Page 40 of Older Cowboy

He’d been standing looking out the window into the Denver skyline lighting up the darkness. Adrenaline and concern had them all remaining on their feet. Since she couldn’t unequivocally promise him that Boone would be fine, she simply rubbed oblong patterns into his back. Up and down. Up and down.

Gabriel reacted by pacing the length of the nearby hallway. He was on his phone, but whether he’d been looking up medical scenarios or texting someone she couldn’t determine. Either way, he seemed flustered.

An hour passed, then after another fifteen minutes elapsed, a surgeon appeared. “Stiers family?”

“That’s us,” Cody said, hurrying over and tugging Erika with him. She allowed this. If he needed moral support, she’d do all she could to give it to him. Gabe, too, since he’d rushed from the corridor, as well.

“He’s stable, and we’ve sealed the injury. He’ll have to take it easy for a couple of weeks minimum and be dutiful about his wound care, but his prognosis is good.”

“When can we see him?” Gabe asked.

“He’s resting now. Probably in a couple of hours. I’ll have someone come get you.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Cody thanked the man, but then turned to Erika.

“That means he’s going to be okay, right?”

“Yes,” she reassured him. Barring any postoperative complications. Not that she would mention those. It would just upset them both again.

“Oh, thank heavens,” Gabe uttered from beside her, and it seemed so natural to embrace him that she did. He accepted it without question. It’d been a harrowing few hours.

When an orderly came to escort Cody and his son to visit Boone, Erika stayed put. She knew there would likely be limited space inside his room, and that the patient didn’t need some stranger in there staring at him.

She didn’t know if it was because this had been the first moment she’d had to herself or basically because she was now sitting here in the quiet, but it struck her how dangerous this incident had been. If the skate had gashed him any deeper or across his throat or eye, the outcome he could be facing might be very different. In fact, he might not have had an outcome that left him alive at all.

It was a sobering thought.

Erika knew from experience that a life—even that of a seemingly healthy young person—could be snuffed out in an instant. She knew as a nurse and as a widow. Yet something about all this supercharged her realization that waiting around because of fear wasn’t wise. No one knew how long they had on this Earth. And to not reach out and live life to its fullest was foolish.

Wasteful.

At thirty-seven, she felt this more than ever. And Cody, he was nearly fifty. She’d spent so much of her existence looking backwards instead of forward. So, if she wanted to be with Cody, she should just do it. Waiting would provide her with nothing.

That was why by the time that Boone was out of the woods and the three of them had checked in to a nearby hotel to get some shuteye, she’d made her decision. She delayed only until their week’s visit to Colorado was finished and Boone on the mend enough to be grumpy about having to stay bedridden.

Her moment with Cody came once Gabe had left on his own plane to return to California. They were there on the tarmac waiting to take off on their flight to Montana when she turned to him.

“We’ll land at 3pm, correct?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Something like that.”

“I know we need to rest up and recuperate a little, but tomorrow, will you come over?”

“Come over to pick you up, you mean? You want to go on a date tomorrow?”

“Date, yes. Go out, no. I’d like to have you over for dinner tomorrow. At my place.”

“Seriously?” he blurted, as if unsure if he’d heard her. His eyes were a bit bloodshot. Sleep had been difficult to come by for all of them while in Denver.

She took his hands in hers. “Seriously.”

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

Cody felt honoredto be inside Erika’s home as she buttered bread for their dinner. She’d told him multiple times that she wasn’t much of a cook, but that no one could mess up a crockpot meal that literally only had five ingredients.

“Or at least, I’ll try not to,” she stated, looking sheepish. “Goulash is goulash.”

“I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.” And he wouldn’t complain even if it wasn’t. Being invited here felt surreal to him. She’d been acting unusually open toward him since Denver. Unless that was all in his imagination, which he hoped it wasn’t. “I’m not a great cook, either, I think I’ve told you.”

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