When he looks at my hands, the softness in his heart bleeds through the rough exterior most people only ever get to know. “You just love it so much.”
“I love to ride.” Tears beg to be let free as I squeeze Daddy’s hand. “But it’s always been about more than competing for me. It’s about feeling.” I smile at him. “It’s about feeling like she’s with me. Momma always told us riding isn’t about just being in the saddle. It’s about everything that gets you there. That’s what I love. That’s what reminds me of her. Not a medal or a ribbon, but the feel of a horse’s coat under my hands or the sound of their hooves on the ground. I have passion for the sport, and it will break a part of me to lose that, but the passion I can’t live without is the horses themselves.”
A tear slides down my Daddy’s rough cheek.
“I didn’t lose that. Now, my heart just has a little extra room to love them is all.”
“She’d be so proud of you,” he whispers.
“Remember, Daddy. Our hearts have to break a little sometimes. How else would we make room for all that love?”
Standing up, he brushes the hair off my face. “Of all the angels on Earth, my sweet girl, you have to be the strongest.” After kissing my forehead, he excuses himself from the room.
“You could teach!” Aurora brightens. “I mean, not like I do for volunteering. I mean like really teach. You could train people.”
“I could.” I smile at her.
Owen’s hand squeezes my ankle through the blankets at the foot of my bed. “You can still ride, Bridge. It’s just gonna look a little different from now on is all.”
“I love you guys,” I tell them. “Would you give me just a few minutes alone with Branson?”
They take turns giving me delicate hugs and kisses on my cheek before shutting the door behind them.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, running one of my hands through Branson’s hair.
“I’m just . . .” His voice trails off. “I’m scared to tell you.”
“To tell me what?” My hand moves down the side of his face before falling back down to the bed.
His face is a war of emotions. It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen play on his features. “That this”—he chokes on the lump in his throat as he looks over me—“is all because of me.”
My body reacts before I have time to stop it, and in sitting up so quickly, my injury protests. I wince against the pain, and he frowns. When he opens his mouth to speak, I shake my head.
“This is not your fault.”
“It is.” His head hangs. “You don’t understand.”
My heart rate picks up. His tone makes me anxious, as I have no idea how he thinks an accident like this could be his fault.
“Make me understand, Branson.”
He begins to pace at the foot of my bed. It’s a nervous habit of his I’ve noticed during our time together. I don’t push him. He’ll speak when he’s ready, and not a moment sooner.
“It wasn’t a coincidence”—he exhales—“that I came to Willow Bay.” Turning his back to me, he rests a hand against the hospital wall and his body begins to shake. “I saw you everywhere. I tried to write it off as infatuation and let it go, but you plagued me. You were on my TV screen, in my paper, and then I read that article . . .”
I wince. The article still haunts me, but I’m learning to let it go.
“I wanted to kill that pompous idiot for the things he said about you. Even a simple mind could see your passion wasn’t weakness.”
My mind ping-pongs, and I stumble in an effort to say something during his pause. “So, you knew of me before you came to Willow Bay? That’s not terribly odd, Branson. Millions of people I’ve never met know of me for the very same reason, and that hardly justifies you being responsible for an accident.”
“I came to Willow Bay, because of you.”
What?
“I came to Willow Bay for you.”
My palms start to sweat. My hands start to shake, my heart praying. “What about the fire? Your barn?”
“I needed a reason to be near you. I wanted to see if what I felt for you could possibly be real, and, if it was, if you would feel the same way about me in return.” He spins to face me, gripping the bar on the edge of my bed until his knuckles turn white. “I staged it—the fire.”
The blood inside me boils at the thought that he could be responsible for something as horrible as what I’d just gone through, but I’m reminded of the person he is, and instead of acting irrationally, I wait. I wait for him to give me one goddamn good reason why I shouldn’t kick him out of my hospital room. Even though the thought of losing him kills me.
“A colleague of mine who I’d worked with for years and trusted immensely was supposed to simply find an old photo of a barn fire similar to my property and have it leaked to the local press, only enough so that your father would take my request. It was fraudulent, but it shouldn’t have been harmful to anyone. The staff would be paid regardless, and no one would be the wiser.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Francis disobeyed a direct order, deeming the lie too unbelievable, and set fire to the entire barn. I was lucky he thought it wise enough to do so when the horses where all turned out to their paddocks for the day, but the knowledge that he’d caused so much destruction on a whim both terrified and angered me.
“I fired him on the spot. I should have turned him in to the authorities, but he knew the part I’d played in the event itself and threatened to embellish that. Instead of taking chances, I paid him a year’s severance to leave and never come back. It didn’t work. He kept causing trouble.”
“The break-in,” I whisper. “The first day we kissed.”
He nods, shame weighing heavily on him. “That was Francis. It was after that I knew I’d made a mistake. I came clean to the police after our first night together, but they weren’t able to do much. He said I ruined him, and thus, he would ruin me. The threats weren’t taken seriously enough, as I had no way to prove any of it at this point.” When he lifts his head, tears and guilt wash down his face. “I never thought he’d come after my horses at Willow Bay. He hadn’t popped up in weeks on any of the authorities’ radars, so we assumed he’d just let it go. I’m so sorry. You should hate me.”
My brain’s a little sluggish from the painkillers, but even so, I don’t hate him. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that he knew about me and sought me out on purpose. Is it weird and extreme? Sure. But that doesn’t negate the fact that I still fell in love with him by my own free will. He didn’t force me, and he isn’t, despite what he may think, a bad person.
“Branson, come here,” I whisper, tapping the empty space beside me.
His hesitation hurts my heart, but eventually, he comes.
“Look at me,” I lift his chin with my hand and trace the stubble along the lines of his jaw. “We are not the mistakes we make, nor the things we fear, and most certainly not the things we bleed for.” I lose a single tear, as does he. “Fate, and a little help from you,”—I wink—“brought us together, and Momma said, ‘When fate brings you your person, its job is done and it’s on you to keep them.’ So you can try runnin,’ or whatever other absurdities are in that handsome head of yours, or you can save us both a lot of trouble and heartache by just stayin’ put.”
His words drip with uncertainty. “How can you forgive me for this?”
“Do I wish you’d told me about everything before now? Yes. Not because it means I would have handled anything differently, but because we are always stronger together than we are apart, Branson. Regardless, we will handle it from here on out as a team. Whatever that looks like, I’m with you.” I pull him towards me by the back of his neck. “I forgive you. Do you understand me?”
He nods.
“That forgiveness has nothing to do with being earned. It’s on me to give, and that’s my choice. You don’t need to be my hero. I don’t need one. You’re more than that. You’re it for me, Tucker. Don’t you get that? You’re my second chance. It doesn’t matter if I can’t compete again for the rest of my life because you’re the only gold medal I want.”