Country Lovin

Eight

Karly watched, eyes wide, from a little ways behind Keira and Brayden. She saw Ezra, Rosaleigh, and Juliet come up and motioned them to stay quite a ways back. Sabella was still yelling, her face was all kinds of red, but it wasn't from blushing. "The fuck is this bullshit?" she muttered under her breath, shaking her head.

Keira was getting upset at this point as well, "Why should you listen to us? Oh, I don't know because maybe then you'd understand why we're doing it!"

Sabella's glare was ice cold, "Oh please, do enlighten me." Her voice was deadly calm, Karly threw her hands up as a reflex.

"Listen, I know that what happened with Papa-"

"DON'T DRAG PAPA INTO THIS!" Her voice was raised again, and the rest of her siblings flinched at the mention of their dad.

Brayden adopted a confused look, "What happened with your Papa?"

Karly facepalmed, "Headass don't ask that."

Sabella turned to face him, her hands in fists at her side. "Hmm, I was gonna tell you. You wanna know why I'm so against the military? Pull up a damn seat. Our Dad was an officer, I went to visit him on base for Father's Day two years ago. He was gonna come home that weekend," she moved closer to him as she explained, "We were coming home through the mountains, we were like thirty miles from the base. We didn't know it was gonna happen. No one did. They dropped the bomb at the base, Dad had turned back to go help, but we couldn't get the truck through. They sped toward us, hitting us head-on. Papa was killed instantly, they tried to take me, but Papa's partner Sgt. Williams fought them off." Tears had gathered in her eyes again, her voice cracked throughout the flashback. The other sibling's eyes were squeezed shut as they remembered the dreadful event.

Brayden paled, "Baby I-"

She cut him off, "Don't," she shook her head, rubbing angrily at her tears. "Just leave. I don't want to discuss this anymore." She shook her head and took off at a sprint for the barn, jumping on the first mounted horse she saw, which happened to be one of the greenest horses on the ranch, Buddy. She galloped him off, no destination in mind. Karly watched her ride off and looked over to Rosaleigh and Juliet, who thankfully, got the memo and chased after her. Ezra backed away slowly, going back to the office to let the rest of the ranch know there was a code red.

Brayden shook his head, "I-I-I I had no idea, why...why didn't she tell me?" He sounded so broken. Karly stepped up, struggling to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"She didn't want you to leave her. Or worry about her. But, there's more you should know." Karly looked over at her sister to help. She hadn't gotten the first half of the argument, but she had a feeling the family wasn't going to like it.

Keira nodded, "Why don't we go back inside, take a seat." The trio started back toward the house. No one said a word on the short walk to the kitchen.

"What did you mean out there when you said that wasn't all?" He asked once he had taken a seat at the island.

The sisters sighed, "Sabella was really close to Papa, losing him was the hardest thing she's ever gone through." Keira stated.

"Ever since the incident, she's had terrible nightmares. She's been in therapy since it happened, it helps quite a bit," Karly sighed, she so didn't want to be having this conversation, "Her counselor told us not to wake her up when she has them; that's the hardest part of it. Because of what happened, Sabella's mind is a little rewired. Waking her up could cause a lot of problems we don't need. The doctors agreed, her brain went through a lot of stress, and they even diagnosed her with having PTSD."