Page 52 of Swift and Saddled

Even though it had started to rain, Wes still opened the passenger door for me and made sure I was inside before shutting it and heading to the driver’s side. We were outside for less than ten seconds, and I was already soaked. Water was dripping off Wes’s cowboy hat.

“Let’s go home,” Wes said as he shut his door. As if to emphasize his point, thunder clapped in the distance. He started driving back to the Big House, and the rain hit the windshield harder and harder the farther we got from the job site.

Thunder clapped again—closer this time—and it made me jump. Wes reached his hand across the bench seat and held mine again.

I let him.

He used his thumb to draw soothing circles on my hand, and when he needed to change gears, he brought both of our hands to the gearshift, just like that first day in the truck.

But so much had changed since then.

I watched the rain pelt the windshield. I watched the trees get jerked around by the wind and saw lightning on the horizon.

The truck’s windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain, so I almost didn’t see it when a small brown figure bolted in front of the truck, but Wes did. He swerved, and my head almost hit the window.

He brought the truck to a halt, undid his seatbelt, and slid across the bench seat to me. Before I registered what was going on, his hands were on my face. “I’m so sorry,sweetheart.” His hands moved from my face to my neck to my shoulders, down my arms and back up. “Are you okay?” I nodded. I was fine—I just got jerked around a bit, but no more than I would during rush hour traffic in San Francisco. “I had to swerve. I think that was a calf.” His hands were on my face again. It’s like he was searching me for any sort of injury.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Seriously.” His hands were still searching, so I didn’t think he believed me. “Wes,” I said firmly before I leaned in and kissed his cheek. He froze. “I’m okay. Everything is okay.” I kissed his other cheek. “You said that was a calf that ran out in front of us?”

“I—I think so. I don’t know for sure. I need to check.”

“Okay,” I said. Our noses were almost touching. “Let’s check, then.” At the suggestion of our going back out into the rain together, Wes snapped out of whatever trance he’d been in when he thought I might be hurt.

“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” Before I could protest, he’d pushed open the driver’s-side door and gone out into the storm.

“Oh, like hell,” I said—to no one, since I was now the only one in the truck—and went after him.

The rain was fucking freezing—within a few steps, I was chilled to the bone. Wes was headed toward a small group of trees, and I ran to catch up.

I grabbed his hand—unsure of when I became such a big fan of hand holding—and he immediately turned to me. “I told you to stay in the truck,” he said. His eyes were pleading with me.

“I want to help,” I said, sticking my chin out. “I’m alreadyout here.” I could hear Wes’s sigh over the rain—which was saying something.

“Fine,” he said. He walked into the trees. Wes was right, it was a calf, and we found it after a few minutes. The small brown calf was huddled against the trunk of a tree. Wes approached it slowly and leaned down.

The poor thing was so much smaller than I expected it to be—and it looked so scared. It looked like it was hurt, too, and my heart broke.

“Hey, baby girl,” Wes said softly. “What did you get into here?” It was then that I noticed something—some sort of metal maybe—around the calf’s neck and down its chest.

Barbed wire, maybe?

Wes turned away from the calf and stalked back toward the truck. What the fuck was he doing?

I ran after him. He was not about to turn his back on this baby cow on my watch. Absolutely fucking not.

“What are you doing?” I shouted. I didn’t know if he could hear me over the sound of the storm. He kept walking. “Weston!” God, had his legs always been this long? How was he walking so fast?

Why was he leaving?

When I reached him, I grabbed his arm and turned him toward me. “You can’t leave her there!” I shouted. “She needs you!” I didn’t know where they came from, but there were tears pricking at the corners of my eyes, pushing against them, desperate to fall. “You can’t leave her alone. She can’t be alone. Not in this storm. Couldn’t she die out here?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “Please,” I begged. “Don’t leave her alone.”

Wes’s green eyes were soft as they studied me.

I was crying now—my warm tears mixed with the cold rain as both of them rolled down my face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried, but the thought crossed my mind that I might have been crying for more reasons than just a calf in the storm.

“Please,” I said again.

Wes pulled me to him and held me tight. “I’m not going to leave her, sweetheart. I would never leave her,” he murmured in my ear.

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