“Closest hospital is two hours away.” He makes a strangled noise in his throat. “I don’t need one anyway. This isn’t the first time I’ve fallen from a horse.”
“Nate—”
“Really, Marcos, I’m fine. Just sore and going to be bruised as all hell probably. But I’m okay.”
“You need to be checked out,” he repeats. I’m too tired to argue, so I just close my eyes and enjoy the way I can feel his heart beating against me. The door opens again, the deep rumble of my uncle’s voice filling the room as he tells Marcos something about a doctor. It’s hard to pay attention, my brain sluggish and eyes too heavy to open.
I must doze off a bit, because the next thing I’m aware of is Marcos guiding me down to the bed. He’s murmuring in Spanish as he lies next to me, tucking the blankets around us until we’re wrapped up like a burrito. I roll over, wanting to face him, and burrow against him.
“It’s okay for me to sleep now?” I ask.
“Yeah. It’s almost seven,” Marcos tells me, switching back to English to answer me. “We’ve been home nearly ten hours.”
I can’t bring myself to get too worked up about this,although the answer shocks me. It feels like Marcos and I have only been snuggled up for an hour or two, not ten.
“Love you,” I mumble, and slip back into sleep.
I wake up warm—face tucked underneath Marcos’ chin and body plastered to his. We’ve never slept this closely before, and my first instinct upon waking is to move away and give him space. Marcos doesn’t like snuggling, and he certainly isn’t going to like the way I’m sweating on him.
“Nate,” he whispers, voice rough and scratchy.
“Sorry,” I say automatically, but his hand smooths down my back the way I might do to a spooked horse.
“You okay?”
“I need to pee, actually,” I admit, and carefully peel myself away from him when he loosens his arms.
I move slowly, rolling over and sitting up, trying to take stock of my body. My chest aches with a constant, throbbing burn that tells me of bruised—possibly broken—ribs. When I rise to standing, pain stabs down the back of my right leg and I wince.
In the bathroom, I close the door and examine myself in the mirror, flinching at the sight of the bruise already coming in black on my ribs. That explains the look on Marcos’ face as he watched me walk to the bathroom, I suppose.
I have to keep one hand on the wall as I pee, pain flaring so violently in my pelvis that I’m surprised there isn’t any blood in my urine. I hate breaking ribs. There’s nothing to do but let them heal, and it’s some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.
Marcos is gone when I return to the room, shivering again even though I was hot barely ten minutes prior. Sliding back beneath the sheets, I carefully sit myself back against the headboard, trying to keep my movement to a minimum.Ifonly I didn’t need to breathe,I think, as my chest aches fiercely. Someone taps on the door and cracks it open.
“Hey, Uncle Jes,” I greet him, smiling and tugging the blanket up over my chest. I’m starting to shake again.
“Hey, kid, how you doing?” He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over a worn plaid shirt, distressed with age. Even from across the room I can catch the smell of leather, as though he just came in from treating saddles in the barn. It’s the way he’s always smelled, ever since I was a little kid following him around during chores. Thinking of it now makes me feel like I’m in danger of crying, so I clear my throat and try for another smile.
“Good. Sorry about all the trouble.”
“Trouble,” he repeats, snorting and shaking his head. “You’ve given us plenty of trouble through the years, that’s true enough. This isn’t one of those times. Just glad you’re okay, that’s all.”
“You called in the cavalry, huh?”
When I’d been riding double with Dean Paulson’s hand, he’d told me every rancher with land near us had riders out looking. I feel a little ridiculous, putting not just my family, but the entire county through that. I was fine.
Jes fixes me with a stern look that is also reminiscent of my childhood. “Of course we did. You know how quickly things go to shit out here. And that storm.”
I nod. That fucking storm. Memories of last night surface—huddled underneath the shelter of the trees, clothes sopping wet and freezing, twigs snapping as the nocturnal animals went looking for food. I shiver. If I’m never cold again, it’ll be too-fucking-soon.
“You did good staying put, though. We knew right where to look for you, come morning.”
I laugh. “Remember when I got lost as a kid? You told me to hug a tree and you’d find me. I always remembered that. It’s easy to get turned around and get yourself more lost—especially in the dark.”
“Exactly. Glad to see you were listening all those times I was talking.”
He smiles at me, before glancing over his shoulder and stepping away so he’s no longer blocking the doorway. Marcos walks into view a second later, arms full of clothes. I’m feeling a million times better than I was this morning when we got back, confusion and exhaustion gone. Now I can see what I missed before.
