The Last Honest Woman (26 page)

"I don't know where you got your information." She struggled to keep her voice calm. There had been bitterness long ago, and she'd swallowed it. She had no desire to taste it again. "Janice had control of the trust. Chuck would have inherited at thirty-five, but he didn't live that long. The money was hers."

"Do you really think that would have stood up in court?"

"I wasn't interested in going to court. Chuck left us some money."

"What was left after he'd blown most of it away."

Abby nodded, keeping her voice even. This was an old argument, one she'd had with herself years before. "Enough so I can be sure that the kids can go to college."

"In the meantime you had to take out a loan just to keep a roof over their beads."

It humiliated her. He couldn't know how it had humiliated her to ask for money, how it embarrassed her that Dylan was now aware of it. "Dylan, that isn't your concern."

"I'm making it my concern. You're my concern. Do you know how it made me feel to know that you're scrubbing some woman's floors?"

She let out an impatient huff of air. "What difference does it make whose floors I scrub?"

"It makes a big difference to me because I don't want you—I can't stand thinking of you…" He swore and tried again. "You could have been honest with me, maybe not at first, but later, after we'd come to mean something to each other."

To mean
what?
she wanted to ask. At least she'd been honest about her feelings. She took the coffeepot from the stove and calmly moved to the sink to fill it with soapy water. "I was as honest as I could be. If it had only been me, I might have told you everything, but I had to think of the boys."

"I wouldn't do anything to hurt them. I couldn't."

"Dylan, why should any of this be important?" She wasn't calm, she thought. Damn it, she wasn't calm at all. She could feel anger building up and throbbing in her head. "It's only money. Can't you just let it go?"

"It's not just about money, and no, I can't let it go. You haven't let it go either or you'd have been able to tell me about it." The frustration bit him, the guilt, the anger. And suddenly he flashed back to the picture of her, wrapped like a princess in white fur. "You sold that damn white mink to fix the roof."

Baffled, she shook her head. "What difference does that make? I hardly need a mink to feed the stock."

"You knew what I thought of you." Dylan's anger with himself only made him more unreasonable with her. "You let me go on thinking that. Even when I was busy falling in love with you, you never really trusted me with all of it. Double-talk and evasions, Abby. You never told me you were going to divorce him, you never told me you had to struggle just to keep food on the table. Do you know how it makes me feel to find out all of these things in bits and pieces?"

"Do you know how it makes me feel?" Her voice rose to match his. "Do you know how it feels to rake it all up, to remember what a miserable failure I was?"

"That's ridiculous. You have to know how foolish that statement is."

"I know how foolish I was."

"Abby." His tone roughened, but his hands grew gentle on her arms.
"He
failed you, he failed his children, and he failed himself." He gave her a quick shake, desperate to make her see what she'd done and how much he respected her for it. "You were the one who made things work. You're the one who built a home and a life."

"Stop yelling at my mom."

Rigid and pale, Ben stood just inside the kitchen doorway. Already upset, Abby could do little more than stare at him. "Ben—"

"Let go of my mom." His bottom lip quivered, but the look he sent Dylan was devastatingly man-to-man. "Let go of her and go away. We don't want you here."

Disgusted with himself, Dylan released Abby and turned to the boy. "I wouldn't hurt your mother, Ben."

"You were, I saw you."

"Ben." Abby stepped between them quickly. "You don't understand. We were angry with each other. People sometimes yell at each other when they're angry."

His jaw was set in a way that reminded Abby almost painfully of her father in full temper. "I don't want him to yell at you. I'm not going to let him hurt you."

"Honey, I was yelling back." She said it softly, dropping her hand to stroke his head. "And he wasn't hurting me."

His eyes shone with a mixture of humiliation and anger. "Maybe you like him better than me."

"No, baby—"

"I'm not a baby!" His pale face filled with color as he pushed away. "I'll show you!" Abby was still crouched on the floor as the back door slammed behind him.

"Oh, God." Slowly Abby rose to her feet. "I didn't handle that very well."

"It was my fault." Dylan dragged both hands through his hair. He'd wanted to give, to offer whatever he could to all of them. Instead, he'd managed to hurt Abby and alienate Ben in one instant. "Let me go talk to him."

"I don't know. Maybe I should—oh, my God! Ben, Ben, stop!" She was through the back door before Dylan could call out. He was behind her in an instant, then past her. Ben was mounted on top of Thunder, and the high-strung stallion was bucking nastily.

Abby's heart lodged in her throat as the boy clung to the horse's back and she couldn't even call his name again. For a moment she thought he'd be able to control the horse and slip off safely, but then the stallion reared so violently that for an instant horse and boy were one form, raised high against the blue sky behind them. Then Ben was tossed off as carelessly as a fly.

She beard his cry mingle with the shrill whinnies of the animal. Slowly, as if suspended in time, she watched, devastated, as hooves danced around Ben's body, miraculously missing him. She tasted her own fear, which rose like rust in her mouth as she raced over the last few feet of ground.

"Ben. Oh, Ben." She wasn't weeping, but along with Dylan began to check his limp body for signs of life.

"He's okay, but he's unconscious. I think his arm's broken." His own hands were shaking. If he'd only been quicker, just a few seconds… "Abby, can you pull the car around?"

Ben lay quietly, his face pale as milk. She wanted to cover his body with hers and weep. "Yes." Glancing up, she saw Chris standing beside her, shaking like a leaf. "Come on, Chris." She took his hand in hers. "We've got to take Ben to the hospital."

"Is he okay? Is he going to be okay?"

"He's going to be fine," she murmured as she hurried for the car.

"Can you drive?" Dylan asked her when she came back. "I don't know the way."

With a nod, she helped him settle her firstborn on his lap in the front seat. Teeth set, she went slowly down the lane, terrified of jolting him with bumps. The moment she got onto the highway, she pressed the accelerator and stopped thinking.

When Ben stirred, she felt tears well up and forced them back. The first whimpering sounds he made became full-fledged sobbing as he regained consciousness fully. She began to talk to him, nonsense, anything that came into her head. From the back seat, Chris leaned up and tentatively stroked Ben's leg. Not knowing what else to do, Dylan held the boy tight in his arms and brushed gently at his hair.

"Almost there, Ben," he murmured. "Just hang on."

"It hurts."

"Yeah, I know." When the boy turned his face into his shirt, Dylan held on. For the first time in his life, he fully understood what it meant to feel someone else's pain.

Abby left the car by the curb outside the emergency room and leaped out to help Dylan with Ben.

It seemed to take hours. Her teeth began to chatter as she gave the admissions clerk insurance information and Ben's medical history. She took deep, gulping breaths and tried to compose herself when they wheeled Ben away for X rays. Her little boy had tried, in his angry way, to prove he was a man. Now he was hurt, and she could only wait. Beside her, Dylan stood holding Chris in his arms.

"Sit down, Abby. It's bound to take some time."

"He's just a little boy." She couldn't fall apart now. Ben was going to need her. But the tears poured out and ran silently down her cheeks. "He was so angry. He'd never have gotten on the stallion if he hadn't been angry."

"Abby, boys are always breaking bones." But his own stomach was knotted and rolling.

"What's going to happen to Ben?" When he saw his mother's tears, Chris's breath began to hitch.

"He's going to be all right." Abby pushed both hands over her cheeks to dry them. "The doctors are taking care of him."

"I think he's going to have a cast." Dylan ran his hands down Chris's short, sturdy arm. "When it's dry you can sign your name on it.''

Chris sniffed and thought about it. "I can only print."

"That'll be fine. Let's sit down."

Abby forced herself not to pace. When Chris climbed into her lap, she had to stop herself from clinging too tightly. With each minute that passed, the empty feeling inside her increased until she knew she was hollow.

She was up and dizzy with fear when the doctor came out.

"A nice clean break," he said to her. Recognizing her anxiety, he gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. "He's going to be a sensation at school with that cast."

"He's… Is there anything else?" Everything from concussion to internal injuries had passed through her mind.

"He's a strong, sturdy boy." His hand still resting lightly on her shoulder, the doctor felt the relief run through her. "He's a little queasy, and he's got some bruises that'll be colorful. I'd like him to rest here for a couple of hours, keep an eye on him, but I don't think you've got anything to worry about. We'll give you a prescription and a list of dos and don'ts. I've already told him he has to stay off wild horses for a while."

"Thank you." She pushed her hands against her eyes for a moment. A broken bone. Bones healed, she thought with relief. "Can I see him now?"

"Right this way."

He looked so small on the white table. She fought back a fresh bout of tears as she went over to hold him. "Oh, Ben, you scared me to death."

"I broke my arm." He was getting used to the idea as he showed off his cast.

"Very impressive." She was already forgiven. Abby could see it in his eyes, feel it in the way his fingers curled into hers. "I guess it hurts, huh?"

"It feels a little better."

Chris walked over to inspect the clean white plaster. "Dylan said I could put my name on it."

"I guess so." Ben looked up for the first time at Dylan. "Maybe you all could. Did Thunder run away?"

"Don't worry about Thunder," Abby told him. "He knows where the grain barrel is."

He stared down at his own fingers, wriggling them tentatively. "I'm sorry."

"No." She cupped a hand under his chin. "I'm sorry. You were standing up for me. Thanks."

He breathed in her familiar scent when she kissed him. He didn't feel so brave now, just tired. " 'S okay."

"They want you to stay a little while. I'm going to get your medicine."

"Why don't you and Chris do that, Abby?" Dylan moved closer to the table. "I'd like to talk to Ben awhile."

Because she saw embarrassment rather than anger in Ben's face, she nodded. "An right. We won't be long."

"Can I have a drink?" Ben asked.

"I'll ask the doctor." Bending over, Abby kissed both of his cheeks. "I'm crazy about you, you jerk."

He grinned a little and stared down at his cast. When she glanced over her shoulder from the doorway, he was looking at Dylan.

"I guess you were pretty mad at me," Dylan began.

"I guess."

"Yelling at someone you care about's pretty stupid. Adults can be stupid sometimes."

Ben thought so, too, but he was cautious. "Maybe."

How could he approach the boy? With the truth. He spouted off about honesty, demanded it, expected it. Maybe it was time he gave it. Still cautious, Dylan rested a hip against the table. "I've got a problem, Ben. I was hoping you could help me out with it."

The boy shrugged and began to toy with the edge of the sheet. But he listened.

It was almost dusk when they were home again, settling Ben down and stacking up piles of books and toys for his pleasure. The day had worn him out, and he was asleep before he'd finished his supper. Even while Abby was tucking him in, Dylan carried a dozing Chris up to his room.

"Fell asleep in his pizza," he told Abby with a half grin.

"I'll be right there."

"I can do it. Why don't you do down and fix us both a drink?"

There were a few bottles of wine left over, gifts from Chantel. Abby poured two glasses, then dove into the pizza, realizing she hadn't eaten since early that morning. She was halfway through a piece when the tears started again. She closed the cardboard box carefully, put her head on the counter and wept it all out.

Dylan found her that way and didn't hesitate. He gathered her into his arms, held her close and let her cry against him. "Silly now," she managed. "He's all right. I just keep seeing him in the air, hanging there for that one horrible second."

"I know. But he is all right" He drew her away from him and began wiping away the tears. "In fact, besides one broken bone, he's great."

Abby touched his cheek, then kissed it. "You were great. I don't know what I'd have done without you."

"You'd have done fine." He drew out a cigarette because he was more than a little shaken himself. "That's one of the most intimidating things about you."

"Intimidating?" She hadn't been sure she would ever laugh again, but it was easy. "Me?"

"It isn't easy for a man to get involved with a woman who's totally capable of handling anything that comes along. Running a house, raising children, building a farm. It isn't easy for a man to believe that there are women who can not only do those things but enjoy them."

"I'm not following you, Dylan."

"I don't guess you would." He crushed out the cigarette, discovering he really didn't want it. "It's all natural for you, isn't it? It's incredible."

She picked up his glass and handed it to him. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd already been dipping in the wine."

"I'm just beginning to think clearly."