Page 63 of The Dravenhearst Brides
Merrick chuckled. “I was thinking about the horses, how you said you used to ride.”
“Oh.” Disappointment flooded her. Horses?Thatwas the part of the evening he’d fixated on?
“I was wondering…” His gaze met hers. “Did you enjoy it? When you used to ride?”
“Of course.”
She and Eli had both loved it. Sometimes when she dreamed at night, in the moment just before the dream turned into nightmare, she could feel the wind ripping through her hair. The sun on her cheeks, the bouncing rhythm of her body, attuned to her mount. And in those fleeting moments, there was joy.
Which made the ensuing sorrow ache all the more.
Merrick nodded, the set of his jaw tight. “I think you should try again. With me.”
“No.”
He lifted a hand. “Hear me out.”
“No.”She pushed back her chair. This wasn’t up for discussion. Her fears, hertrauma, weren’t up for negotiation. She’d lived with this for years, knew exactly how to cope.
“Margot, please.” He moved quickly, crossing the room to take her arm. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Yes. You and every cockamamie physician east of the Mississippi.” She reared back, yanking her arm free.
“I—what?” He blinked rapidly, confused.
Margot’s eyes hardened. She lowered her voice to a near hiss. “You think I haven’t tried? You think I haven’t been poked and prodded and evaluated andjudgedby a million different men with a million different ideas on how to sort out what’s ‘wrong’ with me?”
His mouth gaped.
“I’m done being someone’s science experiment.Iknow what I need. You don’t.”
“I never said I did.” His response was quiet but strong.
The sound of Margot’s laborious breaths filled the room, echoing between them like cannon fire.
“You’re protective of it because it hurts.” His words came out slow and punctuated. “You clutch it close, like a wounded limb…because it hurts less if you don’t use it, right? Avoidance consumes you. I’m not telling you what to do or how to feel, Margot. I’m speaking from personal experience. I know a thing or two about grief and trauma myself. I was the one who found my mother, hanging from the rickhouse racks in her wedding gown. I was eleven years old.”
Margot’s jaw slackened. He was the one who found Babette? At a younger age than she when she’d lost Elijah?
So much sorrow here,she thought, a wave crashing over her from head to foot.So much unfathomable loss and pain.
Merrick squared his shoulders. “I know how this works. I know about loss, about horror so great, you can never forget. You cannot shed it. You cannot leave it behind. You can only carry it with you. Forward.”
She kept her voice soft, wanting to be kind, but she was unwilling to overlook his hypocrisy. Not whilst he challenged her on her own. “By sealing the rickhouse, never to return?”
“Yes, one of them, for a myriad of reasons. But I work in the other rickhouses every day. I push barrels down those racks every day. I walk under the rafters. Because one experience does not get to define who I am, where I live my life, or what I love. I will not give fear any more power than it already has.”
“It’s different,” she insisted, shaking her head.
“It’s not. I’m not asking you to ride the horse that killed your brother. I’m just asking you to walk into the goddamn stables and stand on your own two feet. Because youcan.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. I can help you. Come with me in the mornings. Sit in the grass and read a book while I ride. Just be there. When you avoid something, it festers. It causes greater pain. I don’t like to see you hurting—when you hurt, I hurt.”
Margot’s lip trembled. Her voice, when it came, was small. “I don’t want to.”
He moved, crossing the chasm between them with a single step. When his arms encircled her, they were all-consuming. Warm and secure.
