Leave it for the Rain: A Love She Couldn't Remember—A Woman He Couldn't Forget (Grayson Brothers Book 6) (6 page)

Boyd raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t elaborate as to why she’d been unseated.

Radford shifted his horror-filled gaze from his blood-covered fingers to Adam’s face. “What is she doing here?”

Sick with fear, Adam could barely get the words out. “She was bringing our lunch.”

Suddenly, time seemed to explode and everything happened at once. Rebecca’s mare raced by, eyes wild as Boyd snagged one of the trailing reins to its bridle.

“Whoa, girl, easy now,” Boyd said, as he ran alongside the horse, gently slowing the frightened creature and bringing her to a prancing stop. “I’ll find Doc Milton and bring him to the house.” With that, he launched himself onto the mare’s back and raced out of the mill.

Cyrus halted the wagon beside them.

Adam didn’t wait for assistance. With Rebecca in his arms, he planted his right foot on a log that was waiting to be debarked, anchored his left foot on a metal sideboard rail, and heaved himself onto the seat.

As Cyrus clucked to the thick-bodied Percherons, Radford and Duke leapt onto the wagon bed and leaned over the back of the crude wooden seat. They checked Rebecca’s head wound, which was bleeding at a frightening rate.

Radford retrieved a clean handkerchief from his shirt pocket and cupped it behind his daughter’s head. When her blood ran in rivulets over his fingers and wrist, he increased the pressure on her wound and pleaded with her to open her eyes.

Adam said nothing because he knew Rebecca was unable to respond. He could feel it in the weight of her body. He’d known she was injured the instant the back of her head slammed against the oak log that she had landed upon. He said nothing because he couldn’t bear to tell anyone what he already knew—Rebecca’s injury was life-threatening.

Radford shook his head, his eyes filled with fear and disbelief. “Adam, why would you have her come to the mill in the middle of our day? You can’t have forgotten how dangerous it is in the yard?”

He hadn’t forgotten, and he hadn’t asked her to come to the mill, but he had been selfish and short sighted in accepting her offer to bring him lunch. He said nothing, though, knowing his words and explanation would make no difference.

He had never imagined Rebecca in his arms like this, so injured, so lifeless, and that it would be because of him.

Adam waited downstairs in the silent kitchen with Radford and the others while Doc Milton sutured and dressed Rebecca’s head wound. Evelyn was with them, and when she finally followed the doctor downstairs, deep lines of worry marred her forehead.

As the doctor braced his fists on the long oak table and shared his growing concerns about Rebecca’s unresponsive condition, an ocean of dread filled Adam’s chest. According to Doc Milton, the longer Rebecca remained unconscious, the more complicated her injury could be and the greater the chance of lasting effects, which increased the possibility of death.

Death...

Adam couldn’t breathe. To even imagine Rebecca dying was... impossible.

While the doctor delivered the dire news and gave instructions for Rebecca’s care, Adam stood in the kitchen with Rebecca’s parents, uncles, and her brothers, Will and Josh.

Boyd leaned against the kitchen sideboard beside Adam’s father. A light breeze wafted in the kitchen window, fluttering the delicate green and yellow curtains that Rebecca had cut, sewn, and embroidered for her mother’s Christmas gift four years ago. The smell of freshly baked bread cooling on Evelyn’s counter, which usually made Adam’s mouth water and his stomach growl in happy anticipation, nauseated him.

Rebecca was always so vibrant and filled with such easy joy. She couldn’t be hurt and deathly silent.

But she was.

And she could die.

Adam’s knees gave out and he sagged against the frame of the open kitchen door. His breath came in short pants. He feared he might heave up whatever remained of his breakfast.

Evelyn exchanged a look with Radford, the terror and love in her eyes saying everything her pursed lips couldn’t utter.

Boyd hooked his arms around Will and Josh and hugged them close for a second. As they looked up at him, he patted their shoulders as if to say this would be a hard journey but one they would make together.

Numb, his ears ringing, it took Adam several seconds to realize that his father had crossed the kitchen and spoken to him. “I’ll let Faith know what’s happened. We’ll both be back shortly and bring you a change of clothes,” he said, nodding at Adam’s blood-soaked shirt and pants.

The words seemed to flow through Adam’s head without meaning anything, but he gave a nod to indicate he’d heard them.

“Son?” His father gripped his shoulders and turned them face-to-face. “Rebecca’s young and healthy and has a lot to live for. When you sit with her, remind her of that. Let her hear your voice and know you’re with her.”

“Yes, sir,” Adam said, struggling to keep his voice from breaking.

Adam’s father turned and clapped a hand on Radford’s shoulder. The men exchanged a solemn look. As with everything in their lives, the brothers would face this together. They didn’t need words to know this. Even Adam, who had only been part of the family for a decade, knew their unspoken commitment. The Grayson brothers would always stand together and weather the storms.

When his father headed outside, Adam followed him onto the wide porch where he and Rebecca had spent the majority of their courting hours together.

Gulping air, fighting to reel in his emotions, Adam stood like a man lost in an unforgiving wilderness. He didn’t know what to do. His thoughts scrambled and his heart banged in his chest. He had never been so scared in his life. Not even during his last seconds beneath the surface of the cold Atlantic water.

“It’s not going to be easy, son,” his father said, “but we’ll get through this one hour at a time.”

Adam nodded, but he couldn’t imagine how they would manage. He couldn’t bear to witness the devastation on the faces of Rebecca’s family and know he was responsible. Radford may have jostled the log, but Adam was the reason Rebecca had come to the mill.

His father left and headed down Liberty Street with long, sure strides that reminded Adam of his youth when he had tried, and failed, to match his father’s gait. Now, matching his pace had not only become possible but second nature for Adam. From the minute he’d met Duke Grayson, Adam had tried to emulate everything about the man and his brothers. He had believed it possible to become a Grayson man by studying and copying their mannerisms and asking himself what a Grayson man would do.

Now he understood that it was the fiber of a man’s character and his words and actions that placed his father and brothers into the “Grayson” category—a category that didn’t include Adam.

He should have never agreed to let Rebecca come to the mill. It was selfish and short-sighted. He should not have encouraged her to want anything other than what they had meticulously planned.

The sharp blade of regret cleaved the breath from his lungs. He sagged against the spindle railing that he and Rebecca had painted black four years ago.

This
couldn’t
be happening!

His throat ached from the wad of emotion he knew he couldn’t release. Somehow he had to go back inside and do what he could to help Rebecca and her family through this tragedy.

But how was he going to do that when he couldn’t make it through this himself?

o0o

The hours ticked by, each second punctuated by a relentless tick-tock-tick-tock from the grandfather clock in the parlor. Dazed, their conversations brief and hushed, Adam and Rebecca’s family cycled from the parlor to the porch to Rebecca’s bedside and back to the kitchen.

Faith brought food, but only the children ate before scurrying outside.

Grandma Grayson, mother to the Grayson men, grandmother to Rebecca—and Adam by adoption—took charge of the house and the children, holding all of them together with her great love and no-nonsense manner.

Throughout the day and evening, the screen door spring twanged as Rebecca’s younger siblings slipped in and out of the house. For a few minutes at a time, Adam could hear the youngest siblings, Sarah, Emma, and Tyler playing in the yard, their bubbly laughter signaling the moments when they were distracted from the frightening drama happening inside the house. Then, as if they suddenly remembered the drawn, worried expressions on their parents’ faces, they would grow quiet for a spell.

Inside, Adam engaged in a smattering of conversation with the doctor as the man checked and reported on Rebecca’s progress throughout the day. It didn’t take many words to say “no change,” but the doctor was patient with their unending questions. Together, Rebecca’s family and Adam listened closely to Doc Milton’s warning that he couldn’t promise anything. Even if Rebecca woke up, he couldn’t accurately gauge her condition. Head wounds were tricky and unpredictable, he told them again and again.

So they waited without answers. They prayed for Rebecca to recover quickly and completely and to awaken soon.

Each of them by turn sat at her bedside, stroking her hand, watching the gray around her eyes deepen to black. Their own eyes were circled with dark rings of exhaustion and worry.

Finally, Evelyn left the chair she’d occupied nearly every minute of the past thirty hours. “I need to check on the children, Adam. Would you mind sitting with Rebecca for a few minutes?” she asked, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Of course not,” he said, quietly. “I appreciate you letting me stay with her. I know that being here in her private chambers is... unacceptable.”

“Under the circumstances, I can’t see the harm.” A small, sad smile touched her lips, and she patted his shoulder. “I’ll send her father up again. He doesn’t like to be away from her for more than a minute or two.”

“I know the feeling.”

Evelyn paused and stroked her hand over his aching back. “I know you do, Adam.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “You belong here with Rebecca as much as any of us.” With that, she left the room.

This was Adam’s first moment alone with Rebecca since the accident. He cupped her limp hand in his. He wanted to apologize for not protecting her, for being selfish. Tenderly, he stroked her brow and whispered her name.

Her moan startled him. Had he unintentionally hurt her?

She released another low moan.

“Rebecca?” he called softly, hopefully.

She remained as unresponsive as she’d been since the accident.

He talked to her, quietly calling her name, asking her to open her beautiful eyes, finally falling silent in the knowledge that she was drifting in a black void from which not even he could free her.

Slowly, he looked around her bedchamber, seeing a pretty blue night robe trimmed in white lace hanging from the back of her door. Her scuffed riding boots stood in a corner by an oak armoire, and beside that sat the small chest he’d made for her out of rosewood and cedar. She said she kept his letters in the trunk, and he wondered if she’d reread the notes and lingered over them as he had done with her letters.

A small mahogany flip top dressing table stood against the wall opposite the bed, and Adam imagined Rebecca sitting there brushing her long hair. A small and worn book sat on the right side of the table, with her worry stone resting atop it. He picked up the small nugget, noting that it was lighter than his own stone, that the shape and the grooves had a different flow, a different feel than the ones he knew so well in his own stone. Knowing that Rebecca had held and rubbed the stone, worried the smooth channels as she faced her problems and challenges, made him ache.

Adam didn’t like to think that Rebecca had worried or hurt or wanted for anything, but he knew she had. She’d probably kept most of those concerns to herself, mulled them over right here in her room. This had been her chamber for two decades, and her light lavender scent lived in the bedding and the rose colored curtains and the floral wallpaper. In this pretty little room she slept, dressed, read his love letters, and studied the veterinarian skills she was learning. She daydreamed here about marrying him, having their children, and traveling to Crane Landing and the other places Adam had told her about. To realize that all her dreams could end in this tiny room made Adam’s throat constrict around a wad of grief.

He clutched her stone in his hand, remembering their last moments together.

Rebecca’s pain-filled groan snapped him around. He leaned over and clasped her hand, the worry stone between their palms.

“I’m here, love.” He said the words with strength and purpose, hoping that she could hear, could understand that he would help her bear whatever agony and discomfort gripped her.

For a moment, she seemed to listen, but her eyes didn’t open. Her forehead scrunched, and she released another moan and rolled her head left as if trying to escape the pain.

Adam couldn’t bear to see her hurting. He shot to the top of the stairs. “Doc Milton! Rebecca is stirring!”

Before the doctor could heave himself from the wingback chair, Radford raced to the top of the stairs, his eyes filled with dread.

“She moaned, sir,” Adam said, regretting that his shout had scared Radford. “I hope it means she’s waking up.”

In three strides, Radford ducked into Rebecca’s room. He sat beside her and cupped her face. “Come on, sprite. Open your eyes, sweetheart.”

Adam leaned in the doorway, watching Radford plead with his daughter. Seeing the man’s anguish twisted Adam’s gut. He, too, felt that helpless feeling, that intense love, that sickening fear that was reflected in Radford’s eyes.

Doc Milton stepped past Adam and quickly tended to Rebecca. He checked her eyes, her breathing, her heart, and her head wound, then sat back on the edge of the bed. “She’s still out, but she’s feeling pain now. Might mean she’s coming around. Might just mean she’s hurting. I’ll give her a small dose of laudanum to ease her suffering a bit.”

After he administered the opiate, the doctor checked her pulse and looked down in surprise. “What’s this?” He turned Rebecca’s palm toward the ceiling. Using his thumb, he inspected the object wobbling in her lightly closed fist. “It appears to be a... rock of some sort.”

Adam’s heartbeat doubled. Their worry stones had been one of many secrets the two of them had shared. He would hate to have something so special be revealed under such awful circumstances.

Evelyn, who had entered the room behind the doctor, shrugged and said she didn’t know what it was.

Radford shook his head, appearing as confused as Evelyn and the doctor. “Maybe one of the children put it there.”

Doc Milton harrumphed. “Whatever it is,” he said, “it seems to bring her some comfort.”

A sad smile lifted one corner of Radford’s mouth. “I’m sure this is one of her treasures,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “From the time she was a baby, she dragged in more sticks and stones and leaves than an old hound dog. She’d make a fuss about every item and show me in detail why they were worth keeping.” He stood silent for a minute as if lost in thought. “She sees beauty in everything around her.”

“She’s a special young lady, for certain.” The doctor left the stone resting between Rebecca’s palm and lax fingers as he turned his attention back to her head dressing. “There is some good news, Radford. The bleeding has stopped.”

Layers of white muslin dressing wrapped Rebecca’s head. Her long hair flowed from beneath the bandage and down over her pillow and shoulders where it formed a shiny black pool. Adam ached to stroke her face, hold her hand and comfort her, but it was Radford’s time now, so Adam stepped aside.