Breaking Through (The Breaking Series Book 3) (14 page)

Still shaking, I swung my legs over the fence. My foot caught on the highest board, pulling me backward, making me unstable, and with the momentum, I tumbled toward the round pen. Somehow my flailing arms worked and caught one of the boards, pausing my fall. My right shoulder and hip hit the fence, and I didn’t even yell when the pain exploded in my limbs.

My vision darkened a little more, making me dizzy, nauseated. I wanted to scream, to run, to crawl out of my skin. I think I tried doing all that, but I was lost. Lost in my mind, swimming in panic and debilitating fear.

Gui knelt before me. He was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him. I could barely see him. Suddenly, he jumped up and turned his back to me, his arms to the side, trying to signal someone, keep something away? I remembered a part of my brain asking what he was doing, but it was a small part. The rest was taken up by my feelings, my uncontrollable emotions.

Then warm hands closed around my shoulders. Eric’s face appeared before my eyes, and I screamed. I screamed because my life, my soul depended on it.

“Hil,” I heard him calling me. “Hilary.” I didn’t remember his voice being this soft, this … feminine. “Hilary, are you hearing me?” His face transformed. His hair grew out, his nose and chin thinned, his eyes became green, and then Eric wasn’t Eric anymore. “Hilary, snap out of it!” Hannah’s beautiful face was two inches from mine. With her hands still gripping my shoulders, she shook me hard. “Hilary!”

Eric wasn’t here. Eric was never here. Eric was locked away, in a wheel chair, and he could never hurt me again.

The scream faded, leaving my throat raw. “Hannah,” I croaked.

She let out a long, relieved sigh and embraced me. “Thank God,” she whispered.

Taking a deep breath myself, I let my head fall on her shoulder. The fight left me. The panic dulled to a numbing sensation, leaving me empty, listless.

Slowly, the world came into focus again.

Gui was holding Belle’s reins across the round pen, tension and strain visible in his face, in his arms. Belle jerked against him, and he held her down.

Hannah followed my line of sight.

“Belle got spooked when your …” She glanced back at me. “When your attack started. Gui held her back, even though she fought him the entire time.”

I rubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the dull pain in my head. “How long did it last?” From experience, I knew that my notion of time was lost when the attacks started. Sometimes I thought it lasted for hours, but it was only a few minutes, and sometimes I thought it lasted for only a minute, but it was much longer.

“I’m not sure. I got here about ten minutes ago, but my guess is that Gui has been holding Belle back much longer than that.”

I still stared at him and he stared back at me with worried eyes. Or was it pity? Or maybe it was only fatigue from having to hold the spooked mare for so long. Poor Gui. I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to help me again.

“Help me get out of here,” I said low, my throat still hurting.

Hannah hooked her arm around my waist and helped me up. My legs were still numb and wobbly, making me too heavy for Hannah alone. I leaned against the fence, trying to move by myself. I wanted to get out of the round pen so Gui would be able to stop fighting Belle.

“Can you give me a hand?” Hannah asked, looking behind me.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Jimmy walking up to the round pen. Nodding, he opened the gate and passed one of my arms around his shoulders. Hannah still clutched my waist. Together, they carried me out of the round pen. Jimmy pulled the gate closed.

“I didn’t lock it,” he yelled.

“I got it,” Gui answered.

Despite everything, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Gui walking across the round pen toward the gate, his expression closed and his eyes on me.

Chapter Ten

Jimmy and Hannah laid me on the sofa, and Hannah pulled a blanket over me. I was still shaking, but I didn’t tell her it wasn’t from cold. It was the remnants of the panic attack.

Jimmy retreated to the door and Hannah followed him. They exchanged a few words, all whispers, then he left and she knelt beside me.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, concern written all over her face.

“I just need to rest and calm down.”

“All right.” She looked me up and down a few times. “You’ve got a bruise on your shoulder.” She pointed to a bright red spot on my shoulder. “Does it hurt?”

I was still numb. Nothing hurt. The only things I felt were mortification and exhaustion. “Not yet.” Remembering I had hit more than just my shoulder, I lifted my T-shirt and saw the reddish mark on the side of my waist too.

“What do you remember?” my sister asked, her voice gentle, cautious.

I didn’t really want to think about it anymore, but I also had a few questions. “Hm, I’m not sure. The panic started and I tried to run. I didn’t want Gui to see me like this,” I muttered, embarrassed. “But I ended up falling inside the round pen. By then panic had already consumed me.” I didn’t want to tell her I had seen Eric … I wouldn’t. “How did you get there?”

“I was coming back early from a private lesson with two young sisters. I hadn’t seen anything until Gui called me. He was holding Belle back. I handed off the girls to Jimmy and rushed to the round pen. Then Gui told me you had fallen. He wanted to help you, but because you were already having the attack, he wasn’t sure if touching you was the best way to go or not. Before he could decide what to do, Belle got spooked and he held her back until I arrived.”

I sucked in a long breath. “How long was that?”

“Accordingly to Gui, it was about thirty minutes.” Her tone was low, careful as if she didn’t want to admit that to me.

Oh my gosh, Gui held Belle back from me for thirty minutes? No wonder he looked so strained and tired when I came to.

I buried my face in my hands.

“Shhh.” Hannah rubbed my back gently. “It’s okay, Hil. You’re okay now.”

Taking a deep breath, I looked into her. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “For being there, for snapping me out of it somehow, for carrying me in here.”

She waved her hand, dismissing my thank you. “So, are you hungry? Do you need something to drink?”

Hannah would be over me like a mother hen until I gave her something to do, so I lied. “Yes, I’m hungry.”

“What do you want?” she asked. I hesitated, not sure what to ask. What would buy me some time to be alone? She filled in the silence for me. “How about a loaded grilled cheese? And some ice tea?”

“Sounds good,” I lied again. Not that I didn’t like her loaded grilled cheese and ice tea. I liked them, but right now, my stomach didn’t want anything.

“I’ll also bring ice for those red marks. They look like they will hurt soon.” She jumped up. “Be right back.” She marched to the kitchen.

Sighing, I laid my head back and closed my eyes.

The brief memory of the terrors of my panic attack rushed to the front of my mind, and I stifled a sob. A single tear escaped my eye. Then another. And another.

The front door opened, and I sat up, wiping away the tears.

Gui stepped inside, his baseball hat in his hands. His brown hair was damp from sweat, I realized. He stayed by the door, eyeing me with worry.

“Hi,” I said, feeling mortified by what he witnessed.

“Hey.” He still stood by the door. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I guess so.” A new batch of tears made their way to my eyes, but I wiped them. “I’m sorry about my reaction. Somewhere, deep in my mind, I knew it was you beside me. I knew you would never hurt me. I knew there was no reason for me to panic, but I couldn’t help it. It was stronger than me.” The tears won, and a couple ran down my cheeks. “I kept seeing his face and there was nothing … nothing I could do. I’m—”

“Hey, hey.” Gui took two steps toward, but stopped, his frame rigid. “It’s okay. I know that. Don’t worry about me.”

Again, I wiped my tears away as if I could erase all from my mind. “I’m sorry.”

“Hil, it’s okay. I swear.” His knuckles were white around his hat. “Just tell me if you’re okay now.”

For some reason, I couldn’t lie to him. “I’ll be okay.”

Gui stared at me for a minute, his eyes shining with worry or …caution? He was probably afraid of getting close to me again, of triggering another attack.

Interrupting the awkward moment, Hannah came back from the kitchen with a tray. Looking from me to Gui and back to me, she deposited the tray with my sandwich and drink on the coffee table.

“Here you go, Hil.” With a forced smile, Hannah handed me the ice pack. Then, she stood, her hands on her back. “Gui, hmm, may I speak with you for a minute? In the kitchen, please?”

My curiosity piqued as Gui followed my sister into the kitchen, but I lay back on the sofa, holding the ice pack to my shoulder with my eyes closed, just too tired to care about whatever she wanted to talk to him about.

I wasn’t counting, however, in being able to hear part of their whispers from here.

Hannah started. “… you doing here? And her? …”

“Hil said she would help me with something for the wedding …” My sister replied something I couldn’t hear, and Gui continued, “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“…her clothes. That’s not like her.”

“I guess she wanted to get in the spirit of things.”

“What things?”

“Told you. It’s a surprise … won’t tell.”

Hannah muttered something else, and then came back to the living room. “You didn’t even touch your food.”

Gui stayed by the hallway door, his eyes cast down.

“I don’t feel like I can eat right now,” I admitted.

“All right.” Sighing, Hannah sat down on the coffee table beside the tray and leaned forward, getting closer to me. “I want to help you, Hil, but I don’t really know what to do. Tell me what to do.”

“I just want to relax for a minute. I’ll be okay soon.”

She frowned, as if she was suspicious of something.

Tires crunched the stones on the entrance road, signaling an incoming car. Hannah looked out the window and stood. “I’ll be right back.”

I glanced out and saw Leo parking his SUV beside Hannah’s car. She rushed out and down the porch steps to greet him, and I turned away.

Gui walked into the living room, but still maintained his distance.

“I want to thank you for trying to help me, and especially for holding Belle so she wouldn’t stomp all over me,” I said, trying to make a joke with the stomping part. Then I remembered that was what made me afraid of horses in the first place and, worse, how Eric ended up in a wheel chair. Hannah’s horse, Argus trampled him. My stomach revolved.

“It was nothing.”

Of course it wasn’t nothing. It must have been hard to hold back a spooked horse. He was probably tired, aching, and pissed at me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

“Stop apologizing, Hil. There’s nothing to apologize for. You’re all right now; that’s all that matters.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but the determined and almost irritated look on his face made me clamp my lips again.

I looked out the window and saw Hannah and Leo talking, and Leo’s expression changing—a knot appeared in his forehead and his jaw tensed. Then, he looked up, through the window, past me. I glanced back and found Gui staring back at his cousin. Gui gave a sharp nod, then shifted his gaze to me.

“Be right back.” He marched from the house.

As Gui approached Leo, Hannah walked to the stables.

I couldn’t hear them, and from their position, I couldn’t even try to read their lips, but I could see their body language. Leo and Gui were arguing. They both pointed to the stables and to the window from where I spied on them a couple of times. They were arguing about me. I could imagine the whole discussion. Leo was telling Gui to stop being stupid and stop helping me. I was damaged and would drag him down with me. Coming to his senses, Gui finally realized he had a moment of delusion. Why was he even bothering with me anyway? But Gui surprised me. Instead of agreeing with Leo, Gui retorted fiercer and fiercer, until finally he clenched his fists, as if he was holding back from punching Leo, yelled one last time, and then stomped down the porch stairs and didn’t stop until he was inside his Jeep and leaving the property.

Leo stared at him, shaking his head. After a long moment, Leo turned to the front door and I lay down, pretending to be asleep on the couch.

***

I placed the hot tea mug on the nightstand and climbed in my bed. I leaned against the headboard and pulled the covers up to my waist. I grabbed my Kindle from the nightstand and opened to the romance book I had started reading two days ago. I reread the same sentence about ten times before I gave up and laid the kindle beside me.

It was good to be home—Hannah had insisted I spent the night at the ranch, or at least she wanted to drive me to town, because according to her, I was too distraught to drive. Maybe she was right, but I didn’t give in. I wanted my place—even if it was temporarily rented—my bed, my stuff. I wanted to escape her scrutinizing gaze and her motherly overprotection.