Page 45 of The Cowboy's Surprise Return

He gestured to the end of the alley, where he’d parked on a cross street. It was already dark out and he shifted closer, ready to steady Jackie should she stumble on the uneven ground in her heels. “Is he doing all right?”

“Do you know where we’re going?”

“I heard he has Alzheimer’s?”

“You can park behind the building,” she informed him as they reached the sidewalk. “There’s a guest spot.”

For visitors. For boyfriends. That idea felt inexplicably good. As if he belonged somewhere. Was expected, even welcome.

Cole gave up trying to get answers about Jackie’s dad and opened the passenger door to his F-150 for her. He’d bought the truck secondhand when he’d returned home, and while it had seen a lot of miles before him, he doubted it had ever met a woman as stubborn as Jackie when it came to things she didn’t want to talk about. Her father must be in bad shape for her to so doggedly avoid the topic. She was like that mare in the ranch’s riding stable that always sidestepped a saddle. What was her name again? Roses?

Jackie focused on something out the side window while he climbed in behind the wheel, and Cole got the feeling she was hiding.

He paused for a second, considering the bouquet of flowers tucked on the dashboard. He’d bought them on a whim on the way to Jackie’s, but somehow this didn’t feel like the right time to give them to her.

Everything at the moment felt too real.

And they weren’t doing real.

Instead, he embraced the silence and reached out, squeezing her hand. Her fingernails were slightly tacky, but she didn’t withdraw, or complain about the fact that he might be messing up her manicure.

“Do your toes match your fingernails?” he asked.

“No, that’s why I’m wearing boots.”

He chuckled. She wasn’t wearing boots, but the jut of her chin told him not to point that out. He pulled onto the street, lifting the fingers of his free hand off the steering wheel to give Sheriff Johnson a casual wave as they passed. Then checked his mirror to see if the officer was going to follow him, call him out on the gradual angling away from the curb he’d made due to his right hand being tangled in Jackie’s. The police truck remained where it was.

“If you ever want to talk about your dad, I’m here.”

Jackie gave a curt nod, her fingers tightening around his.

“I know how it feels to be alone, and it isn’t much fun.”

“You don’t want to hear about that stuff,” she said, lifting her right hand to toy with a slender chain around her neck.

“Maybe that’s what boyfriends do. They dump the crap from their past on you, so you can dump your current crap on them.”

His chest felt tight, this moment seeming surprisingly important to him. He wanted her to trust him, to open up and be her true self the way he had been with her all day. Because he had a feeling that as open and generous as this woman was with everyone around her, there was a secret wall holding the real Jackie inside.

“Let’s just enjoy the evening,” she said tightly, “and not pretend to be more than we are.”

“We’re not friends?”

Her eyes fell on the bouquet.

“Those are for you.” He waited as she tentatively reached for them, drawing them into her arms to inhale their fragrance. “Sorry, they were out of roses.”

“I like these better. They’re free of expectations, and can just be their own beautiful souls.”

“Kind of like you?”

She laughed at his attempt to be sweet, filling the cab with the best sound he’d heard all day.

* * *

Reaching the community barn, Jackie hesitated on the threshold. Cole, coming up behind her, clasped her hand in his. Her mind was still stuck in the phone call she’d had with her father’s physician, Dr. Gomez. He no longer felt the level of care available at Gerry Lee’s nursing home was adequate. And while Jackie had known the day would come, since the center didn’t have a special unit for residents with dementia, she hadn’t been ready for it to come so soon, or for the gut punch situation that had resulted in the call.

Earlier in the day, her father, lost in a world she no longer recognized as this one, had found his way out of the nursing home and had nearly been hit by a car. Luckily, Riverbend was a relatively small town, and the driver turned out to be an old friend of her dad’s, and had brought Gerry Lee back to the facility. She didn’t know what she’d have done if her father had gotten lost in a city where no one knew him, and been left to meander about on his own.

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