Page 76 of Roaring Fork Wrangler

“It’s my day. I’m here. Let’s go.”

I sure as hell didn’t want to stay in this room a minute longer than I had to. It just hurt that she hadn’t shown up. I pushed myself off the bed. “I can walk down,” I said to Romeo.

“Sorry, man. Hospital policy. Once you’re outside the main entrance, you can walk all you want, but until you are, your chariot awaits.”

I scowled but sat down. As soon as I had, the chair and Romeo lurched forward.

“What the hell?” I gasped.

“Oh my God. Sorry. Did I hit you?” I heard Juni ask and looked over my shoulder at her and Romeo, who was rubbing his backside. “I didn’t think you were leaving until this afternoon, but then I called, and they said you were being discharged this morning.” She put her hand on her heart and took several deep breaths. “Thank goodness I made it.”

She walked over to the wheelchair, and I reached for her hand. “Thanks. I know it isn’t your day.” I glared at my brother, who flipped me off.

“Not my day? Are you kidding? I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

I didn’t deserve her. Not even a little. But selfishly, I couldn’t stand the idea of not seeing her smile, holdingher hand, listening to her sweet voice as she read Miss Cena’s journals to me, or even the sniffling sounds she made when she got to a sad part. I brought her hand to my lips and kissed the back of it, and she beamed.

“Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s go.” She motioned with her hand for the rest of us to follow her out the door.

“You don’t deserve her,” Buck leaned down and whispered, reiterating my thoughts of only moments ago. He was right. I just had no idea how I’d ever let her go.

23

JUNIPER

Uncle Pete made me promise not to say a word about what he’d told me earlier this morning. Several times in only the last thirty minutes, I’d had to bite my tongue to stop myself from telling Cord that today—of all the days it could happen—the person who tried to kill him would be arrested.

While it was still the dead of winter, we’d had a week of unusually warm weather, followed by rain that had melted much of the snow, uncovering clues as to what happened that day.

Cord had once said that it felt like someone had hit him in the head with an anvil. He hadn’t been far off. The team, which included Decker Ashford and others who worked for him, that went out with my uncle to look for evidence found a pickax buried in the dirt not far from the lean-to where they’d found Cord.

The blood on it was a DNA match to his, and more importantly, they’d been able to lift a partial fingerprint from the handle. There was enough of it for a computerapplication to find a possible match. Not only that, but one of the ranch hands said he remembered seeing someone on the outside of the estate’s perimeter. According to Pete, Decker had access to something called overheads that they used to track the guy and get a positive ID.

Most of what my uncle had said went right over my head, but that didn’t take away from the relief I felt, knowing the man who’d tried to kill Cord would soon be in custody.

While he hadn’t divulged who would be arrested, I got the impression it was someone local, maybe even someone who might’ve worked at the Lilacs at one point, but had somehow missed having their profile set up in the estate’s new, elaborate security system.

Him stopping by our house to give us the news was the real reason I was late.

“Everything okay?” Cord asked as we waited near the hospital’s main entrance for Buck to bring the SUV around.

“Of course,” I assured him.

“You seem antsy.”

“I’m just excited that you get to go home,” I fibbed.

“It isn’t my home,” he mumbled, but I heard him.

“Sorry. I meant the cottage.”

He scrubbed his face, something I hadn’t seen him do in so long that I’d forgotten about it. “Look, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been an asshole?—”

“Don’t apologize. I understand.”

His eyes scrunched, and he studied me.

“What?”

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