Page 19 of Older Cowboy

They shot the breeze for a few minutes before Paddy asked the question Cody knew to anticipate.

“Are you coming back to the city yet?”

Paddy liked to tease him like this despite knowing what his answer would be. Cody strongly suspected that his friend sincerely wanted him to come back permanently even though he’d explained to Paddy that he likely wouldn’t be back anytime soon. If ever.

“Afraid not, old friend. Job’s too good, and I like it here. Also, I really like one of the local women I’ve met, even if she’s not reciprocating. Apparently.”

“Ah, it’s like that, is it?”

“Exactly like that.”

“Well, tell me what’s going on.”

Cody did, and merely pushing the words out of his head and across the airwaves helped him put this in a better light.

“She’s ghosted me, and I don’t know why.”

“You can never tell with stuff like that. How long’s it been since you contacted her?”

“A week.”

“Try again. One last time. Anything more could come across as hounding her, and you don’t want to do anything that reeks of desperation.”

“I know that, you jerk.”

Cody resented that a bit. He wasn’t some wet behind the ears kid. But then, Paddy loved to get his goat, especially when it might free him from sliding into a downward spiral. After his divorce from Stacey, he’d tumbled down into a depression for a while that his friend had spent months helping him out of.

Not that they ever talked about any of that.

“You have access to any of her friends?”

“Not really. Though my coworker is the husband of her friend.”

“Might try getting through to her that way.”

Now that might just turn out to be a good idea.

* * *

Zeke didn’t seemto agree, however.

“Look, I think you and Erika should keep this between the two of you.”

“Me, too,” Cody couldn’t keep from snapping. “But she’s not letting me. I need some help here, and you could talk to your wife, find out what’s going on with Erika.”

“I don’t know.” The thing was, Cody knew that Zeke wasn’t saying this to be a pain. The guy might be extraordinary when it came to things like engineering, but he didn’t happen to be especially skilled with people.

Cody would rather not use this particular card, but in this case, he felt he had no choice.

“Come on, Zeke. You asked me to be in your wedding, but you won’t assist me with this one little favor?”

It was a low blow. Well, a bit of one, anyway. He knew Zeke had asked him to be his groomsman only because Callie had wanted the wedding party to be even. He and Zeke had become friendly acquaintances during his short time on the ranch, so it’d been Cody that he’d gone to, acting uncomfortable the whole time.

But as tacky as it felt to use this as leverage, Paddy had hit the nail on the head. With every day that passed with radio silence between him and Erika, Cody felt more and more desperate. At this point, he really needed to know if she was cutting him off. If she had decided to end things before they ever got off the ground.

Zeke blew out a breath that sounded more like a huff of annoyance than a sigh. “Fine. I’ll ask Callie about Erika. But I can’t make any promises.”

“That’s fine. And thank you.”

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