Page 115 of Wildflowers & Whiskey

I don't know who I am right now. I don't know what any of tonight means. I don't know which parts of my life have not had a secret tainting them. All I know is I cannot stand here anymore.

Hands reach for me from behind, but I am already moving, feet finding their own direction before my brain has caught up. The Lone Coyote sign shrinks behind me. The music fades. Ruby's sobbing fades. All of it dissolves into the dark until there is nothing left but the sound of my own feet and the noise inside my head that refuses, no matter how fast I go, to do the same.

I walk faster.

Then I run.

Chapter Forty Three

Wade

I've been thrown off a 900kg bull before. Hit the dirt hard enough to break bones. Lain there, flat on the arena with the wind gone out of my lungs while my body took inventory, working out what still moved, what didn’t, and whether anything had permanently changed.

That was nothing compared to this.

The parking lot begins to empty. Jae leaves first, chasing after Colt, who'd just had his entire world ripped out from under him because of secrets I'd buried for far too damn long.

A familiar hand finds mine from behind. I know by the way it fits around mine that it’s Maeve. I look at her over my shoulder, and whatever she sees in my face makes her stop. I don’t have any words at the moment, so I hold her gaze long enough to say please and I’m sorry all at once. Her fingers slip from mine, and she turns back toward the bar with Iris following like a shadow behind. Leaving just me and Ruby standing under the neon sign.

Ruby hasn’t moved.

She’s still on the ground where she put herself. The sobs have gone quieter, but they’re still coming. Her hair has fallen across her face, sticking to her wet tears. The performance is gone, and what’s left is a woman sitting on the cold ground with nothing left to hold onto.

In this moment, staring at her, there’s a part of me that recognises her, parts of the woman she was before trying to peek through.

I loved this woman once, when we were very young. So seeing her like this, even after everything she has just done, breaks me a little more than I would like to admit.

I crouch down beside her.

“Ruby.” My voice comes out quieter than I intend. “Hey.”

She flinches at the sound. Her head lifts slightly, hair falling back from her face. Up close she looks worse than I initially thought. Her skin is thin and blotchy. The veins in her hands are raised and dark where she's gripping her own arms. Her eyes, when they find mine, are glassy and unfocused in a way that has nothing to do with the crying.

She needs help.

“Come on.” I get a hand under her arm gently, not forcing, just offering. “Get off the ground.”

She lets me help her to her feet; no fight left in her. I keep a hand at her elbow, and she sways slightly once she’s upright.

“I'm calling someone,” I say.

“Don't.” Her voice is wrecked. “Please.”

I look at her for a long moment. Then I pull out my phone and dial for a taxi. Ideally, I’d like to call an ambulance, but she’d bolt. This is the best option, to make sure she gets to wherever she needs to be safely.

While I wait for the call to connect, I turn back to her. She's standing with her arms wrapped around herself, staring at nothing, her breathing slower now.

“Ruby,” I say quietly. “You’ll get something out of all this, ok? Enough to get you on your feet again and maybe get some help, if you choose to use it that way. Fighting it in court will cost you more than you'd ever get back.” I pause, letting her read that this is not a threat, but the truth. “Sign the divorce papers, Ruby. Let this be done with no more fighting.”

For a second, I think she's going to come back with some last reserve of energy, but she closes her eyes instead.

“I didn't mean to say it,” she says finally. Barely above a whisper. “About Colt. I wasn't going to—” She stops. Her throat moves. “I wasn't going to use that.”

“Well, it’s done now.”

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes open. They're red-rimmed, the glassiness shifting into something that looks almost like a real person underneath it. I believe that she means it, but regardless, I’m the one picking up the pieces again, so I don’t have the words for her. I give her a weak attempt of a smile and leave it there.

The car I called turns into the lot a few minutes later, headlights sweeping across the gravel. I walk her to it, one hand light on her back, the same way I might guide an elderly lady to her armchair.