Page 43 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

Panic paraded across Misty’s face, but she recovered quickly as she picked up the menu. “I want the French dip, please, with the French fries. And he’ll have….” The pause lengthened, and just when Link figured he better open up his menu and save her, she said, “The crispy chicken sandwich. With fries.”

The waitress nodded and left, and Misty looked past the cookies to Link. “Can’t go wrong with a crispy chicken sandwich,” she said.

“We’ll see.” He told himself not to get too keyed up over the fact that she knew him well enough to order for him. He could think about it later, after the date had ended and he’d gone to bed.

He’d been so bored in his life before, simply working the ranch every day, hour after hour, month after month. Misty had been the one bright ray in his life, and now that she was back, Link felt like he’d embarked on the greatest journey of his life.

Thank you, Lord, he thought. For helping me talk to this woman. For opening a door and giving me the courage to walk through it.

“So,” he said. “I have to head up into the hills tomorrow to make sure Jed and Jimmer are okay with the dogs and the herd. We’re takin’ them some more supplies. But…Sunday? You and me and a pew in church?”

Misty took a moment to answer, and then she said, “All right.”

“All right,” Link said, glad to have another time and place to see her again. “Now tell me: if you could only go on one road trip in your whole life, where would you go?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on. Name somewhere.”

“You name somewhere,” she said.

“Road trip,” he said, his mind working fast. “I think I’d head north, to the Rocky Mountains. Have you ever seen them?”

“No, sir,” she said.

“Me either.” Link reached for his cola and squeezed the lemon into it. “Yeah, I think that would be a good adventure, and you like adventures.”

She smiled at him and slid to the end of the bench seat. Alarm pulled through Link, but she just took the two steps to his side of the table and sat next to him. “I do like adventure,” she said. “But Link, you don’t have to do everything I like.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why we’re getting coffee and cookies after this.”

She smiled in that soft, gorgeous way she had, shook her head, and matched her mouth to his right there in the restaurant. Sure, he’d kissed her in public too, but only family could see them on the ranch.

Here, anyone could see them, but Link found he didn’t care. With every stroke of her mouth against his, Link fell further and further in love with her.

How long will this last? burned through his blood, but Link ignored it by tasting that cornbread cookie on his girlfriend’s lips.

Chapter Fourteen

Mitch Glover hurried into the library, his hearing dog right at his side, bypassing the checkout counter without even looking over to see if Kaytee Larsen stood there. Sure, he’d had a crush on her for a few weeks after meeting her a few months ago before one of his calls to his friends back in Virginia.

He loved her dark hair, her sparkling eyes, and those soft-as-pillows lips. She hadn’t seemed to mind that all of their conversation had to be typed, but Mitch did. He wanted someone he could truly talk with, and that meant he needed someone who could speak sign language—or he had to learn to hear and speak, an avenue he’d started thinking about more and more.

In the Texas Panhandle, in a town of barely twenty thousand, the people who could communicate with him all lived at Shiloh Ridge. And they’d all learned to sign simply so they could talk to him. With him. Because they loved him.

Now that Link was back together with Misty, Mitch could easily see and feel the gaping holes in his life. His parents loved him, and Mitch knew his daddy would do anything for him. Absolutely anything, Cactus Glover had said last week when Mitch had gone to talk to his parents about returning to Whispering Paws, the deaf education school he’d worked at after he’d graduated from high school.

He’d worked on the dog-training side of the academy, but they’d been asking him to come back and teach for nine months now. They wanted someone who knew specialized signs for ranches and farms, and seeing as how Mitch had been living and working at Shiloh Ridge since he was ten years old, he knew a lot of that vocabulary. All of those signs.

The thought of living so far from Texas had his heart tied in a knot, but every time he thought about staying here, he just knew it wasn’t right. He didn’t talk to God as much these days as he had in the past, but it sure seemed like the Lord still cared about him. Still wanted to guide Mitch where he was supposed to go.

So he slid into the chair at an open computer and started clicking around like crazy while Honor found a spot at his feet. Mitch possessed quick and nimble fingers, as he’d spent his whole life talking with them. Either through a computer, a phone, or sign language, and Mitch did his best to take good care of his hands.

The video conference window came up, and he made sure the volume was down. Phil, the director of Whispering Paws, could speak and sign, and he did both on calls. No one else needed to hear this conversation, though they could read the captions over his shoulder if they really wanted to.

Mitch, Phil said with a smile. You made it.

Sorry I’m a little late, he said. Things on the ranch are a little unpredictable in the summer.

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