by C. A. Harms
“Okay, let’s get dressed,” Bailey said as she stood and rushed off toward her room.
Chapter Nineteen
Ryan
I needed to see Olivia. Only when I heard her voice and felt her hand in mine would I be able to calm down. I needed to know my little girl was okay. I hadn’t even paused to greet my family in the waiting area. I stormed toward the nurses’ station and demanded to see my daughter.
When I entered her room, my heart felt like it hit the floor. Olivia sat on the edge of the bed while a doctor stitched a large cut above her right eye. There was a sling on her arm, and her shirt was covered in blood.
She winced as the doctor fed the needle through the tender skin, and I rushed to her side.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Her voice vibrated as her lower lip trembled.
“Shh, I know. We’ll talk about it later. Right now let’s just get you fixed up, okay?” I rubbed her back while the doctor continued to work.
After about ten minutes, another doctor came into the room, followed by my mother. She took a seat on the chair beside the bed and patted my knee, offering her motherly support without even speaking.
“Hello, Ryan.” I was shocked seeing the woman before me. “I’m Olivia’s doctor.”
“Zoey, how are you?” It had been years since I last saw her. Claire and Zoey used to be friends before Zoey left for college and took a job in Seattle as a doctor.
“Good. I just moved back about three weeks ago. Missed my family, so when this job opened up—” She shrugged. “—I took it.”
“Well, it’s good to have you back.”
She smiled, and after a long pause, she averted her eyes to the chart she held. “Olivia’s X-ray shows a fracture to her right wrist, which will require a cast. She sustained minor injuries to her head—a concussion and a decent-sized laceration above her right eye, which required stitches.” Zoey paused as she flipped the page. “There was something that showed up in her bloodwork that concerns me. I would like to go over the results with her.”
My chest tightened. “What kind of things?”
“Do you want to step out or—?”
I shook my head as my eyes shifted toward Olivia. She suddenly appeared nervous, and that only made my mind race faster.
“Right here is fine,” I said as I took a seat next to my mother. She gripped my shoulder in support.
“Olivia had a high level of alcohol in her bloodstream.”
My heart sank at the thought of my fifteen-year-old daughter drinking. I looked up at her, and I knew she saw the disappointment in my eyes. She immediately looked away and twisted her hands nervously in her lap.
“What the hell were you thinking?” It left my mouth before I had time to think about it. “Drinking, Olivia, goddamn it.”
“Ryan,” my mother whispered as she gripped my shoulder a little tighter. I shrugged out of her hold and stood up to pace the room. I was trying to control my anger, but I just couldn’t.
“Who the hell got you alcohol? Was it Charlie? How did he get it? Where did he get it?” She curled into herself a little tighter and wouldn’t look at me. “Tell me, Olivia, right now. Or so help me God, I will go find Charlie myself, and whatever injuries he sustained from this carelessness will be minor compared to what I’ll do to him.”
The room was silent except for the sounds of my heart pounding in my ears. Controlling my anger was growing harder with each passing second. I had never in my life wanted to hurt someone as bad as I wanted to hurt Charlie.
“He took it from the refrigerator in his dad’s garage,” she whispered.
“Took what?” I growled.
“Some kind of whiskey.”
I spun on my heel and left the room, my mother following closely behind. Olivia called after me, attempting to stop me, but my mind was set. I was going to find Charlie and beat the snot out of that little jackass.
Just as I was rounding the corner, Noah stepped in front of me. “Whoa, brother. Where are you storming off to?”
“I’m gonna stomp that boy’s butt. He needs to know that messing with my daughter is the worst mistake he’s ever made. I’m gonna make sure he understands that he better not get within five feet of her unless he wants my foot up his ass,” I said, trying to move around him.
Noah and I were comparable in size, height, and build, but I knew I could get past him without a problem. Jackson, on the other hand, was the biggest of us three, thanks in part to labor on the ranch. He used his size to his advantage way too often.
My mother must have been thinking the same thing, because she rushed off, leaving me with Noah. I knew I had about sixty seconds to overpower him before Jackson intervened.
“You don’t want to do that,” Noah said. “Ryan, he’s not worth it. He’ll get his own, you know that. He was driving drunk and endangered two other people as well. He is seventeen, almost eighteen. I’m sure he’ll be suffering for this mistake for years, brother. Use your head, Ry.” Noah was doing what he did best—trying to talk me down.
When Jackson stepped up behind him, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. Jack squared his shoulders and crossed his arms over his built chest, puffing up and widening his stance.
“Calm down there, Hercules.” I chuckled at Jackson, and he grinned in return. “I don’t need you holding me back. Dr. Logic here just put a stop to my rage.”
Jackson looked disappointed that his strength was no longer needed. He was such an arrogant ass.
I spent a good fifteen minutes outside Olivia’s room calming my nerves before I stepped back in. As I did, she looked up at me with eyes full of unshed tears. I stood at the end of her bed, staring down at my little girl. I remembered her with her hair in pigtails, running around the backyard, and the days when Claire and she would blow bubbles off the back deck and then run around, trying to pop them all before they hit the ground.
She was no longer my little chubby-cheeked girl. She was now a beautiful young woman, and I had no idea how to handle that.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy.” Her chest shook as she tried to control her tears. “I never should have drank or gotten in the car with Charlie after knowing he’d been drinking. I never should have lied and left Jackie’s house. I know right now you hate me, but—”
My chest tightened and I rushed for her. I leaned over the left side of the bed and pulled her good side flush against mine. “I don’t hate you, Liv, baby girl,” I soothed. “I could never hate you. You’re my world, Olivia. I’m hurt by your choices, sweetheart, but I could never hate you, ever. I love you.”
She curled into my chest, and another part of me broke as she sobbed against me.
“I miss you,” she whispered. “It’s been just you and me for so long, and now it feels different. You have Amber, and I feel like—” Her voice cracked just before she breathed in deep.
“You feel like what, darlin’?”
“Like Mom is fading away more and more. I can’t see her anymore when I close my eyes. I can’t remember what she sounded like when she would talk to me at night until I fell asleep.” Her tears began to soak through my shirt, and my throat burned at her confession.
“Remember that pillow I have on my bed? The one that smelled like her?” Olivia looked up at me, her eyes red and swollen. I nodded. “I can’t smell her anymore,” she continued, shattering me a little more.
She pushed back from me and looked directly into my eyes. “I know you like Amber, and I also know you spent the night with her. Or at least you were going to until you got called to come here.” She shrugged. “I saw your truck there when we drove by the bakery.”
“Sweetheart—”
“I just know that when things get more serious with the two of you, Mom will then be a distant memory, and I’m having a really hard time with that. You’ll forget her, I’m forgetting her, and she’ll just be a picture on the nightstand. Just an occasional thought hidden in the back of our minds. I hate that. I can’t remember what it felt like when she bru
shed my hair or kissed my cheek. I hate that when things get rough, I can’t feel her arms around me or hear her telling me everything will be okay.” Her body shook as she sobbed. “Why did she have to leave us?”
“I’m so sorry, Liv.” The rawness in her voice was killing me. There was nothing worse than you child hurting and being unable to take that pain away.
Chapter Twenty
Amber
I looked over my shoulder at Jackson. He had led me back to Olivia’s room so I could check up on her and Ryan. As we approached we heard them talking, and we didn’t want to intrude. But her words cut me deep.
She was a young girl that was still grieving the loss of her mother, and I was only causing her more pain by being with Ryan.
I slowly backed away from the room, and Jackson placed his hand on my elbow. “She’s upset, Amber. She’ll be okay.”
I shook my head and looked down at the floor, trying to control my emotions. I knew what I needed to do. For Olivia’s well-being and her relationship with her father, I needed to walk away.
“I’m gonna go. I don’t belong here,” I told him as I pulled my elbow from his grasp.
“Amber, just wait for a few moments. Talk to Ryan.”
I shook my head as I turned and walked away.
I found Bailey by the coffee machine. As she saw me approach, her smile fell from her lips. “What happened?”
Shaking my head again, I walked past her. “Nothing. I just need to leave. I never should have come. It was the wrong choice.”
She jogged after me as I walked out the big glass sliding doors, in search of my car. “Will you please stop and tell me what the hell happened in there?”
My hands were shaking as I rounded the front of my car and fumbled through my purse in search of my keys.
“Amber.” Ryan’s voice rang out through the parking lot, startling me. I dropped my keys to the pavement and quickly knelt to retrieve them.
“Amber, stop,” Ryan called out as he ran toward me, passing Bailey in his rush. The distress in his voice made me pause. I stood up as he skidded to a stop just a few inches from me.
“Where are you going?” He sounded winded.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here. I just wanted to know that she was okay.” I stepped back from him, and my back bumped against the car. “I’m just gonna go.”
“Baby, don’t leave. It means a lot that you cared enough to show up here for my little girl.” He placed his hands on my hips and stepped toward me. Immediately I lifted my hand and pressed it firmly against his chest.
“You need to get back inside,” I said as I looked up to see Bailey standing on the other side of the car. “Please, she needs you. We’ll talk later.”
But Ryan was stubborn as always and wouldn’t take no for an answer. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just think you need to get back inside. Olivia needs you and this can wait.” I forced a smile because now was not the time to talk about us. His focus needed to be solely on Olivia. The last thing he deserved was for me to break things off after the scare he just had.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I asked.
This time Ryan stepped back and dropped hands to his sides. “Don’t pretend that whatever’s on your mind can wait until later.”
“It isn’t the place or the time.”
He stared at me, his jaw ticking. He ran his hand up through his hair before lowering it to scratch at the stubble along his chin.
After a few moments of silence, his stare was making me uncomfortable. “I can’t be that person, Ryan. The one that comes between you and Olivia. I heard her,” I said as his eyes narrowed in question. “I was outside the room with Jackson. I’m sorry for crashing in on a very private moment, but now that I know how she feels, how much she’s hurting, it breaks my heart, and I know I can help. All I have to do is step back.”
“She’s just having a rough time,” he said with panic in his voice.
“I know she is,” I said. “Because of me.”
He bent at the knees, slouching just enough to look me in the eyes. “It is not because of you.”
I shook my head and tried to calm down. My heart was pounding, and I felt lightheaded. Tears formed in my eyes.
“It is, Ryan,” I said.
He started to speak again, but I placed my finger against his lips to quiet him. “The trouble between you and Olivia started when we began seeing one another. I can’t keep coming between the two of you. I could never look at myself in the mirror, knowing I’ve hurt her. She’s scared and she needs you. She’s having a hard time, and right now your full attention needs to be directed to her.”
“I know,” he whispered against my finger, his voice laced with longing and his eyes glistening with tears. “But I need you too.”
His confession made my knees almost buckle. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him close, but I knew couldn’t do that.
“I think it’s best if we stop seeing each other.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat, feeling close to breaking down. “I think she needs you, and I can’t keep causing her emotional pain. I won’t, Ryan. Your daughter needs you.”
I lightly pushed against his chest, forcing him to step back even farther. “Go,” I insisted.
He gripped the back of his neck and let his head sag toward the ground. “We could make this work, Amber. If you would just give me—”
“No.” Even I could hear the break in my voice as tears filled my eyes. But I couldn’t take much more of this before I would give in and allow this roller-coaster ride to continue. We could keep doing this, but it wouldn’t be fair to Olivia. She needed to heal from her grief, and she needed her father. The only way I could make sure she had his full attention was to walk away.
“We can’t make it work. I’m sorry, but it’s for the best right now. My presence is only making things harder on her.”
Ryan tucked his hands deep into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. His head was still hung, and I was unable to read his expression. He remained silent as he took a few steps back, still staring at the ground. I thought he may be trying to come up with another reason to stop me from making this choice. Instead he turned away from me and walked back toward the hospital.
As I watched him enter through the double doors without looking back, I suddenly felt sick. The last thing I wanted to do was push him away. I had to fight the urge to run after him and tell him I made a mistake. After our time together last night, I never thought I would be walking away from him today. But I had to do this, not only for him but for Olivia. They needed to heal together, and my presence was making that impossible.
An emptiness settled deep in my stomach.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ryan
It had been almost two weeks since Amber ended things between us, and I’d gone back to being the quiet, withdrawn guy I’d been for the last three years. Yeah, I smiled when I needed to, and I laughed when I felt I should, but at the end of the day, I felt hollow.
After Olivia came home from the hospital, I took a week off from work. I needed some time not only because I was feeling the loss of Amber and needed to take care of Olivia, I also realized I had to sort out my own heart. It was time I packed away all the things that still belonged to Claire—her sweater that was still draped across her reading chair in the corner of the living room, her clothes in the spare bedroom she had taken over because they wouldn’t all fit in our closet, all the things I knew we would never need again, and things others could use.
Olivia and I decided to donate her clothes and shoes. Well, at least those Liv decided she was able to part with. After we removed those remnants from our home, we decided it was time to say good-bye to Claire. Our love for her would always remain, but our longing to keep her close was only holding us back.
We chose to spend that week doing all the things Claire loved to do. We laid in the hammock on the back deck and watched the stars, tryin
g to find the constellations, and we made s’mores with double the chocolate. But the main thing we did was pull out all the old albums and talk about our memories of her. It was a week of many tears, but in the end, I think Olivia needed to feel her mother’s presence. She also needed to see just how much of her mother still lived on in herself. Every day I was able to see Claire more and more in Olivia. I wanted her to realize it was okay to talk freely about Claire and to share our memories and love for her. But we had to learn to move forward for our sakes.
In the meantime, I missed Amber more than I had imagined I would. The impact she made on my heart in such a short time was something I could not easily forget. I found myself driving by the bakery just to feel close to her. I had refrained from going inside, though, even if it meant I had to drink the shit coffee from JJ’s. I just knew seeing her would be too hard. My heart ached from not being able to touch her.
We had shared one very amazing night just to have everything fall apart hours later.
Nights were the worst. Things were quiet then, and my mind wandered back to the feelings I had developed for her. They were too hard to ignore. At least during the day spending time with Olivia on the ranch kept my mind occupied and at ease.
I looked up from the television to see Liv shuffling down the hall toward me. “Do you wanna go riding today?” she asked as she sat down on the couch next to me and leaned into my side.
Her wrist was now encased in a bright pink cast her uncles had decorated up obnoxiously. I think Jackson and Noah were trying to outdo each other. Their names covered every inch of the cast in various colors and sizes. In the middle of all their madness I signed it too with the word daddy in black, bold letters followed by a heart.
“How do you plan on riding with that?” I tapped the cast lightly, and she tapped me back faster than I had expected.
