You didn’t mess anything up. Not a thing.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “I was a little mad at Boone for taking you when I said no.”

  “I begged him.”

  Shane nodded. “The fact of the matter is, sometimes we make bad choices.” He thought about what Boone had said about being afraid of good. Maybe he could understand that. Afraid you’d get used to it, lose it, break it, and it’d never last. Maybe Shane was starting to begin to understand the fear that you couldn’t fix anything.

  He brushed his palm across Micah’s forehead. “You can’t make a bad choice that would change how I feel about you. No matter what. We may not be related, but that doesn’t mean we’re not connected. Nothing you could do to change that now. Hell, break a bone on Tyler property, you’re practically a Tyler.”

  Micah’s eyes filled with tears, but the kid clearly fought them tooth and nail. “So, I can still ride horses and everything?”

  “You’ll have to get healed up, and probably do some major sucking up to your mom, but accidents happen.” Which he said more for Micah’s sake than because he believed it.

  “You’re not . . . with her,” Micah said, sneaking a glance at his aunt who’d moved to a seat in the corner when he’d walked in. She quickly averted her eyes.

  “You worry about getting yourself home and healed up,” Shane offered, taking a step away from the bed. “You let me handle the rest, okay?”

  Micah frowned, but he nodded.

  But Shane could tell by his expression that Micah didn’t trust him to handle anything, just like everyone else.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Cora knew she had to go back to Micah’s room. She stared at her splotchy face in the bathroom mirror and knew even makeup couldn’t fix this.

  How on earth were parents brave for their kids? How did other people deal with this fear and guilt and worry all wrapped up in tears and failure? How did they look at their only child’s face and see pain and not just break apart?

  “Well, you’re going to have to figure it out,” she whispered to herself, fighting a fresh wave of tears by gripping the sink as hard as she could.

  She had gotten this far because she’d had to, and that didn’t stop here or now. It didn’t stop, ever.

  She felt strengthened by that. Determined.

  Then she stepped out of the bathroom and saw Shane, Boone, and Molly walking away from Micah’s room toward the waiting room. They all stared at her, then shared glances with each other. Nonverbally they seemed to agree Molly and Boone would keep walking.

  But Shane stopped.

  “Can we walk for a few minutes?”

  She wanted to say no, but that was the coward’s way out. In the past few hours she’d come to grips with the very real fact that Shane and happiness and all those things she’d thought she had this morning weren’t for her.

  Besides, what would she even do with them? With him? Get married? Have a family? Live on the ranch?

  Her knees nearly buckled at the horrible wave of want that swept through her. God, she wanted that life. That future.

  But Micah’s accident was her sign. Just like all those years ago when Stephen’s turning his anger onto Micah had been her sign to leave. She believed in signs. She believed in Gracely’s legend. She believed in herself.

  If that one rang a little false, well, that was something to dissect at her next appointment with Dr. Grove. Not here with Shane.

  She nodded and turned down a hallway that led outside. She wouldn’t do this with the hospital staff or waiting room as an audience, but she needed to do it.

  “I imagine they’ll be keeping him overnight?” Shane asked, pushing the door open and waiting for her to step outside before he did.

  Cora nodded stiffly. Some part of her wanted to reach out. Touch his face. Lean into what she knew would be willingly comforting arms.

  Pity comfort. Charity sweetness. Because now he knew, and the illusion was shattered. She was tainted, and she couldn’t stand the thought of still being with him with all that past ugliness weighing everything they were.

  “Did they give you an idea of when you’ll be able to go home?”

  “Tomorrow, probably.”

  “I can stay put. Give you a ride whenever he’s released. Whatever you guys need. Gavin and Boone have the ranch covered.”

  She didn’t understand how that offer could somehow make her heart soft and mushy, and yet somehow make her so damn angry too. It was a nice, sweet gesture, and if he hadn’t known about her, she could have accepted it.

  But he knew, so all gestures were now I know better than you. I have to fix you. “No, thank you. Lilly can do it.”

  Shane sighed. “Cora, I know we . . . I know you’re upset, and you have to focus on Micah right now. We’ll work out our stuff later, but for now I’m just offering help.” He smiled kindly, reassuringly. The kind of smile a teacher gave a child he was trying to teach something hard.

  Because that’s what she was to him now. The same thing she was to Lilly. And Micah. And everyone who knew.

  “I don’t want to work it out,” she said, looking straight at him, the words so honest-to-God truthful she nearly swayed on her feet.

  Shane straightened, stiffened. “What?”r />
  “I don’t want a fixer, Shane.”

  He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind, and maybe she had.

  He took a deep breath in and slowly let it out. “You’re tired.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Tired? Don’t know what I’m saying? Silly, stupid Cora is just so tired she’s talking out of turn.”

  A flash of temper, one she hadn’t truly seen until today, sparked in his eyes. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “I don’t have to. I know what this does.”

  “What what does?”

  “Knowing! Knowing everything about . . . about my past. I know what it does. I know how it changes how people see me, and I can’t . . . I can’t be what I’ve become when something I left behind is all anyone can see.”

  “So you don’t want to be with me because I know this thing about you?”

  “Yes! It changes everything. Everything. Because now every time you look at me and there’s even a hint of pity I have to think about all the ways I was small and weak and—”

  “You were none of those things. Someone’s hurting you does not define you.”

  Which was nice in theory, but he didn’t know what it was like to live with it. Maybe he had some warped father guilt, but it had all been a childhood accident. The things she’d allowed to happen . . . Maybe she’d been a teenager at first, but she’d let it happen into adulthood. “How would you know?”

  “Because I know you. Because I love you. If the mistakes we make define us, then Boone’s the cause of Micah’s accident, and I’m my father’s murderer.”

  “You believe those things, Shane. You blame Boone, and you blame yourself. You believe those things in your soul. So, why would it be different for me?”

  “I . . .”

  He looked as though she’d punched him. Right in the gut, with far more strength than she’d ever had.

  But he didn’t refute what she’d just said.

  “It just can’t work. It was a nice thought, but reality is a little tougher than nice thoughts.”

  “Cora, you can’t honestly believe—”

  “But I do. I honestly believe this changed everything, and for the worse. You know what? A few years ago, I might not have cared. A few years ago I would have been weak enough to let it all slide. To let you look down on me and live with it and think it was love, but I won’t let Micah down like that again.”

  “There is a difference between love and pity. There is a difference between knowing something awful happened to you and thinking you’re weak. You were a victim and—”

  “I am a victim. Now that you know, that’s what I am to you.”

  “No—”

  “You used the word, Shane. Not me. You don’t know a lot of victims, so you can’t understand what it’s like to be one. You don’t know. Now, I have to get back to my son.” She moved for the door.

  “Cora.”

  But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t go on this way any further without breaking down. Because it hurt to say all these awful things she didn’t want to believe.

  But they were all true. She saw the truth in him, in his inability to argue, in the way he felt about his own mistakes and failures.

  “Good-bye, Shane,” she managed, stepping back inside, doing everything she could to fight the swell of tears.

  This was the right thing. She would always be the victim. He would always be the man trying too hard to make up for things that weren’t his to make up for.

  She had to want better for herself. For her son. No matter how badly, deeply, horrifically the wound cut.

  * * *

  When Shane finally got home after driving the rental car to Benson, and having Mom pick Boone, Molly, and him up, he felt as though he’d lived through a year rather than a day. A year that had done everything in the world to upend everything he felt and believed.

  He trudged up to the house with his family, ready to just go to his room and sleep. Maybe with a bottle of Jack to aid the process. But as they got to the porch stairs, Mom hooked her arm with his.

  “You and I are going for a little ride.”

  “Mom, thanks and all, but I don’t feel like—”

  “It wasn’t a request or an invitation, Shane Tyler. It was a statement.” And with that she gave him a hard jerk toward the stables.

  “It’s like four in the morning.”

  “Yes, just about the time you’re usually getting up. The horses will think you’re right on time.”

  “Mom.”

  “Not another word until you’re in the saddle.”

  She pulled him the entire way, and he didn’t know what else to do but be pulled. Two horses were already saddled and tethered outside the doors.

  “Ben helped me out some. You know, he said you two talked the other day.”

  Shane grunted.

  “It means a lot to me that you did that. That you were the one who reached out, and I know you don’t want to hear that.” Mom easily mounted her horse, gesturing for Shane to do the same.

  Exhausted beyond measure, Shane got up on MacGregor. It eased a little of that horrible tension inside of him, and he supposed that was why Mom had insisted upon this.

  But it couldn’t solve any of his problems. Of course, neither could sleep or even him, so what did it matter?

  Mom nudged Templeton forward, and Shane followed, across the fields, around the familiar path toward the Tyler cemetery.

  “This seems to be my go-to spot these days,” he muttered. “Nothing like death to really solve a problem for you.”

  Mom didn’t respond, but she brought Templeton to a stop and slid off. She hung the reins on a branch, and Shane followed suit.

  Somehow, he knew where this was going, and if he had had any fight left in him, he would have fought. Refused to have this conversation. But he was plum out of fight, and Mom never fought fair anyway.

  They stood in front of Dad’s gravestone in the dark, yet Shane could see it all in his mind’s eye.

  “How is it possible,” Mom said, in a low, hurt voice he hadn’t heard too often from his mother, “that, for all these years, you never told us what really happened?”

  In all his exhaustion, he didn’t have it in him to wonder when Boone had told her or to find equivocations or anything other than the truth. “I felt responsible. I felt . . .” He wasn’t sure he’d been this close to crying since his father’s funeral. “You want me to explain something I did when I was twelve. I don’t know. I did what I thought was right. I thought it would be better if no one knew. Better if I protected you.”

  “And yourself.”

  “Maybe. God, I don’t know anymore. I just wanted to make it right.”

  “Yes, you’ve spent quite a lot of time and effort trying to make things right, haven’t you?” Mom said, but it wasn’t in the way Boone said things. Not scathing, but something more like proud.

  Mom slid her arm around his waist. “Between that and Gavin letting me in on what Micah told you guys, and Molly texting me a little bit of you and Cora’s fight, I’ve had quite a bit to think about all night. Trying to make sense of it all. You. Cora. I got to thinking, maybe you were afraid if people knew your father had died trying to help you, they might not just blame you, but they might stop loving you. Because all they’d be able to see was what had happened.”

  “Maybe, and I get that you’re trying to make a correlation here, but I do love Cora, and I told her that. I told her what happened to her didn’t matter. It doesn’t. She might be afraid, but I didn’t stop loving her.”

  “Yes, but . . . Do you remember your Aunt Sabrina?”

  “No.”

  “My sister. She was around when you were a baby, but she married a man who carefully and slowly cut her off from her family. From herself. We tried everything we could to get her to leave him, and I felt such guilt that I never could. I don’t know if he was physically abusive like Cora experienced, but it was abuse, nonetheless. Far too late, I realized I kept trying to c
hange her circumstances, but I never tried to figure out why she felt that man’s awfulness to her was love.”

  “That sounds . . . hard, Mom. And I’m sorry. But Cora told me a lot about how she grew up, and I can make a pretty easy jump to see how someone took advantage of her. It doesn’t change how I feel about her. It doesn’t change anything.” Why did everyone have to assume it did? He didn’t feel changed.

  “But that’s how you feel, Shane. What I’m saying is she has to feel it. She has to believe it, and you can’t make her.”

  “So, I should just give up?” he demanded incredulously.

  “No. No. But I think you have to give her time and support rather than solutions. Sometimes people don’t want you to fix it for them. They want you to hold their hand while they fix it for themselves.”

  “I’m not very good at that, am I?”

  Mom laughed, pulling him closer, giving him a squeeze. “It’s not your strong suit, no, but I bet you could learn for that girl. I have faith that you will. You’ll give her some time, then you’ll let her know what you’re willing to do, then you give her some more time.”

  “How much time we talking about here?” Shane asked wryly.

  Mom chuckled. “Much as it takes, I’d say. You trust in that love and in that person, and it won’t be so very bad. After all, I trusted in you to do the right thing when it came to me and Ben, and look where we are. You’re practically best friends.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  This time when she pulled, she pulled his face down and pressed her mouth to his cheek. “You are one of the five best things I’ve ever done, sweetheart. It has never been easy, but I would not change a second of it, because it has all brought you here, and I have never, ever seen you as happy as you are with Cora and Micah. Trust in that, Shane. Believe in it. Wait for it.”

  Shane rested his cheek against his mother’s head. “If I manage to do all that, it’s because of you. Well, and maybe a little bit the fear of Grandma’s sword collection keeping me in line.”

  Mom laughed, and that soothed a little bit. There were still so many ragged edges, so many things he didn’t understand, but Mom was right. It wasn’t really about him.