Page 28 of Her Saltwater Cowboy

She exhaled, a shudder flowing from her. “I went to visit my mom. She’s in a care facility nearby.”

He blinked.

“I’ve never really mentioned it to anybody, so please?—”

Chance straightened, chagrined at his nosiness. Clearly, this was a private matter. “It’s your business. I’m sorry she’s not well, but it’s not my place to pry. You don’t have to tell me a thing more, you know.”

She didn’t move, didn’t attempt to get away. Instead, Willow contemplated him, shadowy questions playing across her face. Quiet stretched between them, the afternoon raining down light. In the distance, a hawk called out, faint and melancholy.

“She’s been there a while,” Willow said, finally. “They think she has dementia. That part’s, um, pretty new.”

Chance shifted, a memory blazing through his mind. “That’s rough.”

Willow lowered her gaze. She drew circles in the hard dirt with the toe of her sneaker. There was resignation in her voice. “Life wasn’t easy for her even before she got sick, but now”—She shook her head—“sometimes it feels rather impossible.”

“Does she recognize you?”

“You know, yes, she usually does. Not always my name, but she trusts me.”

“That’s something.”

“Right now, it’s everything.”

The weariness in her voice sounded familiar. It went deeper than fatigue. It was the kind that came from watching someone you love slip away one day at a time.

Like the kind he had avoided. He bit the inside of his cheek and attempted to brush away lingering guilt.

“It’s okay.” Willow turned her gaze to the pasture, where fresh green shoots of grass had begun their stretch upward. She made the move so abruptly that it almost felt like she’d done it on purpose.

Maybe she didn’t like talking about the hard things. Like mothers who were sick.

He trained his eyes on that pasture, too, rather than let them land on her face, where his gaze would likely stay. “After my mom died,” he finally said, “I used to come out here.” He pointed. “Right out to that fence line. I'd sit there over on that top rail, waiting.”

She kept quiet a beat, then softly asked, “What were you waiting for, Chance?”

“I was waiting for her voice to come back to me.”

Willow turned, surprised.

“She could be so loud.” He laughed when he said it, though it still hurt. Sang while she worked. Always humming. I didn’t take it too well when her sickness took a turn. Took off for school, believing if I weren’t here to see all the pain, then it never happened.”

“We all do that sometimes. Avoid the hard things.”

“Yeah, well, I said I would come back home, but”—he shrugged—“she passed before I ever did.”

His voice dropped. “I think that’s why I get so twisted up around Ace. Then again, he forgave Rafael like it cost him nothing. Like that kind of grace was easy. But when I left—when Mom got sick—he didn’t say a word. Not ‘go chase your dreams.’ Not ‘stay.’ Just silence.”

“And you’ve been carrying that silence like a verdict ever since.”

I abandoned her when she needed me.”When Ace needed him.

Willow’s face softened. “You never meant to leave her behind or make her feel abandoned. I bet if you told all this to Ace, he would say the same thing.”

“Selfishness isn’t usually planned.” He pressed a hand against the throb in his neck, guilt rising like tidewater. “I failed her. Ace knows it. I know it.”

“Chance …”

“That sound in your voice sounds an awful lot like pity.” He shrugged. “Listen, I’ve made my peace with myself.”

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