Page 73 of Rogue Cowboy
Cole searched his maw-maw for injuries.Her hands were cool and dry in his, and they trembled.She had a bandage on her forehead, and the hand poking out of the sling was bruised, but it had the IV in it.
WTF?He looked at his paw-paw, who lightly squeezed his shoulder.
“She insisted,” he said.“She wanted a free, functioning hand so she could do her makeup and play Wordle and the crosswords and drink her coffee.”
“When I can get it.”His maw-maw rolled her eyes.“Darling, you didn’t need to come home for such a minor incident.”
“Elijah said you’d broken your hip, wrist and three ribs and had a concussion from a fall.”
She grimaced and glared at Elijah who steadily looked back at her.
“Fractured,” she clarified.
“Tomato, tomahto,” Elijah droned, and Cole, who’d felt his stomach had lodged in his throat when he’d received Elijah’s text that his maw-maw had been thrown from a horse, began to settle.
Unfortunately, that gave him time to think about other things—Riley and how he’d left without talking to her.And he’d been too unsettled during the flight to compose a text.His feelings were too riotous to put in a pithy back and forth.They’d texted for years.He wanted face-to-face.Skin to skin.Conversation.
His stomach soured.Still his maw-maw was awake and talking.That had to be good.
She winced, drawing his attention back.
“What can I do?”he asked quickly.
“Pain meds would be good,” Elijah said.
“You’re not too old for me to take you out behind the barn.”His paw-paw snapped gray eyebrows, scrunching like angry caterpillars.
“You’d have to catch me, old man,” Elijah said, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, mouth a thin line.
“Don’t think I can’t, young man.”
Elijah straightened out of his slouch, challenge in every line of his body and eyes.
“I know I scared you, Elijah, and I’m sorry for it,” his maw-maw said soothingly as her husband glowered at his oldest grandson.“But I got a bionic hip now and—who knows—perhaps the fall knocked some sense into me.”She smiled triumphantly like a child getting a math problem correct, and Elijah spun around and strode out of the room, the heels of his boots clicking on the hard floor.
“He feels too much, that one,” his maw-maw said, her startling violet eyes, still vibrant and clear.“You and Elijah are so much alike, Cole.What’s bothering you?”
“Me?”Cole rocked back on the soles of his boots and stared at his maw-maw—maybe she did have some brain damage.“I get a text from Elijah that you were thrown off a horse and on the way to the hospital unconscious and bleeding, and you want to know what’s bothering me?”
She colored prettily and then stroked her fingers through the cowlick on the right side of his forehead, like she had when he’d been a little boy.
“I’m resilient,” she said softly.“Texas tough.”
“Not that tough,” his paw-paw rumbled.“Took ten years off my life seeing you loaded into that ambulance.”
“You were always prone to exaggerating, dear.Surely only two.”She smiled fondly at her husband of sixty years.“At least I hope no more than that.”
Cole’s heart lurched a little seeing their closeness.The love he’d seen in his grandparents growing up had always unnerved him a little.He’d felt like he’d been outside it even as they’d taken him in, comforted him, raised him surrounded by love, ranch and family.
I put myself on the outside.
Scared he’d lose them like he’d lost his parents and brother and sister?He hadn’t wanted to fully fold anyone else into his heart?Had he done that to Riley?Or was she keeping him on the outside?Or had he fallen for her because she was as emotionally unattainable as he was?
Damn.He was beginning to sound like a late-night AM radio show host musing.What had seemed so certain that morning in the trailer—heck even last night when he’d been holding Riley—now felt like it was slipping through his fingers.It filled him with a sense of personal failure and despair.
But did he give up or keep fighting?
He looked toward the doorway, surprised that Elijah hadn’t pulled himself together enough to return.
