Chapter 11 #2
Horrible flashbacks quaked through Darren. Sam coming home to tell them their parents had died. Waking Ben last. All the brothers crying. Before, it had been Sam who was the strong one. Sam who took care of everything. Sam who kept the family together, and food on the table, and bills paid.
Darren needed to call his brother and thank him for what he’d done. But right now, he needed to be the strong one for Ben.
“What happened?” he asked. They took two seats and Darren watched his brother closely.
“Car accident,” he said. “She was coming out to the farm to pick me up, and I guess she went to pass this tractor and there was another car coming.” He shook his head.
“Missy’s family is coming from Burlington.
They’ll fill this place up.” He cracked a smile that quickly sagged again.
“I can’t lose her, Darren.” Tears started anew. “What if I lose her?”
Darren swallowed, his brother’s agony too much for him to bear. “What have they told you?”
“That they don’t know anything, and as soon as the doctor can come out to talk to me, he will.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“How did you get here?” Darren wasn’t sure why all these questions mattered, but they seemed to be calming Ben.
“Cody brought me.”
As if on cue, Cody came around the corner, two cups of coffee in his hand. He gave one to Ben and extended the other to Darren.
“It’s yours, isn’t it?” Darren asked.
“I can go get more.”
Darren waved him off. “No, you drink it.” He stood and moved to the other side of Ben. “Sit down.”
Cody sat, and Darren cursed himself for not being at the farm that evening. He could’ve been there to help Ben when he needed it.
“Where’s Farrah?” Ben asked. “Weren’t you going to see her this afternoon?” He glanced from Cody to Darren.
“No,” Darren said. “She’s meeting her family tonight.” They had a group therapy session Darren couldn’t wait to hear all about. But he hadn’t told Ben about any of that, out of respect for Farrah and her privacy.
“So where were you?”
Darren swallowed, suddenly wishing for the hot coffee so he had something to occupy his hands, give himself a few extra seconds to think.
Don’t lie, he thought.
“I was out at the Bybee farm,” he said, a sense of dread filling him. “I go there a lot. Jim Bybee’s taught me how to whittle, and Corey feeds me whenever I come.”
Ben’s eyebrows shot straight up. “The Bybee farm?” He looked at Cody, clearly confused.
“Don’t be mad, okay? I started going there last summer after Sam moved. I was lonely, and you guys were all dating and getting married, and Jim and Corey, they’re like…the mom and dad we don’t have. They’ve become my family.” Darren silently begged him to understand.
He wasn’t sure if he did or not, because a doctor came out and called, “Ben Buttars?” which caused Ben to shoot to his feet and hurry away.
Darren met Cody’s eye, who simply shrugged. “Sounds nice, that Bybee farm.”
“It is.” Darren watched the emotion play across Cody’s face. “You and Wade should come with me next time I go.”
“How often do you go?”
“Whenever. There’s not a schedule.”
Cody started nodding. He sipped his coffee. “I’d like that. I sure do miss my mom sometimes. But she’s got herself a new husband and a new life, and Wade and I just don’t fit.”
“I’m sure that’s not—”
“So I’d like to go next time,” Cody said over him, his eyes sharp.
Darren nodded, a wicked thought occurring to him.
“All right. But first you have to tell me what’s goin’ on with you and Shiloh Davenport.
” He sat back in his seat as horror and then resignation flashed through Cody’s eyes.
“Corey’s gonna get the whole story out of you anyway.
Probably during the first dinner. She’s gifted like that. ”
“Maybe I don’t want to go then,” Cody mumbled.
Ben called Darren’s name, and he gave the other cowboy one last look before saying, “Thank you for bringing Ben into town,” and going to join his brother.
“Rae’s okay,” Ben said. He’d wiped his face and steeled his shoulders. “The doctor said I can go back and see her now. She’s asleep and probably will be for a while.”
“What happened?” Darren asked as they squirted hand sanitizer into their palms and followed the doctor down a sterile hall.
“Broken leg,” he said. “They took her into emergency surgery, because they thought she had some internal bleeding, but she doesn’t. She’s okay.”
“And the baby?”
“Distressed,” the doctor said over his shoulder. “But stable.”
Darren put his arm around Ben and squeezed his shoulder. “That’s great news, brother.”
Ben nodded and stepped to the doorway the doctor indicated. He drew in a deep breath and entered the room. Darren followed, touched by the gentle and loving way Ben held Rae’s hand and bent over to press a kiss to her forehead.
He’d seen so many examples of love in his life, and he tilted his chin toward the ceiling and simply thought, Thank you.
A commotion behind him made him turn and check out the doorway. “Uh, Ben? I think Missy’s family just arrived.” And at the front of the loud, Italian-looking mob, strode Missy herself.
“I’ll take care of them.” Darren slipped into the hall and closed the door behind him. “Hey, Missy, she’s okay.” He held up both of his hands in placation, glancing at the doctor for help. But he simply looked like he’d just witnessed a terrible crime.
“Let’s go out into the waiting room,” Darren said.
“I want to see her.”
“She’s asleep. Ben’s with her. She needs to rest.” He shot a glance at the doctor, silently begging him to say something. “For the baby.”
That got Missy moving in the opposite direction, and where she went, her family followed, so Darren led her back to the waiting room like the Pied Piper. Cody jumped to his feet and scanned the large crowd, shock covering his exhaustion.
Darren’s phone went off, but he couldn’t pick up Farrah’s call right then. By the time he wrangled the crowd, told the story, and sent everyone home, the clock read almost midnight. He stuck his head in Rae’s room to find Ben curled up beside her in the narrow hospital bed.
He opened his bleary eyes and gave Darren a half-smile. “I’ll check on you tomorrow,” Darren whispered before slipping out.
He called Farrah from his truck, but she didn’t pick up. He knew she started early in the greenhouse, and instead of going all the way home, he went back to the Bybee’s.
Neither Jim nor Corey was awake, but he tiptoed up the stairs and collapsed into a bed in one of their spare bedrooms where he’d taken a Sunday afternoon nap before. His dreams were filled with red and blue police lights, tanks of tilapia, and the caramel-blonde hair of Farrah.