“Just kidding, Grandpa. Kind of. That woman is on a mission and she’s exactly like Olivia when she wants something.”
“Relentless,” Red said.
“Yup. She never quits. Unless…” Benny grinned, the sight so good and innocent, it twisted Red’s old heart. Good gravy, he loved this boy.
“Unless Bigfoot shows up,” Red finished for him, making Benny giggle. “The answer is no. No Bigfoot, no snow snakes, no raccoons, no antics.”
Benny looked disappointed, but accepting. “’Kay. Then you can go back to sleep, Grandpa.”
“Good call, Benny-bean.” As he tugged at the blanket and Benny took off, Red settled back into his recliner, thinking about…his purpose.
His purpose was right here—keeping that boy safe, happy, and surrounded by good people who loved him. He just had to figure out how best to do that.
Shambles wasn’t blinking. That was what worried Elise the most.
“Come on, girl,” she murmured, resting her forearms on the top rail of the pen. The barn smelled like hay and animals and the faint metallic tang of the heat lamps. “You’re supposed to be rehearsing for your big debut, not staring into space like a tragic poet.”
The ewe stood with her head lowered, jaw making slow, distracted chews. The left eye, the good one, tracked Elise’s voice. The right eye…didn’t. The cloudy, angry-looking globe had always been unsettling, but ever since the biopsy, it felt like a countdown clock.
She reached through the rail and scratched the rough wool just behind the ewe’s ear. “I got your results,” she whispered. “It’s exactly what that wonderful Dr. Reynolds thought.”
Carcinoma. No more pretending it could be some weird irritation that would clear up with ointment and optimism.
“You are officially a medical case, my darling.”
Shambles shifted her weight with a small snort, looking patently exhausted. Some of the other animals in the barnplayed and chewed on hay, but Shambles seemed dull around the edges, like someone had turned down her brightness.
Elise checked the time on her phone. Wade would be here any minute. They’d talked that morning—the first time she’d called him since he’d been here.
But not the first time they’d talked. The afternoon he left, they’d started—and kept—a running text conversation. He’d been waking her up with, “Good morning, cowgirl,” and the exchange continued on and off during the day and ended late at night. They shared funny memes, told each other about their days, and kept a running chat that neither one seemed to want to end.
He also called her every evening, ostensibly to check on Shambles, and made a plan for him to come back after the biopsy results were in.
They hoped to celebrate, but…not this time.
She didn’t like the lab report, but she sure did like Wade’s instant reaction—he dropped plans he’d had with his uncle to make the hour-plus drive from Park City to Eagle Mountain to do what he could for Shambles.
She blew out a breath and nudged the sheep’s muzzle.
“Would he come if you weren’t sick?” she asked the animal in a breathy whisper. “Maybe. Probably. Who knows? I can’t…” She leaned in to the sheep’s curly fur. “I can’t let my heart go there, Sham. I have to guard it. You understand that, right? I mean, I’m a girl in a wheelchair and he’s…an unattainable dream.”
She could only get hurt or disappointed, right? Yes, he’d go back to Alabama after the holidays, and this would have been a nice interlude and maybe she’d get her first kiss, but she couldn’t…
Then she remembered the look on his face when he revealed that he had known she was in a wheelchair and came to see her anyway. Every time she thought about that, she clung to hope.
A latch clinked near the front of the barn.
Her heart jumped at the same time her hands tightened on the wheel rims, pushing herself back to see who’d come in. She caught his silhouette in the barn door—tall, broad, masculine, delicious, and, oh, man—he was wearing that cowboy hat.
Not fair!
“Hey, there,” Wade’s voice called, easy and warm. “How’s my girl?”
Her heart stuttered. “She’s in pain, I think, but bearing up well.”
He strode down the aisle of the barn, his face coming more in view with each step. He wore a pale blue denim shirt and jeans, the dark puffer vest, and that black hat that sent butterflies into flight from her throat to her belly.
When he reached her, he tipped back his hat, leaned down, and kissed her hair. “I meant the two-legged girl.”
