Page 79 of Roaring Fork Wrangler

I leaned forward. “What happened?”

Gray’s eyes filled with tears.

“Juniper boarded her horse here, in Miss Cena’s stables. She still does, in fact,” said Pete when Gray was too emotional to speak.

I looked between both men, waiting for one of them to continue. When Gray didn’t, his uncle did. “It happened the summer between her junior and senior year of high school. At the time, she was a contender for a spot on the Olympic equestrian team.”

“Her horse got spooked on the approach to a jump and threw her. It isn’t uncommon, except the way she landed…” Grayson put his head in his hands again, and his uncle squeezed his shoulder.

“It was a freak accident, and it was bad, Cord,” said Pete.

Gray raised his head, and his eyes bored into mine. “She was in the hospital longer than you were.”

I didn’t need to hear more. The picture Grayson and Pete painted was clear enough. When Juni told me she understood what I was going through, I’d shut her down, and she didn’t say another word about it. She came to that hospital every day and spent most nights there, and she never mentioned that she’d once been a patient herself. From the sound of it, she’d been in the ICU, like I was.

I got up and walked toward the door.

“She’s gone,” said Gray before I opened it.

“What do you mean?”

“She wanted me to take her home, but I gave her my key instead.”

“You’ve got a black SUV, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but so does Beau.”

“Yours is American.His is German.”

“Yeah. So?”

“She’s still here.” I walked out the door and up to the main house. It took me longer than it should have, which frustrated the fuck out of me, but this wasfinallyabout Juni, not me. Before I got to the porch steps, I saw her. She was sitting behind the wheel of Gray’s vehicle, crying.

As I walked closer, she raised her head, and our eyes met. I hated the hurt and pain I saw reflected in them. I’d done that to the one person who let me off the hook for everything. The one person who’d been patient and understanding and had put her own life on hold to sit with me in a place that held such awful memories for her to cause a panic attack.

I approached the passenger side, heard the lock click, then got in. Thankfully, the SUV was running, so she wasn’t sitting out in the freezing cold.

I turned my body to face her, wishing the damned thing had a bench seat rather than buckets, so I could pull her into my arms. Instead, I reached for her hand. She hesitated, then rested it in mine.

“I’m sorry,” I began.

Her gaze remained on mine, but her facial expression didn’t change.

“As I walked from the cottage here, all I could think was that I hurt the person the most who deserved it the least.”

“I’m fine?—”

“Don’t do that. Iknow. Pete and Grayson told me what happened to you.”

She turned her head and pulled her hand from mine. “They had no right.”

“I agree that it was your story to tell, but, Juni, you didn’t. Why not?”

“It happened a long time ago; it’s no longer relevant.”

“Is that right? So, five years from now, what happened to me won’t be relevant either?” I wished she’d face me again. With every word I said, I felt her pulling farther away.

“What you’ve gone through is?—”

---