But healed she had. Almost all the way now, though Tarr caught her limping for a couple of steps sometimes, when she first got up from a table or couch.
His alarm went off, because Tarr did everything by alarms. Then he wasn’t late, and he didn’t have to think about anything further out than the moment he lived in.
After silencing it, he grabbed his cowboy hat from the hook by the door and walked out into the chilly November air, boots thudding softly on the steps of the RV. The sun had turned weak as they moved into winter, and just because Tarr had lived through a Colorado winter before didn’t mean he enjoyed it.
He slid into his truck, started the engine, and turned the heat on full blast. The RV hadn’t held heat worth a darn since the first snowstorm, and while he could make do, he didn’t particularly enjoy wearing a beanie to bed, pulling on down puffy pants, and layering a feathery sleeping bag over the one he slept in.
“I need a more permanent solution to my shelter problem,” he said as he glanced over to the construction site currently covered in white, opaque plastic sheeting. The bad weather thepast week or so had stalled the progress on his cabin build completely, and it hadn’t been going well before that.
Sighing, he drove away, putting those problems in his rear-view mirror for now. Nothing to do about them on Thanksgiving, though he did consider calling a nearby hotel and getting a room there for the next month.
Then, he’d have access to a hot shower any time he wanted, and Tarr could admit he’d already scoped out the hotel options close to the farm where Tuck worked with rodeo stars and Tarr trained animals for them to use.
He turned onto the gravel road that led to the far edge of the property, where Briar’s cabin sat tucked back against a patch of pines. It wasn’t much, but it was homey—one of the original structures on the ranch from way back when—and Briar had made it her own in the time she’d lived there.
He’d been inside that house more times in the past few months than he’d expected. Starting the night of the coyote attack, when he’d dropped everything and sprinted to the barn because she’d called him.
Him.
Not Tuck. Not Bobbie Jo. Not anyone else who worked with them at the facility.
Him.
And from that moment on, it had beenhim, whether she liked it or not.
He’d shown up at the hospital and sat outside her room until they let him in. He’d brought Wiggins in to visit when she was missing her dog so bad it broke his heart. He’d run to the pharmacy for her meds, brought groceries when she couldn’t stand upright, and helped her into her bed when the pain flared so bad it left her shaking.
He’d been there when she couldn’t sleep.
When the nightmares came.
When her hand trembled too hard to hold a coffee cup, and when she finally—finally—walked across the barn without needing to lean on a wall or brace herself against a railing.
And through all of it, she kept trying to keep him on the outside of the walls she’d so clearly built around herself.
But he wasn’t going anywhere.
Not tonight.
It was Thanksgiving, for crying out loud. No one should be alone on Thanksgiving.
Tarr pulled into her driveway, eyed the front windows, and killed the engine. The porch light was on, and smoke curled lazily from the chimney. He took a breath, climbed out, and walked slowly toward the front porch.
Wiggins would know he’d arrived, so he wasn’t surprised to hear the hound barking inside. He couldn’t hear Briar’s correction, but he knew she’d hiss at the dog to be quiet.
He climbed the steps—the second one from the top sagging under his weight; that needed to be fixed—and moved right into the door to knock.
Tap, tap.
He tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, stepped back, and waited.
Beyond the door, claws scrambled on wood, and that made him smile. When Wiggins appeared in the window beside the door, tail wagging wildly, he chuckled. Oh, how he loved that dog.
And the nights when Briar let him bring Wiggins home with him? Heaven, because the dog slept cuddled up next to him and kept himsowarm.
He’d really like a good woman for that, and of course, Briar was the image in his head whenever he thought about who he’d like to get to know better.
Despite his constant attention to her for the past few months, she’d revealed very little about herself. Tarr hadn’t pushed her either, because God had told him to focus on her physical healing. She’d had a lot of that to do, and Tarr simply prayed that the Lord would give him more time with Briar.
