Walker Pride
Page 26
~*~
Eric’s thumb throbbed beneath the gauze wrapped around it. He felt like an idiot with three stitches from a broken dish. Even worse, the nurse had commented on having been the same one who stitched up his little brother. He’d wanted to get in and out of the hospital without conversation. No one needed to talk his ear off and try to be friendly. Eric hadn’t been feeling particularly friendly.
He’d driven by Susan’s house while he was in town, but her car wasn’t there so he drove home in his pathetic mood. Sleep hadn’t come easily. A pain pill helped, but not enough.
When he crawled out of bed, he faced the dishes from breakfast the morning before, still sitting on the table and in the sink. This certainly wasn’t anything he wanted to deal with. At a moment like this, he’d like to have gone out to Whisky River and taken him out to the fields.
Because he’d already been feeling betrayed and unloved, he drove out to the cemetery to visit his mother. Her presence was there and he could feel her when he’d visit. The one thing he needed most was his mother right now.
The flowers by his grandfather’s grave were only beginning to wilt. He wondered how long it would be before the headstone was in place. Now he wished he’d brought his mother some flowers. There had never been a time when he’d come to visit with her when he hadn’t brought them to her.
For a long moment, he stood there and just stared at the stone with her name on it. “Why do they think you need to be moved?”
The clouds pushed together and blocked out what sunlight there had been. Figured, he thought. It was a dark time.
“Met a girl,” he said as he moved to tuck his hands into his front pockets only to remember that the one throbbed at his side. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Know it sounds stupid, but I think I love her. Wish you could meet her.”
The urge to spend more time with his mother had him lowering to his knees and then to the ground to sit. The soft ground gave beneath him, but it didn’t matter. Some days he just needed to be near her.
“They’re going to move you and I’m pissed. I’m really pissed,” he bit out the words as a cold breeze blew through the cemetery. “I think it should be my choice—no one else’s. I don’t know what Elias has over Dad, but he’s caving. They’re killing my horses, my cattle, and pushing me off my land. Now they’re moving you. Dad says no one will suffer, but I’m suffering.” His voice had risen even alone in the cemetery.
Eric winced at the pain in his hand as much as the pain in his heart. “If this is a sign to start over, I’m not ready.”
The thought of Susan moved into his mind and calm took over the pain he’d been wincing from. Maybe it was time to start over.
He let out a long breath.
He always found clarity when he came here. This moment was no different.
But he needed to hear it from Elias. He needed to know why his mother had to be moved. Why was this land so damn important to him that he’d take it back in such a way?
The sun moved from behind the clouds, which had gathered, and a single ray of sunshine seemed to cascade over his mother’s name.
“I’ll visit you no matter where they put you. Even if they put you on their property—I’ll trespass.”
He pushed to his feet. Elias Morgan needed to answer some questions and Eric was going to get them face-to-face.