Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Why’d you tell her to leave?” Steven exclaimed as the elevator doors closed, rounding on Tyler for answers, shoving Tyler who blazed between Travis and Toby and punched the elevator button.
Even if it didn’t knock him off-balance, this explosion from his normally sweet, goofy boy was a shock.
“Easy, hot rod.” Toby snagged his nephew’s skinny frame in his arm, tatted with a lone star, gripping the boy’s shoulder, glancing at Tyler with concern. “That your woman, Ty?” He thumbing over his shoulder.
“Yeah.” Tyler stabbed the button again as his jaw clenched so hard, his teeth might crack, and glanced up to the lights over the door. There was something about the way she’d left, the distance, the finality in her demeanor, that rubbed him wrong, something about Steven’s accusation that was disorienting him.
“Did you tell her to leave?” The surprise lilting Toby’s voice distracted Tyler.
“She’s just going home,” he grumbled.
“You sure about that?” Travis muttered quietly.
The carriage was already descending and another elevator had been called into action. He’d missed her, and the anguish on her face whispered at things he didn’t want to think about. Had she not heard him say he took the blame? Surely she wasn’t leaving. He couldn’t leave Seth’s room to chase her down. In fifteen more minutes, the morning shift was scheduled to take over and the anesthesia team would wake Seth up.
Stevie’s eyes welled with tears, but he was no longer flailing, and Toby let him go. Tyler tried to pull his younger son into a hug but Steven refused, glaring at him. “You told her to leave. God, Seth said you’d say something dumb to push her away—”
“Not now, son,” Tyler bit out, and raked his hand through his filthy hair for the millionth time. “Ain’t no one pushed away.” He hoped. “We’re all upset. Let’s get some rest.”
“She was crying, man,” Toby said. “Fuck, how bad is Seth?”
Tyler glared at Toby for dropping the F bomb with his nephew right there to hear, but it wasn’t as if four-letter words were a foreign language in the Dixon family, or on the farm with T.R. running his mouth at any given moment.
At Toby’s worried question, Travis clenched his jaw and trained his eyes on the nurses’ station with military precision. His feet followed suit and stormed the desk.
“I’m Travis Dixon, ortho doc over at V-Tech Memorial in El Paso. Seth Dixon’s my nephew. I wanna speak with his specialist team to get a low-down on his condition, see what recovery’s lookin’ like…”
“Is he gonna make it?” Toby asked, blue eyes furrowed in emotion.
Tyler cleared his throat gruffly. Stretched his tightened neck muscles. “Yep. He’ll make it. They got him sedated because of his pain. Thank Christ he’s gonna be fine. He was so mad—”
Toby yanked him in for a hug, hard thuds on the back. He gripped him back. Having seen Seth’s life flash before his eyes had brought back painful memories of that car accident. It had been a long time, yet both his brothers had come running, and the silent, stern way in which Travis was holding the nurse hostage to answer his peppering of medical questions was all the greeting he needed from his middle brother. This was what Trav had done when their mother was ill, drilled the doctors, tried to decipher every detail of their diagnosis and pick it apart as if a medical sleuth. It was how Trav showed he cared.
Something unsettled in Tyler’s stomach, something more than what was already unsettled from the night he’d had. He didn’t like the way Heart’s eyes had filled with tears or the awful things she’d said about herself when he’d pushed her away, even if, truth be told, he hadn’t wanted anyone to touch him as he worked through what had happened last night. He’d felt every one of her uncharacteristically brooding stares from across the room like a foreboding caress. It had taken forever to get through her barriers, past the fun exterior, and into the real parts of her that had made her who she was. Her parents, her sister, her body.
And it was as if a barrier had built back up, brick by brick, concealing that giving side of her that had taken his kids by storm, taken him by the hand and lured him out into the light.
Her confession? Fate doing her a solid? That shit was unacceptable. She was an incredible mom, even if she didn’t see it. She’d shouldered guilt for years and he’d…dammit. Realization landed hard on him as if those rocks from the escarpment had hit their mark. He’d cringed the second his insensitive words had rumbled from his throat, so wrapped up in his own anger, he hadn’t stopped to hear them for the accusation that they sounded like. He may as well have rubbed salt on her wounds and called it a day.
No, it was as if his remark had affirmed something she already felt in her heart to be true: she didn’t see her own value.
He texted her.
Tyler:We need to talk.
Shoot, he really did sound like a drill sergeant. Quickly, he typed and sent:
Tyler:Please.
No reply. Seconds ticked by as Seth’s monitors steadily beeped. He didn’t want to discuss something so personal over text, but desperation was beginning to churn in his gut.
Tyler:This wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Seth’s gonna be okay.
She was driving though, so she couldn’t text him back, he rationalized.
Tyler:Call me when you get home.