Page 37 of Road to a Cowboy

He called Cal.

Nothing.

“It’s fine,” he said to Sully, who ignored him completely. “It’s not like some of these mountain roads aren’t dangerous or anything.”

But on a sunny day with clear visibility? The danger was minimal. Not impossible, but minimal.

Leaving Sully in the kitchen, he stalked to the front door, ignoring Sully’s panicked barking—god forbid he be out of Sully’s sight for five seconds—and yanked the door open. The lights were off at Cal’s place, but the sun was still up and would be for a couple more hours, so that didn’t mean much. What meant more was the lack of a truck in Cal’s driveway.

So. Cal wasn’t home.

And he had Sundays off from the ranch, which meant he could be literally anywhere, including the ranch.

As soon as the thought struck, Austin smacked his forehead. “Obviously he’s at the ranch, you idiot.”

It was Cal’s happy place. Austin wouldn’t be surprised if Cal had spent the entire day there. Maybe he’d taken Dash for a ride and lost track of time.

Or he was dead in a ditch somewhere.

No, no. Worst-case scenarios helped no one.

What would help Austin and keep him from going down the “something bad happened and life is over” road was driving to the ranch to make sure Cal wasn’t actually dead in a ditch along the highway.

He was perhaps being a tad... um... paranoid... but he’d already lost one person he’d loved. He wasn’t losing another.

He called the ranch, but when there was no answer, he situated Sully in the passenger seat of his SUV and off they went.

Sully immediately climbed over the center console and onto his lap. “Sullyyyyyy.” He shoved the dog away. “It’s going to be us dead in a ditch if you don’t stay on your side of the car.”

Sully didn’t appear to care. He climbed onto Austin, tried to jump over him into the back seat, licked the window, barked at other dogs on the street, and generally made a nuisance of himself.

Austin gritted his teeth and took Cal’s route to the ranch. Not that there was more than one way to get there from where they lived. Small town and all that.

Thankfully, Cal’s truck wasn’t flipped upside down on the side of the highway, nor was he stranded with a flat tire or engine trouble. As Austin approached the ranch, a cowboy on horseback lingered on the side of the road, waiting for Austin to pass before he crossed to the other side.

Recognizing him, Austin pulled over and rolled down his window. Sully immediately tried to jump out. Austin grabbed him by the collar and almost got his fingers bitten off.

“Hey, Las.”

From atop Harriet, Las ducked his head and peered inside the car. “Hey. I didn’t know you got a dog.”

“I didn’t.” Austin glared at Sully. “Not now and not ever. He’s my neighbor’s. Hey, listen—have you seen Cal?”

“Yeah, he was here earlier.”

Sully barked at Harriet. Not intimidated in the least, Harriet huffed and gave him the stink eye.

“He left a couple hours ago though.”

A couple hours. A hole opened in Austin’s chest, fathomless and dark. It wasn’t like Cal to leave him hanging like this, so either he was dead in a ditch somewhere else or he really didn’t want to have the conversation they needed to have.

Unfortunately for Austin, he couldn’t decide which scenario was more likely.

Of course, it was entirely possible that Cal had gotten distracted mid-whatever he was doing and lost track of time. But that was so unlike Cal that Austin had trouble believing his own theory.

“Everything okay?” Las asked.

“Yeah.” Austin forced a smile. “I’ve got to turn around so you go on ahead.”

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