Chapter 11
He stood there, dumbstruck for a moment and watched her small body disappear into the the stables. And then her tone registered in his mind. She'd sounded tired. Not only tired, more like completely depleted of energy. He hadn't noticed before, because her tone of voice contrasted so sharply with the tense muscles in her body and the firm set of her face as she'd turned away.
But now her words kept hanging in the air and he knew that his gut feeling had been right all along: Something was mightily wrong. And it was not just the fact that Stevie thought he held no respect for her, even though that thought was already enough to twist his gut into a tight, painful knot. But that wasn't important right now and he shoved the feeling away, to somewhere deep inside.
Something was wrong and he had to get her to tell him what it was, to get her to trust him again. Because he knew she hadn't meant what she'd said to Rose.
He had seen it, had seen the way her eyes had started to narrow and her hands had clenched into fists. He'd seen how she'd started to dig her fingernails deeper and deeper into her skin the more cruel her words got. And he'd tried to write it off as anger. But now he knew that his first thought had been right: Behind all that anger she was trying to project to everyone, her brown eyes held a much different feeling. There'd been pain in them. Pain that had gotten more profound with every word she spoke until her eyes looked almost black.
And he realized now that she hadn't wanted to see that, because seeing her in pain would've meant wanting to help her and wanting to help her would've meant having to apologize and that - finally - would've meant confronting his own feelings the night of their argument and his reasons for saying what he'd said. And somewhere down there he knew that he'd have to do that and do it soon, because his life actually seemed to be spiralling out of control faster and faster the more he tried to keep it the way it was. For all the effort he'd put into it, he just couldn't be the way that Tess was expecting him to be. Because something had shifted inside of himself on the night of their engagement party and even though he'd tried everything to prevent that, Tess had noticed somehow and he knew it wouldn't be long until she'd try to talk to him about it.
And then there wsa Stevie. Stevie, who wouldn't talk to him anymore. Stevie, who'd looked so lost and alone that night out on the paddock. Stevie, who'd just sent her own daughter away, even though he knew there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to be with her. Stevie, who'd just walked into the stables, leaving him behind with nothing but the sound of her weary, hopeless voice resonating in his ears.
It was that thought that finally shook him out of his stupor and made him follow her. At the door to the stables he paused, steeling himself for what he knew was gonna be a difficult conversation at best, before he entered the warm darkness in front of him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but once they did it was actually pretty easy to make out the shapes of the boxes, the animals and the gear in the daylight that was falling in from behind him. He watched his own shadow moving forward on the ground, getting thinner as he turned left, then right, looking for her in the semi-darkness.
The horses were moving, uneasy, because they had detected a stranger. Their hooves were rustling in the straw and they were whinnying softly. It was because of those background noises that it took him a moment to hear the muffled sobs that told him where she was.
Dave Brewer had always hated to see or hear a woman cry, but to hear Stevie crying like that nearly broke his heart. It was the way she tried to keep it in, how she tried to stay silent and suck it all up deep into herself. It saddened him so much, not only the fact that she was crying at all, but more the way she wouldn't even allow herself to cry freely, the way she was trying to appear strong and unaffected even now that she was alone.
He followed the sound of her irregular, hitching breaths and her desperate, cut-short sobs to Banjo's box and he immediateley spotted her. She was huddled into a corner, pressing her back against the wall and cradling something in her right hand. An object that was gleaming in the stray rayes of sunlight coming in from outside. A locket, he thought. It looked like a locket.
She didn't lift her gaze when she heard him entering, but he noticed how the fingers of her left hand, she had pressed upon her mouth, started to clench until they were forming marks on her cheeks. She gripped the locket even tighter and she drew her knees up, closer to her chest. It send a jolt of pain through his insides that she seemed to feel like she had to protect herself from him.
Softly he lowered himself onto the ground beside her and started to gently pry her fingers away from her cheek until he was holding her hand in his. His other hand moved to cover hers on the locket and he gave it a slight squeeze before he started.
"I know you didn't mean what you told Rose, Stevie. And I know you probably hate me because of what I said to you the other night. But I promise, I really didn't mean that. I'm so very sorry, I should never have said all that stuff and I honestly have no idea where it all came from. I need you to believe me that I really don't think of you like that, Stevie. But on top of everything, I need you to tell me what's going on. Because I know you'd never send Rose away without having a damn good reason. Please, Stevie, trust me. Let me in. I really want to help."