Sarah glanced back toward our father. His expression was soft, and his eyes warmed when he gazed at my sister. They now had the relationship that Daddy and I had growing up. A twinge of jealousy stabbed me right in the heart. I missed that relationship. Truth be told, I missed my sister, too.
“I’ve got to pick up the kids from Charlie’s mom. Are you in a hurry?”
My flight didn’t leave until nearly ten tonight. I had plenty of time to return the rental car to the airport and check in. I just didn’t want to spend any of those hours lingering here, and I certainly didn’t want to risk running into Austin the moment I stepped out the front door. “No. I have time.”
She leaned down and gave Daddy a kiss on the cheek. I tried to give him a soft smile, even though it fell just short of awkward and odd. Sarah grabbed her keys from the counter, and I lifted my hand to wave. Daddy didn’t stand to hug me, and I didn’t move to him to initiate one, either.
“Bye, Daddy,” I half whispered as I followed my sister out the door.
“Bye, Randi.” Hearing that nickname pass his lips squeezed my heart.
I almost turned around. I almost ran back and threw my arms around him. I almost cried and begged him to love me again. Instead, I bit my tongue and beelined for Sarah’s SUV. I couldn’t get inside fast enough. She rounded the car with a slow gait. Sarah had never regained a hundred percent mobility in her legs. I wondered if it ever bothered her or if she’d simply become accustomed to her awkward walk.
She struggled a bit with the weight of the door and released a huff once she’d finally settled into the driver’s seat. “The gravel gets me every time,” she explained with a grin. There wasn’t an ounce of anger in her tone.
Sarah pressed the ignition button and put the car in drive. When we passed the barn, I noticed Austin. With his back to the house, he hadn’t seen us leave. The pain of pulling away without a goodbye for the second time wasn’t any easier than the first. I squeezed my eyes closed to fight the sting of tears until I was certain that when I opened them, he wouldn’t be there. My heart constricted painfully, and I wondered if the agony would ever go away.
“I’m sorry, Sarah.” It needed to be said. I’d never really apologized, and my sister deserved that. I couldn’t fix her legs. I couldn’t change the problems she’d deal with for the rest of her life. I could, however, let her know that I’d take it all back if I could. “I never should have left that day.”
Her fingers squeezed the steering wheel hard enough that her knuckles turned white before she responded. “I’m grateful you did.” Her grip relaxed, and she stopped at the end of the driveway. “You see my accident as something to regret. I see it as the catalyst for everything I got after.”
She looked both ways to ensure there wasn’t an oncoming car and pulled out onto the country road. I never quit staring at her. Dumbfounded. That accident wasn’t a blessing, unless she referred to it sending me out of the state. I didn’t want to hear that, though. So I remained quiet.
Sarah placed her hand on mine without taking her attention off the road. “Do you know what happened after you left? To me, I mean.”
“No. I didn’t talk to anyone from Mason Belle until you found me.” And that had been nearly a year later. Without a cell phone, locating me had taken effort on her part.
A smile played at the corner of her mouth. I wished I could see her eyes and her expression instead of just her profile. “Well, you know Austin came to the ranch every day.”
“Yeah.”
“So he helped Daddy take care of Cross Acres. And the rest of the town pitched in everywhere they could, as well. Other ranchers sent extra hands so Daddy could be at the hospital. Women brought food to him and to me—the stuff at the hospital was gross.” She glanced at me long enough to make a horrible face to indicate just how bad. “The townspeople really pulled together. You know how they do.”
I did. I’d seen it time and time again growing up. If the citizens of Mason Belle could prevent a neighbor from experiencing pain or help make their burden lighter, they did whatever it took. And women loved to dote on Daddy. He’d been single for a lot of years, and older, unattached men didn’t exist in our little town, especially ones as handsome as my father. I snickered, thinking about who might have tried to make a play for my dad’s heart while he focused on Sarah.
“Do you remember that irrigation project he was working on with Charlie?”
It was a long time ago, but it vaguely rang a bell. “I think so.” Although, I hadn’t been interested then, and I didn’t know the details now.
“Well, Charlie got several guys around town together to make sure they got it done so Daddy could take care of me.” That sounded like something a Burin boy would do. “Charlie couldn’t ever catch Daddy at home, so he started coming to the hospital.” She squeezed my hand. “One afternoon, he showed up, and Daddy had already left. I had just finished physical therapy. When he came into the room, I was sitting on the edge of the mattress in tears.”
I pulled my hand away and leaned back to angle my body toward her. “Why?”
She huffed as if to say, duh. “I wasn’t in a great place mentally. Anger, pity, shame…they all played with my head regularly. That particular day had been especially hard in therapy, and I’d about given up the hope of ever walking again.”
Here it was. This was the point Sarah would get to release the years of blame. And I couldn’t escape—not that I would have tried.
“Charlie sat next to me and patted my knee.” She shook her head, clearly thinking back to the day she spoke of. “Remember, he didn’t even know my name back then. And here was this boy I’d been infatuated with for years, seeing me at my worst. I begged him to leave. Of course, he refused.” Of course, he did. That’s how the Burins had been raised. She sighed, and it was a sigh of adoration. “He took my face in his hands, and it was still pretty beaten up at that point. My hair hadn’t grown back in where they had to shave it to put in stitches. I was a mess. But Charlie saw past all of it. He brushed the tears off my cheeks, looked me in the eyes, and said, ‘You can’t give up, Sarah.’”
I couldn’t clearly see my sister’s face, but I could see enough of it to imagine the dreamy expression she likely had and the dopey look of love that animated her eyes.
“It was the first time Charlie ever saw me. It was also the first time he’d remembered my name. I know, that’s a dumb thing to realize when you’re in the hospital with a spinal injury and lucky to be alive. But that’s what I remember most.”
That couldn’t be the end of the story, because somehow, between that moment and now, they’d gotten married and had three kids. I desperately wanted to hear how she got there. But we’d turned into the entrance to Twin Creeks, and in a matter of seconds, we’d be sitting in front of the Burins’ house.
She pulled the SUV onto the side of the driveway before the bend in the road to hide our arrival. A tingle ran through my blood when she put the SUV in park and situated herself in the seat to face me.
“He stayed until they kicked him out that night. The next day, he came back before my physical therapy session, and he went with me. While we were there, he asked the therapist to teach him how to help me do the exercises. From that point forward, Charlie showed up every day.” She closed her eyes, and I wanted to capture the smile that lifted her lips. It was as beautiful as she was. When she parted her lids, her blue irises sparkled with joy. “The guy who’d never noticed me became my champion, Miranda. When I didn’t think I could push any harder, he had the strength I couldn’t find.”
At a loss for words, I stared at my sister and waited for more. That wasn’t the end of their story. Technically, they didn’t have one, and I hoped they never would.
“Even after I left the hospital, he took me to every therapy appointment. He came to the house to get me and drove me to Laredo three or four times a week. I never asked. Charlie never offered. The first time he ever hugged me was the day I took my first unassisted step
. It was only one, but he was right there waiting and caught me. That was also the first time he told me he loved me.”
Only my sister could turn tragedy into the start of a romance novel. No one deserved it more, either. My lips parted to say something, yet words didn’t come. Tears did. I blinked, and they slid down my cheeks.
Sarah smacked my leg. “Don’t cry, silly. That was the beginning of a really hot love story.” She shook her head as if she were still in disbelief that it had ever happened.
My sister and I had never had this sort of relationship. She didn’t date when I was in my teens, and I didn’t confide in her about the things I’d done with Austin. Not that she hadn’t known I loved him—everyone was aware of that. We’d just never shared secrets. Sarah had been too busy playing the role of mom, and I’d been too insistent on not letting her.
She rolled her eyes playfully, and I couldn’t stop the laugh that followed. “Did you just roll your eyes?” That was twice I’d caught that gesture.
“Girl, I had no idea what I’d been missing.” There was that goofy grin I’d expected to see when she spoke earlier. “The doctors had been pretty insistent that I not engage in sexual activity. I’d blown them off, because I was a virgin, and I hadn’t paid the least bit of attention to anything they said. In my mind, none of it would come into play. Until it did.”
I slapped the console with excitement. “Shut up! You had sex with Charlie while you were still in therapy?” The Southern accent I’d spent years hiding resurfaced with my exclamation.
“A lot.” She nodded while she spoke. “Doctors should incorporate that into every patient’s recovery.” Sarah laughed, and it was deep, straight from the soul. “It certainly improved my outlook.”
These were the things we should have shared as kids. It didn’t matter that Sarah was six years older than I was; she was my sister, and this was what sisters did. But Mama had stolen that from both of us.
“I can only imagine.” I thought back to the first time I’d had sex with Austin, and what an addict I’d become afterward. It wasn’t just how good it felt, although that had been mind-blowing. Those were the only times since my mom had left that I ever felt connected. Nothing else in the world existed when we were intimate.
“Unfortunately, I was pretty naïve. I’d been on birth control for years, but I took it to regulate periods. No one ever bothered to tell me what every other teenage girl in America knew from puberty on.”
“What’s that?”
“Antibiotics alter their effectiveness. I’d been on some form of them since the accident, and I got put on another round after every surgery. Charlie and I never used protection because I thought I was covered.”
And that’s how the twins got here. “But you weren’t…”
A bit of a grimace replaced the grin for just a minute. Then it cleared as quickly as it had appeared. “The doctors wanted me to abort the pregnancy. Every medical professional I came into contact with encouraged me to terminate. They didn’t think my spine could hold up to the additional weight, and if I survived the pregnancy, they weren’t sure I’d make it through delivery. Or if I did, they believed I’d be paralyzed after.”
I clasped my hand over my mouth when I gasped. I hadn’t learned about any of this until after the twins were born, and even though I’d known the doctors didn’t want her to have the babies, I never understood why. Nor had I asked. “What about Charlie?” I said through my hand.
“He begged me to listen to the physicians. And I nearly broke when he told me he loved me too much to let me go. Then, when he promised me he’d buy me a baby if he had to in order to keep me safe, I made the appointment.”
“Oh God, Sarah. I…” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. She hadn’t had the abortion. There were two girls right down the driveway to prove that. Yet, she’d faced that decision. No woman should ever be asked to choose between themselves and their children. It was an impossible choice.
She waved me off. “I didn’t go. In my mind, that was no different than what Mama did to us. And I refused to pick myself over the welfare of my kids, even if I’d never met them.”
“How did Charlie take it?”
Her exasperated laugh likely didn’t do the situation justice. “Not well. He didn’t talk to me for almost two weeks.”
“What changed?” I begged for an answer. This was better than reality TV.
Sarah raised her brows to heighten my anticipation. “Austin.”
Charlie’s little brother shouldn’t have come into play in their decision to keep a child. “Austin? How so?”
“I wasn’t there for the conversation, so I can only paraphrase what Charlie later told me.”
I circled my wrist, turning my hand, desperate for her to give me the information.
“He told Charlie that it was a piece of both of us, and neither of us was guaranteed tomorrow.” This would hurt by the time she finished her next sentence. “And he would have killed to have a piece of you still with him after you’d left.”
I bit my lip and nodded. Sarah’s story wasn’t about me, or Austin. But this had happened months after I’d left, and he saved his nieces’ lives by wishing for a piece of me to still be in his. I swallowed hard to keep from losing my composure. There wasn’t anything I could say, so I sat there and stared at my sister. Her strawberry-blond curls hung by her cheeks, and her blue eyes radiated with happiness that I didn’t remember seeing as a child.
She shrugged. “Anyway, there is a point in me telling you all this. Miranda, if you had stayed home that day and done what you were told, the accident never would have happened. If it hadn’t, Charlie never would have found me, and I wouldn’t have married him. None of my kids would have names or even exist.” Sarah reached out and took my hand again. This time, she held it in both of hers and stroked the top with her thumb. She stared at them for a moment before making eye contact with me again. “Sometimes we have to endure the worst pain of our lives to find the greatest happiness. And you did that for me, Miranda. Intentional or not, you started the chain of events that led to my destiny. For that, I can never say thank you enough. I love you.”
I lost my ability to stave off the tears. My throat lurched in a loud hiccup of emotion. I tightened my hold on her fingers, wishing I could verbalize how grateful I was for her forgiveness.
“You’re my sister. And whether you’re in Mason Belle or New York City, that will never change.”
Sarah hadn’t even brought up her limp, her disfigured fingers, or the scars all over her body, much less dwelled on them. For the first time in my life, I recognized the beauty of Sarah’s soul, and I hated that it had taken me so many years to see it. I’d let her take the blame for Mama leaving because she’d stepped up to fill that role the best she could. Everyone else saw what she sacrificed, and I’d missed it because I’d been blinded by my mom’s departure.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Sarah.” I choked back another sob. “You deserve it. Charlie is a very lucky man.”
She reached out and stroked my hair, then let her hand linger on my jaw. “So is Eason, Miranda. Don’t ever forget your worth.”
It wasn’t funny. Sarah had tried to make this meaningful. She had no idea why I laughed or what I found so amusing. There was no point in keeping up the charade. I’d admitted it to Austin last night, so it was only a matter of time before he’d spill my secret. I’d rather be the one to tell her. I took a deep breath, and on the release, I confessed, “Eason and I aren’t together, Sarah. We never have been.”
If she’d pulled away any harder, she would have hit her head on the window behind her. “What?”
I shook my head, and my eyes fluttered with my stupidity. “He’s gay.”
“Then why did you tell me you were a couple?”
“Technically, I didn’t. You assumed it when you found out I lived with him. I just never corrected you.” I tucked my hair behind my ear while I tried to find the words to explain. “It was easier for you to believ
e he was the reason I didn’t come back to Texas. I didn’t want to fight, and I couldn’t face this place.”
She crossed her arms like she used to do right before she scolded me. “Then why did he come home with you?” I didn’t miss the accusation in her tone.
“He’s my best friend.” It was that simple.
Sarah dropped her hands to her lap, and the hard lines that had formed on her forehead softened until they disappeared. “You couldn’t face Austin alone.”
My throat hurt it was so tight. If I tried to swallow, I’d choke. Even the glands under my jaw screamed in pain. “Eason was a layer of protection. He has been since the day I left Mason Belle.” My words were barely a whisper, and I wasn’t certain Sarah had even heard them.
Then I recognized the pity in her eyes, and I knew she’d caught every word. “Has there been anyone else?”
I turned my head back and forth. “No one.”
Her hands flew to her chest and covered her heart. “You have to tell Austin.”
That was the real kicker. “I did.” And here we were on our way to the airport. I hoped my sister picked up on that detail without making me draw her a picture.
“Oh.” She got it. And if it were possible for another person to hurt for you, my sister did right now. She hurt for me. “So, because of you, I got my happy ending, and because of me, you lost yours.”
“Everything happens for a reason. I’ll be okay. I just need to get home.” Thankfully, God had given me the strength to execute that lie well enough that my sister nodded and let it go. I didn’t believe it as much as it sounded like I did.
* * *
Sarah and I had taken a couple of minutes to compose ourselves before she pulled back onto the driveway and parked in front of the Burins’ house. Just like my own, nothing about this one had changed since I’d been gone. There were so many memories here and around their property. I’d spent as much of my youth roaming the pastures of Twin Creeks as those of Cross Acres. I fought a mental battle against letting the happiness of my youth shadow the reality of my life. I doubted I would be any more welcome here than I had anywhere else in Mason Belle, probably less.
Gravel Road Page 23