Page 45 of The Cowboy's Second Chance Bride

The sudden switch in tone and divulging of information made me think her call was being monitored on her side of the wire.

“So essentially, we are through.”

“I’m so sorry, hon. And you should know a few of our board members sit on boards for other adoption companies, so you might have a hard time with some of them too. When you’re researching who to go to, make sure you look at their board.”

Tears ran down my temple onto my knee, burning a path down my leg to my ankle. All I could do was sniff in response.

“I am so sorry.” She cleared her throat and said in her robot voice, “Have a good day, Ms. Holloway.” And hung up.

I stayed like that until my legs started to tingle, no more tears were coming out, and the sun was sliding lower in the sky. I stood up slowly and looked around, stunned by how quickly my life had fallen apart.

That was when the next stage of grief hit me—anger. I stomped my feet into my cowboy boots while still dressed in my capri yoga pants and a maroon sleep shirt that had a Labradoodle on the front with a ball in his mouth and the words Fetching Tired underneath.

I was so tired. I wanted to hide in the bed with the covers over my head until someone fixed this. But I had to get out of the room. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

I whipped open the door and came face-to-face with Cal. He opened his mouth, and I said, “Nope, not yet.”

I brushed past him as I rushed down the stairs and out the door. I headed straight to the corral, where some horses were grazing. When I got to the fence, I hung my top half over the upper bar and closed my eyes, trying to take in deep breaths.

Apparently, you could still cry when you were dehydrated. Cal joined me but faced the horses, not looking at me once. He didn’t say anything, just stood next to me while I cried. I wasn’t sure how long we stood there before he climbed up the fence to sit on the top bar. A few minutes later, I did the same. As I was climbing up, he glanced at me, paused at my shirt, and gave a slight smile. Then he looked away once I settled next to him.

The paint I’d ridden came over, and I started petting her muzzle. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he said.

“But you can sayI told you so.”

“About what?”

I sniffed. I had been so cavalier about taking on his dad that I really hadn’t given Cal’s warning its due. “You were right about me not being able to handle this. Your dad hit me right where it hurts the most.”

“I never said you couldn’t handle it. I’m sorry about those articles today.”

“I don’t think I can do this.” I stared at the horse but saw the quick side-eye he gave me.

“Okay, it’s over. Done. We’ll make a statement. I’ll talk to Paul right away.” But he didn’t move off the fence.

“But then again, it’s stupid to quit now, because the worst has happened. What more can happen?” I probably shouldn’t have said those last few words.

“That’s a fact.” Cal nodded.

“Facts!” I held up one finger. “No one cares about facts. But here are some fun facts. I have three. One, even after a ton of treatments, I was still not able to get pregnant. Which leads me to two: I have depleted my savings account, even used some of my dad’s life insurance money for three shots of in vitro that all failed. And the third fact is this is hard proof that the universe hates me.” I now held up three fingers.

“That’s not really a fact.”

I thrusted up my arm, one finger pointed to the sky and exclaimed, “Fact! I am so angry I could punch Calvin Beckett in the face. You’d think he’d just let me rant instead of chiming in.” I put my face to the paint’s muzzle and scratched his ears. They were very soft and soothing.

He cleared his throat. “Uh…” He scooted away.

I turned to him then. He looked as sad as I felt. And the intensity of it was the same as that picture Paul had taken of us at the hotel. That had been deep longing. And this was deep sadness. He hurt for me. Which made our break all the more confusing, but whatever. We were together right now, and this was one of those moments when I needed someone, and had I been alone, I would have thought of him and wanted one of his healing hugs.

“I bet you have a lot of questions for me.” I threw him a bone.

“Only one.”

“Which is…?”

“This thing you have, what you had the surgery for… is it serious?”

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