by Conley, Anne
“Why’d you marry him, Case?” The pain in his voice made her look up at him. She’d been so focused on looking for her stuff that she hadn’t noticed how quiet he’d gotten. Now she could see his hands picking at a thread on his jeans and he wouldn’t look at her.
“I liked the idea of being married.” She walked over and sat next to him. “All of my friends were getting married. Kevin was nice enough when we were dating, and I thought we’d have a good life together. He bought me things, seemed to want to take care of me, and kept telling me how happy he’d make me. I believed him.”
“Did he ever mistreat you? Aside from cheating?”
“No. He was always nice to me. But the gifts stopped after a while. And when we couldn’t get pregnant, he drifted away. I guess since the perfect family thing didn’t work out, he was over it. He was always one for perfection.”
Brent’s next words came through clenched teeth. “Do you miss him?”
Casey thought before she answered. “Not really. I miss what I thought the marriage would be like, but it never was. I miss the dreams that I had for us, that never actually came to fruition. Does that make sense? I miss the dreams that I had for my life with him, but not the actual life we had together.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, tugging him back on the bed. His arm came around her shoulders and he pulled her close. “Now, I have you. And a whole new set of dreams.”
His breath was harsh with emotion, and Casey was at a loss as to why. But she continued anyway. Saying everything out loud was something she’d avoided. The only person really to tell was her mother, and her mother didn’t really need to know everything that went on inside her head. But telling Brent was different. She could tell him anything, and it made her feel better. It always had.
“The thing is, I’m still angry at him. He threw everything away.” She felt the tears prickle behind her eyes, and let them come, hoping for a weight to lift. “I had tried so hard to build a good life for us with what we had, and he was so intent on making sure that we appeared to be more than we were. It’s like he was never satisfied. Every spare dime we made went toward extras…Country Club membership, golfing stuff, fancy cars…You should have seen the damn house. We looked like we were loaded, but the truth is, we lived paycheck to paycheck. I did the best I could with what we had, but it was never enough. Then, when we started trying for children, I thought it would be something to help us bond, but it ended up ripping us apart.” There was no way to stop the tears now. They streamed down her face as Brent turned his body towards her. His eyes searched her soul, but his mouth stayed silent. She appreciated his silence.
“I had four miscarriages before he stopped having sex with me altogether. I should have known he’d found somebody else. He never even really seemed all that excited when I got pregnant. It was more like a ‘well, great, Honey,’ sort of thing. Like it was expected. Which it was.”
“Four?” Brent’s voice was thick, and Casey nodded, the painful lump in her throat prohibiting words. She buried her face in his neck, letting her grief seep through her pores until she could speak again. He held her, making soothing noises, even though she could feel the tension in his body.
Casey sniffled through her emotions, trying desperately to keep the tears at bay. “Yeah, four. We did everything the doctors suggested, until it came time for the expensive stuff. We couldn’t afford fertility treatments or in vitro. So we just kept trying the old-fashioned way. Then his personal assistant came up pregnant, and I knew she wasn’t married, but I planned a baby shower for her in his office. A week after the shower, after I had paid a caterer, organized gifts, helped her register, wrote down who bought her what, he finally told me her baby was his. I kicked him out. And he agreed…without a fight.” She buried her face again, surrounding herself with his scent.
Kevin had been relieved. So relieved in fact, that he didn’t argue with her attorneys, who managed to stick him with all their debt, and get her the house, their only sound financial investment in the twelve years of their marriage. Casey suspected that he just had no idea about how deeply in debt they’d been, he’d only seen the trophy wife in his new PA, and thoughts of their new life together had clouded all his judgment. She had no idea how he managed it, but he’d bought a house with Patricia, one as nice, if not nicer than the one he had with Casey. He was probably going to have to declare bankruptcy, unless his spending habits changed drastically.
“I’m glad you came back.” Brent’s voice was soft in her ear, and she snuggled deeper into his chest, keeping her face buried. She didn’t want him to see the pain she still carried around when she thought of Kevin and her own inability to get pregnant. With each miscarriage, she’d felt like less of a woman, and Kevin had done nothing to help her self-esteem.
The truth was, she was the one who’d wanted babies so badly. It was all part of the dream. She’d wanted to be married a little longer before trying, but when the marriage seemed to start to crumble after only a few years, she pushed him to try to start a family. A miscarriage every two years followed, like clockwork. She’d been unable to handle the feelings of inadequacy, and tumbled into an abyss of depression that crumbled their marriage further. She’d managed to hide the depression by throwing herself into household tasks, a feeble attempt at restructuring their life. But it had failed miserably.
She didn’t want to think about Kevin anymore. She didn’t want to think about anything. Breathing deeply and forcing her mind into blankness, Casey succumbed to exhaustion, and fell asleep in Brent’s arms.
She woke to a knock on her bedroom door.
“Casey? Honey? You okay?” Her mother’s voice on the other side brought her head up to realize that Brent was gone. She recalled her outpouring of emotion before she’d fallen asleep and groaned. “Honey?” Her mother twisted the doorknob, opening it a crack.
“Yeah Mom. I’m fine.”
“Brent said he had to go do something with those horses, and said he’d see you later.”
“Brent left?” The disappointment she felt was like a rock in her stomach. She felt like something was indefinably wrong. He wouldn’t have just left without waking her, she didn’t think. He was supposed to stay for dinner. At least, he’d said he was staying for dinner. What had happened after he’d said that to change his mind?
She’d talked about Kevin, and her inability to have children.
“You come on and come eat. I’ll make you a care package to take out to him. I don’t think he feeds himself very well out there.”
Casey sat up in the bed, unable to shake the feeling of dread. Had Brent thought about her not being able to have kids and left because of that? She didn’t think so, but the thought still niggled the back of her mind, and she couldn’t let it go. She and Brent had something special, they always had. Surely he wouldn’t let something like that get between them. Not without talking to her first.
She got out of bed and followed her mom to the kitchen, so that she could pick at dinner, before showering and going to Brent’s to find out what had happened while she’d slept.
Chapter 14
Brent felt like a tool. He’d watched Casey fall asleep, then played with the curls of her hair while he thought. Wrapping the tendrils around his finger, he’d imagined himself married to Casey, and what he would have done in Kevin’s position.
Everything differently.
He wouldn’t have overextended them financially. He wouldn’t have cheated on the most beautiful woman in the world. He would have held her and comforted her instead of putting the responsibility of having a child squarely on her shoulders. He wouldn’t have moved her into the fucking city in the first place. He would have treasured her. Cherished her.
What stuck out the most out of everything she’d said though, was that she mourned the loss of the dream. The-what-could-have-been with Kevin, if he hadn’t been such an asshat.
Brent was in the quarantine stable with one remaining rescue, Mooch at his heels. The faithful dog followed
him back and forth from the tack room to the feed room to the stalls, eager to ‘help.’ The other horses had been integrated with Sugar and the Colonel a couple of days ago, but this one still wasn’t putting on weight like he wanted her to. He’d kept her close to the barn, in a small pasture with plenty of forage as well as hay and supplemental feed. But her coat was still shaggy and her hip bones stuck out, so much so it made him hungry just to look at her. He had some injections Lindsey had suggested to get her iron levels up, as well as B12 and a penicillin shot, in case she had some sort of bacterial infection that the regular testing hadn’t found.
He worked mindlessly, tossing a bale of hay onto his shoulder and stalking over to the empty stall to get it mucked out, and feed put in, so the mare would come in to eat while he injected her. His thoughts never strayed from Casey.
If she mourned the high-rolling lifestyle that Kevin promised her, what would she do when she found out her current boyfriend was exactly like her own son-of-a-bitch father? The one who’d abandoned her on countless occasions? Her father’s actions had caused her to swear off addicts and men like him.
What in the hell had he been thinking, even seeing her? He was only going to break her heart. As hard as it was to listen to her cry over a bastard like her ex-husband, it would be a million times worse to know that he himself made her cry like that. And he would. Just as soon as she figured it out, she would.
Brent had the stall cleaned out and was steering the wheelbarrow full of dirty straw around to the back of the barn to a compost bin he’d built when he saw Casey’s car. He watched as she drove slowly through the pasture to where he was, and then extended her long legs out of the car.
Christ almighty…
She was wearing a short denim skirt, with the platform shoes he’d watched her pick out at her house. It was the kind of shoe with ties that wound around her spectacular calf muscles, and tied at the back of her knees. Over that, she wore a man’s white button down shirt, with no buttons buttoned, just tied in the front under her breasts, with the black satin bra peeking out. Brent swallowed the pool of saliva that immediately formed in his mouth, adjusted his crotch and continued on his journey to the compost pile.
He couldn’t let his lust get in the way. He had to end this. Today. It wasn’t fair to Casey, he loved her too much to hurt her the way her dad always had.
When he came back around to the front of the barn, she was sitting on top of a bale of hay, holding up a brown paper back with a grease stain on the bottom. Mooch, traitor that he was, perched at her feet, looking up at her adoringly, waiting for her to drop the bag.
“Mama sent some chicken and biscuits.”
He grunted an acknowledgment, and pulled his hat lower over his eyes so he didn’t have to see the pain in hers.
She stood, setting the bag down next to her, and sauntered over to the stall where he was spreading fresh straw.
“What’s wrong?”
He couldn’t think of the words to say to her. Everything that came to mind was wrong, and Brent knew that there was no way to have this conversation without hurting her. But he had to, or else he would end up hurting her worse in the long run.
As he kicked straw around the floor of the stall, he knew he was being stupid. For the last two weeks, all he’d talked about was how badly he wanted her to stay with him. And now he was about to do this…
He finally stopped when she said, “Brent. You’re scaring me. Is this about me not being able to have kids?”
“No.” Brent brushed past her to go to the feed room. Rattling the bucket brought in the mare, an enormous equine with a shaggy coat and bones showing through loose skin. She followed him into the stall, as he emptied the bucket into her feed trough, and then started pulling the injections from his pockets and preparing them silently.
When he had the first one ready, he finally got the guts to raise his head and look at Casey and deliver the brilliant line he’d spent the past ten minutes coming up with. “I need to think about some stuff.”
Her mouth dropped, and Brent lowered his head to the mare’s shoulder. While she was distracted, eating, he pinched some skin between his gloved fingers and stuck in the needle, pushing the plunger.
Brent had no idea what happened next. All he was aware of was a swift intake of breath, before he saw a wall of brown crush into him, then a jumble of whinnies, a frantic woof, a shrill scream, some clatters, then hoofs aimed at his chest, before blackness took over.
Chapter 15
“Brent!” Casey’s chest ached with urgency as she let the horse out of the stall and ran to the fallen cowboy in the corner. He had been knocked unconscious, probably when the mare bucked him in the chest with her hind legs. The sickening thud she’d heard was his head hitting the wall behind him before he’d crumpled to the ground.
Casey held his face in her hands, slapping his cheeks ineffectively to get him to wake up, shooing Mooch out of the way. When that didn’t work, she ran to her car to get her cell phone and call an ambulance.
It had all been so sudden. One second fury coursed through her veins at his words, the next second, the horse had reacted to his injection, and leaned against him, crushing his body against the wall. Casey herself must have reacted to that in a way that threatened the skittish mare, because the next thing she knew, it was spinning around in the tight confines of the stall, and Brent had been unable to protect himself. Her only conceivable course of action was to open the stall door and get the horse out, which it had done, but not before one final kick to Brent’s chest. Mooch had been nipping at the horse’s heels, trying to protect his master, and it was impossible to tell what exactly had spooked the horse.
“Brent? Please wake up, Honey. Please?” She pleaded with him, stroking his face and hair, while the frantic dog licked his face, until the paramedics showed up with a backboard and collar. She watched in a daze as the scene unfolded in front of her.
“You take the c-spine.”
“Got it.”
“Alright, collar secured. Turn on three.”
“The line is in.”
“Normal sinus.”
“104 over 68, respirations 14 and sat is 98%.”
After taking Brent’s vitals, a youngish EMT announced that his pulse was strong, and he was breathing well, and Casey sobbed, as relief ebbed into her body. Her muscles slackened, and she wasn’t sure she could remain standing. The older one asked, “Any medications?” as he prepared a shot of something.
Casey thought a minute, breathing deeply through her rush of emotions. “Yeah, he takes some strip of something under his tongue…Bupro…Bupro-something. I can’t remember.”
“Buprenorphine?” The older one asked, helpfully.
“I think so…but I can’t be positive. That sounds right, though. He said it was for anxiety.”
The younger one raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to say something, but the older EMT shot him a quick look. Casey saw the interaction between the two, but was too concerned with Brent lying helpless on the stretcher.
Casey’s mind raced. “What’s it for?” Not getting an answer, and seeing them begin to close the doors, she became frantic again. “Can I ride along?”
“Sorry ma’am. You’ll have to follow. We’ll need the room to work. His vitals are good, but he’s pretty banged up. We’ll have to keep him stabilized.” With that, he shut the second door.
“Shit.” She scampered to her own car, throwing some reassuring words to the dog sitting alert in front of the barn, and followed the ambulance into town. Her mind raced and her heart thudded the entire drive.
A team of intimidating, yet efficient-looking medical professionals met the ambulance at the ER, and whisked an unconscious Brent through the doors, while Casey was instructed to wait in the waiting room. She called Summer, who was worried, but seemed to take it in stride.
“It’s not his first rodeo. He’ll be okay, Casey.”
“Well, I just wanted to let you know. He was unconscious when t
hey brought him in, but I haven’t seen him yet.”
“Let me know something when he comes to. He’s gonna want to get out of there in a hurry. If you need help, call. Okay?”
She hung up the phone with Summer, and paced for what seemed like hours, anxiety fluttering through her veins. It had all happened so fast, and she couldn’t stop re-playing the incident in her mind.
“Are you here with Mr. Baum?” A polite voice broke through her haze.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Baum sustained chest trauma and a head injury with loss of consciousness.” At Casey’s blank look, she clarified, “broken ribs and a concussion. We had to do emergency CT scans of his head, neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis. They are complete, and show that he escaped spinal injury.” She paused to flash Casey a reassuring smile. “He’s conscious, and you can come back and see him now.”
When Casey peeked around the curtain, her relief at seeing Brent awake was stalled by his obvious anxiety. Wide eyes and a down-turned mouth, as well as the cords standing out on his neck radiated his feelings.
“Don’t give me anything in that IV!”
A tense female voice responded. “Mr. Baum, I have a dose of dilaudid for your pain. It will make you more comfortable.”
“I don’t want to be comfortable! Don’t put that in there!” Brent slapped at her hand, and shocked, the nurse dropped the syringe, letting it clatter to the floor.
Tension radiated off him in waves, even though his normally graceful movements were stilted with pain.
“Mr. Baum. You have four broken ribs and a concussion. You need pain medication. The dose I gave you while you were unconscious is going to wear off soon.”
“You’ve already given me a shot? Sheee-it!”