Page 66 of Roaring Fork Wrangler

I lookedup at the clock like I had every few seconds. They’d been gone twenty minutes, and so far, no one had spotted anything other thanstray cattle. According to the location tracker, they were getting close to the place where the app had last registered Cord.

“I see something,” I heard my brother say a few minutes later.

“Heifer,” someone else, whose voice I didn’t recognize, responded. “Hold up. There’s a lean-to. I’ll take a look,” he added.

“I see a sled not far from it,” said someone else. “It’s half buried. Let’s start digging.”

I had to leave the room. I couldn’t listen any longer. I went into the library, closed the door, rested against the wall where Cord had last held me, and cried.

When I returned to the kitchen several minutes later, Sam was ashen.

“They found him.”

I wrapped my arms around my midsection. “And?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Juni.”

I couldn’t make it back to the library before dissolving into tears again. I sat on the sofa in the living room, pulling my knees to my chest. Why hadn’t I noticed the time sooner? Why had I waited and called him rather than for help? If I had, maybe Cord would still be alive. I felt like a piece of my heart had broken off and waslodged somewhere in my chest. That’s how bad the pain was.

Tears turned into sobs when I thought about every time Cord and I had stopped ourselves from making love, including earlier, in the library. I cried for every time we’d struggled with whether or not it was worth it to get involved with someone whose home was almost two thousand miles away.

From the moment we met, I knew there was something special—different—between Cord and me. And now, he was gone. There were countless things I’d go back and do differently if only I could.

Sam sat beside me on the sofa, both of us crying. He’d been special to her too. He was the first cousin she’d ever known, and while Cord had siblings, no one could take his place, not for her and not for me.

It wasclose to eight before Sam received a call from Beau. When I sat down at the table next to her after the call ended, she said the snow had let up enough for a medical-transport helicopter to land and that Cord had been taken to a hospital in Buffalo. The men who’d found him, plus the emergency team who arrived on the scene, had taken turns doing two hours of CPR,performing emergency life support, and slowly rewarming his body.

“At the hospital, Cord’s body was connected to a machine called an ECMO—extracorporeal membrane oxygenation,” she said, looking down at the notes she’d made. “It’s used as a last-ditch effort to save patients whose lungs and heart are severely damaged.”

“I don’t understand. I thought he was…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

“Apparently, the doctor who saw Cord when he arrived told Beau there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d survive. A few minutes ago, he returned to tell them Cord’s body was warming and his heart was beating on its own.”

“He’s alive?”I gasped.

She reached over and squeezed my hand. “He is, Juni, but the doctor also said that he’s in a coma, and so far, there’s no sign of brain activity.”

“I don’t understand.”

Her voice softened. “I think your dad and Grayson are still there. They may know more than Beau.”

I returned to the library, closed the door, andcalled my father.

“Hey, sweetheart. Have you heard the news?” he asked.

“It’s very confusing. I was hoping you could explain what’s happening.”

He reiterated most of what Sam had relayed from Beau but added that Cord’s recovery thus far was nothing short of miraculous. “They’re optimistic, June-bug,” he said. “As long as they are, we will be too.”

“What about his family?” I asked.

“His brother is on his way here now with Decker Ashford. Grayson offered to meet them at the airport.”

“Dad? Are you still there?” I asked when it sounded as though the call had dropped.

“Sorry, sweetheart. The doctor came out, and I wanted to ask him something.”

“I’ll let you go for now. How long do you think you’ll stay there?”

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