Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
TUCKER
I’m so fucking furious.
Someone hurt my girl. Her flesh is torn right through old scars, and the blood is running down her back, but I had to get her calmed down before I could even think about cleaning her up.
But more than that, she’s back in that place where she thinks she doesn’t deserve all the wonderful things in her life, where the fucking maniac who was supposed to protect her destroyed her spirit and her skin, and I want to rage.
Instead, I keep her face in my hands and kiss her forehead, resisting the need to crush her to me and hold on tight.
“Do we understand each other?” I feel my heart break a little more when her chin wobbles as she nods solemnly. “Good. Now, I’m going to clean this blood up. You should have stitches, sweetheart.”
“Strips will hold it,” she whispers as she pulls a towel from the bar and holds it against her front. “We’ll need antiseptic, or it could get infected, and there’s not much worse than an infected whip wound. Trust me.”
I swallow thickly, my stomach in knots as I take in the ripped skin. Jesus Christ, how did she handle this by herself when she was just a child?
“Darby, I’m begging you to let me call Blake. Please, baby. He’ll come to us, and you trust him.”
“I’ve managed on my own my whole life, Tucker. We can do this. I understand if you don’t want to watch, and I can do it myself, if you’ll just leave me with—”
“I’m not fucking leaving you,” I growl. “Not today or any day, but I think you need medical attention.”
I lean my forehead against her uninjured shoulder and let out a ragged sigh. It’s not that the wound makes me jittery, it’s that I don’t have the skills to properly take care of this. She’s a woman, my woman, not an animal on my ranch to be tended to.
“I really need to make more salve now,” she whispers. “Because I’ll have fresh scars, and I need to work them early, so they don’t get too bad.”
I press my lips together as I methodically wipe the blood from her skin, over all of the ridges from the destruction that was done before, and my heart twists in my chest.
“I love all of your pretty little scars.” I reach over and brush her hair off her face and run my thumb over her bottom lip. “Every single one.”
“I love you too.” The words are whispered, but I hear them plain as day and hold her blue eyes with my own. “So much that it terrifies me.”
I kiss her shoulder, above her injury, on the side of her neck and then over to her lips before leaning my forehead against hers as emotion swells in me. She shows me every damn day that she cares, but hearing the words spoken so sweetly from this amazing human is . . . everything.
“Say it one more time, beautiful girl.”
That brings a little smile to the corner of her plump lips, and she reaches up to brush a lock of my hair off my forehead. “I love you.”
A tear falls from her eye, and I brush it away with my thumb. “I love you, too, Duchess.”
“Can we finish in here because I’m getting cold.”
With a firm nod, I get back to work, and she walks me through putting the strips on her, so the wound closes, both on her shoulder and her arm.
This is going to hurt like a bitch for a while.
“Now your face,” I say when I’m finished with the worst of it. “You have a little gash by your eye and one hell of a shiner.”
“Just a little antiseptic and the face will be fine. Dudes dig scars, don’t you know?”
She’s trying to be funny, but I don’t see the humor in this at all. “I dig you, and that’s all that matters.”
“So possessive.” She’s watching me intently as I finish with her face, and when she’s cleaned up, she takes a breath and then stands. “I need to—”
“If you’re about to say anything other than rest, you’re wrong.”
“I should call Dr. Fisher and apologize.”
“What in the hell do you have to apologize for?”
“For leaving when I did. I feel foolish now that it’s all over because I handled it so wrong.
But that stupid whip just sent me right back, and it didn’t help that I’d just had an altercation with Peter, and then he was grinning after it all happened, like seeing me in pain delighted that motherfu—”
“Whoa. Back up. Peter, the useless piece-of-shit farrier, was there when this happened?”
“Yeah, he must be working at the Kincaid ranch now because he was in the barn when I got there, and he’s just as charming as ever.”
I stand and leave the bathroom, pulling my phone out of my pocket on the way, and thumb through my contacts until I find the number for Kincaid.
“Hey, Tucker—”
“You have Peter working for you.” It’s not a question, and there’s a pause on the other end of the line before he replies.
“I hired him about two weeks ago.”
“Do you know why he got fired from his last job?”
“He told me he quit.”
“No. He was fired because he assaulted Darby here on my own ranch, and she pressed charges. He harassed her today at your barn before everything else happened. I’m not trying to tell you how to run your business, but you should know who you have on your property.”
After one more moment, he says, “Understood. I’ll take care of it right away. Is Darby okay? She left her phone here, and we couldn’t reach her.”
“She’s going to be okay. Tell me your trainer wasn’t whipping that horse.”
“No. He was using the sound, not whipping him.”
I let out a breath. That’s what I thought. Hell, we do the same with stubborn horses here on my ranch too.
“I figured. She’s okay. I’ll collect her things later.”
“Thanks, Tucker.”
When I turn, I find Darby leaning on the frame of the bathroom, the towel still clutched to her front, watching me with wide eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” I toss the phone on the bed and march over to her, frame her sweet face in my hands and kiss her forehead. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. You also won’t ever do that again.”
“No, I won’t.” She yawns and her eyes are heavy. “I’m really tired.”
“You should try to get comfortable”—she wrinkles her nose because we both know getting comfortable won’t be easy—“and sleep for a bit. You’ve been through a lot today.”
“A nap sounds good. I know how to position myself.”
And I fucking hate that she knows how to maneuver around this.
“You need to know that I’m going to call Blake.”
Darby starts to shake her head, but I press my finger to her lips.
“Hear me out, baby. We both trust him implicitly, and I want him to have a look at that wound. It’s deep. So, you get comfortable, but I’m calling him. Whether or not you let him touch you or just look is completely up to you.”
“I’m embarrassed.”
“There’s no reason for you to be. This wasn’t your fault.”
She looks up at me like Really? “No one pushed me in front of the whip. It is my fault.”
“No, it’s a domino effect from something that started a long, long time ago.” I kiss her head and then pull back the covers of the bed. “Do you want a shirt?”
With a quick shake of her head, she climbs on the bed. “It’ll hurt. I’ll sleep like this.”
I watch as she arranges the pillows so she can lie mostly on her stomach, her arm wrapped around a pillow so her shoulder and arm are exposed to the air. When she’s settled, she lets out a big sigh and sinks into the pillows.
“If you join me, you can take the place of this pillow.”
I lean over to pepper kisses on her face and neck. “Soon. You rest, and I’m calling Blake.”
She doesn’t argue this time. “He probably should have a look. But he’s never seen all of the scars, Tucker. No one has.”
“He’s a doctor, he’ll be okay.”
She closes her eyes and sighs again, and I leave the room to call my brother-in-law.
“Where is she?” Blake asks when he walks in the house.
“She’s in bed, asleep, but she knows you’re coming.” I drag my hand down my face and pace away from him, then turn back. “Did you know? Back then?”
Blake sighs and sets his bag down.
“We knew it was bad, yeah. It would come in waves. Everything would be quiet for a while, and then suddenly Holden would show up with his sisters, all of them with blank, hollow eyes, and they’d stay with us for the day, sometimes for a few days, until their dad calmed down.
” Blake’s hands ball into fists. “But I was a kid myself, Tuck. So, I didn’t really understand the extent of the psychological and physical damage that was going on.
I love those girls, and Holden is like a brother to us. They’re all so fucking brave.”
“Yeah, they are. Look, Darby didn’t want me to call you to see this, not because of the wound she got today, but because of the scars you’re going to see from before.”
His brows pull together and he goes very still.
“What kind of scars?”
“Her father whipped her often when she was young. Her back is a mess, man.”
Blake’s jaw goes slack, and then he shakes his head and turns to look out the window.
“Fuck.”
“She’s nervous for you to see them because aside from me, no one else ever has. Even her family.”
“Understood. Let’s do this. Fuck.” He paces once in the room and then takes a breath and nods. “Okay.”
I lead him upstairs and into the bedroom, where Darby’s breathing softly, still curled around the pillow. Her back is exposed, and Blake stops in his tracks about five paces from the bed, his eyes moving over her skin, and he has to turn away for just a moment to gather himself.
“Jesus,” he whispers.
I move to the other side of the bed so I’m in Darby’s line of sight and ghost my fingers over her hair and down her jawline.
“Hey, sweetheart.” I kiss her hair and feel her stir. “I need you to wake up just for a minute because Blake’s here.”
“I don’t want him to see,” she whispers without even opening her eyes.
“I know, baby. He’s right here, and he’s going to check out the gash you got from protecting that horse this morning.”
She snorts at that and pries one eye open, looking at me. “So brave, I know.”
“Yep.” I glance over at Blake, who’s got his doctor face back on.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Blake says. “No need to get up, you’re in a good spot for me to have a look. It got you good.”
“I know, it hurts like a bitch.”
“I’m sure it does. I’m going to prescribe some pain cream to help with this, and I think you should have an antibiotic, just in case.”
“We cleaned it pretty well,” Darby informs him.
“And did the do-it-yourself sutures, too, I see.” His gaze snaps to mine and then back to the injury. “I think this will do for now. No need for stitches. Keep it clean and dry, use the pain relief and antibiotics.”
His eyes roam over the rest of her exposed back, and he swallows hard.
“I’m sorry, Darby.”
“You didn’t push me in front of that guy,” she says, but she’s holding my eyes, and she knows what he means. “I’m fine, Blake.”
She sits up and holds the blankets to her as she turns to him, and when he sees her bruised face, his jaw clenches.
“We would have done more,” he says roughly.
“And it wouldn’t have mattered. You and I both know that. I’m really okay. Today sucked ass, I won’t lie, but I’ll be just fine. How are Harper and Belle?”
He doesn’t answer her at first. He reaches out, and to my surprise, Darby doesn’t flinch when he brushes her hair from her face.
“They’re perfect,” he says softly. “And Harper could probably use some company that isn’t me hovering.”
Darby snorts. “I’ll come over soon and get some baby snuggles in.”
“Good. We’d like that. Get some sleep, beautiful.”
My girl yawns and then settles back on the bed, and I follow Blake downstairs.
“Mother. Fucker.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself. I’ll pick up her prescriptions today.”
He nods and looks grim as he says, “Watch for swelling and redness. Fever. Call me the second you suspect infection. It looks like you did a good job of cleaning her up. The Steri-Strips will need to be replaced every couple of days. This shouldn’t scar quite as badly as some of the others on her back, and fuck my life, I want to hit someone so fucking hard right now. ”
My sister married a good man. Married into an excellent family.
“Again, on the same page. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she heals up well, and if there are any issues, I’ll call you.”
After he leaves, I figure I have time before Darby’s meds will be ready, so I climb the stairs and take off my pants and shirt, then slide into bed with her.
I toss the pillow aside, and she wraps around me, nuzzling her sweet face in my chest, as I gingerly make sure my arm isn’t touching her injury.
“That wasn’t so bad,” she says, her voice heavy with sleep.
“Good. Go back to sleep. I just wanted to hold you.”
“You’re so much better than the pillow.”