Page 47 of His Cowboy Heart

“Flynn, where’s your phone?” I asked as calmly as I could. The mere thought of losing Flynn to another heart attack made my body go cold. Even if I called 911, it would take an ambulance forever to reach the ranch. At the same time, trying to race down the side of a mountain in the dead of night to get him to the hospital sounded like an even worse plan.

I began searching Flynn’s pockets for his phone. “Stay with me, baby. I’m going to get us some help, okay?”

He closed his fingers over my wrist just as I located his phone and began pulling it from his pocket.

“Flynn, I need to make the call,” I said as whatever calm I’d managed to maintain went up in smoke.

“No,” Flynn said with a shake of his head. “Panic attack,” he choked out.

I climbed off his lap and knelt in front of him.Thiswas a fucking panic attack?

“How do you know?” I asked without thinking. The man could barely speak and I wanted him to try and explain how he knew it wasn’t another heart attack. “Are you sure?” I questioned even as I began running my palms up and down his thighs in the hope of providing him any kind of comfort that I could.

Flynn nodded.

“Okay,” I said more to myself than to Flynn. “Panic attacks can be managed,” I murmured as I tried to figure out the fastest way to bring him some relief. I needed to get him to slow down his breathing.

I grabbed Flynn’s face in a less than gentle grip. “Look at me, Flynn. I want your eyes to stay on mine unless I tell you to close them, got it?”

Not giving him a chance to respond, I ordered, “I need you to try to slow your breathing. Hold your breath when I tell you to and keep your eyes on mine while I count. Hold it.” Flynn struggled through several stops and starts, but when he finally managed to hold his breath for more than a couple of seconds, I counted out loud to ten and then told him to breathe out. I began counting again, going only to five before I told him to breathe in.

It seemed to take hours before I saw even the slightest improvement. I kept adding a few seconds to each countdown until Flynn was no longer gasping for air. His fingers had been wrapped around my wrists the entire time. I’d likely have bruises by morning, but I didn’t care in the least. The fact that he had clung to me that hard was just further proof of how helpless he must have been feeling as he struggled to breathe.

“Okay, baby, you can close your eyes now,” I said when Flynn’s breathing finally evened out. “I want you to think of the wolves,” I added. “Think about those babies and the way their parents watch over them. Remember how untouched those wolves were? Their natural habitat keeps them all safe.Youkeep them safe by making sure the human world will never hurt them.”

I kept talking even after Flynn’s death grip on my wrists eased. I prattled on endlessly about the wolves. By the time he had released my wrists altogether, I wasn’t even sure of everything I’d said. Probably a lot of bullshit that I’d just strung together.

“Stay here,” I said. “I’m just going to the bathroom to get you something to drink.” Since I was too afraid to leave Flynn long enough to run to the kitchen which was almost right next to his room, I cleaned out the plain little cup that was meant to hold his toothbrush and then filled it with water. I also dampened a hand towel with cold water and then took both back to the bed. Flynn was still hunched over, but his breathing was normal and his body was relaxed.

“Here,” I said as I handed him the water. I sat down next to him on the bed and draped the hand towel over the back of his neck and held it there.

“I can fix this, Jules,” Flynn murmured. “I promise. I’ll figure out how to fix it?—”

“Flynn, sweetheart?—”

“I can’t lose you,” he continued. “I love you so much?—”

“Flynn—”

“They’re manageable. I called my doctor in New York after the first time?—”

Since Flynn wouldn’t let me finish a sentence, I did the only thing that I knew would distract him long enough for me to get a word in. I kissed him.

Caught off guard, it took him a second to catch up and then he was kissing me back. I kept the kiss as tame as I could, despite Flynn’s attempt to deepen it. “I get to talk now, okay?” I said when I forced myself to end the kiss.

Flynn looked dazed, but he nodded.

“Good,” I said. I couldn’t keep from touching him, so I settled for running my fingers along his ear, skimming my nails gently over the sensitive spot just behind the upper part of it.

“First off, I need to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating a second ago because the rest of what I have to say is going to depend on whether or not I heard you right.”

Flynn smiled.

It was another one of those moments that I knew I’d remember forever. I suspected I’d be collecting a lot of memories like that for the next fifty or sixty years.

“I love you, Jules. More than you’ll ever know.”

My heart flip-flopped like a fish out of water. “I love you too, Flynn.”

---