“One…two…three.”
Standing proved a special kind of torture. The blaze of anguish from my chest down my limbs made my legs shake and my mind spin. I thought for sure I’d finally pass out, and tried to shift away from June so I wouldn’t collapse straight on top of her. She held on tighter, adding to the fire in my ribs, but I managed not to faint. Another win for this banner afternoon.
“You doing okay?” she asked, that worry line deep between her eyebrows.
“I’ve never been worse, June.”
The few times I’d let myself get drunk off my ass, I’d had more coordination than I did now. I walked like a bow-legged cowboy, trying and failing to avoid the ripples of agony every step sent through me. She guided us across the pen, her body flush against mine for support. The sheer enormity of my injury refused to let my thoughts idle there, but I wasn’t so out of it that I couldn’t file that memory away for later.
“Should we do something about the horse?” she asked as we let ourselves out of the round pen.
Bullet had found a leftover clump of hay along the pen fence and stood chewing away on it. I was in no shape to turn him out, and wouldn’t ask June to try in a million years. He wasn’t an aggressive horse, just a young one with more energy than he knew how to use up, and no notion of what constituted good behavior. No way in hell would I risk June taking that horse’s lead rope.
“He’ll be fine in the pen for a while.” Lord willing.
She led me around the barn to a little car I didn’t recognize. Great. On top of everything else, I would have to cram myself into a tiny hatchback. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“I just…” She moved the hand on my back to get a better hold, her fingers splaying as if me staying upright depended on her alone. “I wanted us to talk before the wedding. Make sure everything is going smoothly. I didn’t want things to be awkward.”
“Don’t worry, June,” I wheezed, my chest a crackling fire. “This isn’t awkward at all.”
THREE
june
Three hours,two X-rays, and one prescription later, I drove Ty back to Victory Ranch. Pretty sure he’d grumbled the entire time. Oh, the excuses that poured out of that man’s mouth.
I don’t need a doctor, June.
There isn’t anything to do about broken ribs, June.
I’m a man, June, I can take it.
He didn’t say that last one, but he was thinking it. If he’d been in a little better condition, he might have bolted before I ever got him through Magnolia Ridge Medical Center’s sliding glass doors.
I sat with him in the waiting room, where he met every word of consolation I offered with a dismissive grunt, like his injury had devolved him into a cave man. When they finally called his name and he hobbled off to the exam room—ignoring the wheelchair the nurse had pulled around, naturally—I couldn’t decide if I found his stubbornness endearing or maddening. The nurse definitely thought it the latter. We shared a weary look behind his grumbling back.
When he came out again with the news the doctor said there wasn’t much to do but give the bones time to heal, the look he gave me had been smug as all get out. The man had broken ribs, but he still managed to gloat about it.
“Just say it.” I pulled out of the Medical Center’s parking lot, waiting for theI told you sothat must surely be coming.
“I don’t have to say it, June.” His voice came out gravelly and hoarse. “We both know I was right.”
“Very smooth.” Glancing sideways, I looked him over. He sat at an awkward angle, holding the seat belt away from his chest with one hand, his face contorted into a deep scowl. His every word and breath strained from the effort of forcing air in and out of his lungs, yet he wanted to deny he felt any of it. My blood got hot just thinking about his repeated attempts to pretend the situation wasn’t serious. “Three broken ribs is not nothing. People die from horse kicks, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.” His dry voice betrayed borderline amusement, as if my worry made me ridiculous. “And only the one rib broke. The other two are just cracked.”
As if that made anything better.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t been there? Just laid in the dirt until Bullet got hungry and ate you?”
“Horses are herbivores, and if you hadn’t been there, none of this would have happened.”
I sucked in a breath, guilt tangling with my indignation.
“That wasn’t my fault.” I’d been thinking it through the whole ordeal, but that didn’t mean I wantedhimto think it. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“No. But you distracted the both of us.”
