Page 38 of Road to a Cowboy

“If you’re sure,” Las said, clearly unconvinced that everything was indeed okay. He nudged Harriet into a walk and they crossed the highway.

Austin called Cal again.

The phone rang and rang and rang before jolting over to voicemail.

“Cal, it’s me. Uh, are you okay? We were supposed to meet at six, and it’s a quarter to seven. I’ve got cooling pizza ready to go. Which I realize doesn’t sound appetizing, but we can pop another one in the oven. Just...” Austin scrubbed his forehead while Sully turned circles in the passenger seat. “Call me back. Okay?” He sounded desperate to his own ears, but the worry in his heart was so thick it was almost tangible.

He hung up and looked at Sully. “Should we try his house again?”

Sully peed on his seat.

Chapter Twelve

“A bruised tailbone, a broken rib, and a swollen ankle. All in all, relatively minor injuries considering your fall.”

Cal replayed the doctor’s words to his mom in his head as he drove her home. The drive from the hospital in Jackson back to Windsor was quiet after midnight, no one else on the tree-lined road except the occasional eighteen-wheeler. Cal turned on his high beams and navigated in silence, Barbara brooding on his right.

Christ, he was tired. And there were only a handful of hours before he had to start his workday.

Grinding his molars together, he passed one hand down his face. “What were you even doing on the roof?”

“Cleaning the gutters.” Mom’s voice was as petulant as a child’s—and a little woozy thanks to the painkillers—as she stared out the window, hugging one arm to her ribcage. Cal had broken a rib once when he was a teenager and the pain had been excruciating. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone. “You were supposed to do that earlier, but you left in a huff after mowing the lawn, so I had to do it. So really, this—” She waved at her entire person. “—is your fault.”

Hands clenching on the wheel, Cal sucked in a slow and steady breath through his nose. “I was going to do it on Wednesday when I brought your weekly grocery order,” he said through gritted teeth.

“They needed to be done now.”

More like stubbornness had sent her up the ladder and onto the roof without the proper safety measures in place. She’d fallen from a single story only, but still—people died from that kind of fall.

Silence sat between them the rest of the way home. Guilt ate at Cal’s stomach with hungry teeth, gnawing until he felt like he was going to throw up. He shouldn’t have left like he had this morning. Should’ve stuck around to finish his chores. If he had, none of this would’ve happened. He wouldn’t have gotten a phone call from the hospital, wouldn’t have spent hours in the emergency room, wouldn’t have had to put up with the guilt his mom piled on top of his own, wouldn’t have missed dinner with?—

Shit! Austin.

“Fuck.”

“Language.”

It was an effort not to roll his eyes. As though Barbara hadn’t let the F-bomb drop every day of his life.

The amount of willpower it took not to reach for his phone was almost more than he could stand. Somehow, he made it to his mom’s, got her inside, and?—

“What time will I see you tomorrow?”

He paused, one foot out the door. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll need help making breakfast. And you’ll need to come back to help me with lunch and dinner too.”

“Are your arms broken?”

Cal winced, hating himself for sounding like an ableist asshole. Guilt hit again, stronger than ever.

But there was also a kernel of annoyance—a very large kernel—simmering beneath his breastbone. Had she asked instead of assumed, he would’ve agreed to drop by mid-morning to help her out. But everything was the same as it had always been, with Barbara acting like she was entitled to something Cal had never agreed to give.

Anger turned her cheeks ruddy. “You need to?—”

“The Mountain Peak Diner has an app now,” he told her. “Order before eight p.m. and they’ll deliver. I’ll send you the link.”

With that, he stepped outside and shut the door behind him. He jogged back to his truck, pulling out his phone as he did so.

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