“It is.” Darren watched the emotion play across Cody’s face. “You and Wade should come with me next time I go.”
“How often do you go?”
“Whenever. There’s not a schedule.”
Cody started nodding. He sipped his coffee. “I’d like that. I sure do miss my mom sometimes. But she’s got herself a new husband and a new life, and Wade and I just don’t fit.”
“I’m sure that’s not?—”
“So I’d like to go next time,” Cody said over him, his eyes sharp.
Darren nodded, a wicked thought occurring to him. “All right. But first you have to tell me what’s goin’ on with you and Shiloh Davenport.” He sat back in his seat as horror and then resignation flashed through Cody’s eyes. “Corey’s gonna get the whole story out of you anyway. Probably during the first dinner. She’s gifted like that.”
“Maybe I don’t want to go then,” Cody mumbled.
Ben called Darren’s name, and he gave the other cowboy one last look before saying, “Thank you for bringing Ben into town,” and going to join his brother.
“Rae’s okay,” Ben said. He’d wiped his face and steeled his shoulders. “The doctor said I can go back and see her now. She’s asleep and probably will be for a while.”
“What happened?” Darren asked as they squirted hand sanitizer into their palms and followed the doctor down a sterile hall.
“Broken leg,” he said. “They took her into emergency surgery, because they thought she had some internal bleeding, but she doesn’t. She’s okay.”
“And the baby?”
“Distressed,” the doctor said over his shoulder. “But stable.”
Darren put his arm around Ben and squeezed his shoulder. “That’s great news, brother.”
Ben nodded and stepped to the doorway the doctor indicated. He drew in a deep breath and entered the room. Darren followed, touched by the gentle and loving way Ben held Rae’s hand and bent over to press a kiss to her forehead.
He’d seen so many examples of love in his life, and he tilted his chin toward the ceiling and simply thought,Thank you.
A commotion behind him made him turn and check out the doorway. “Uh, Ben? I think Missy’s family just arrived.” And at the front of the loud, Italian-looking mob, strode Missy herself.
“I’ll take care of them.” Darren slipped into the hall and closed the door behind him. “Hey, Missy, she’s okay.” He held up both of his hands in placation, glancing at the doctor for help. But he simply looked like he’d just witnessed a terrible crime.
“Let’s go out into the waiting room,” Darren said.
“I want to see her.”
“She’s asleep. Ben’s with her. She needs to rest.” He shot a glance at the doctor, silently begging him to say something. “For the baby.”
That got Missy moving in the opposite direction, and where she went, her family followed, so Darren led her back to the waiting room like the Pied Piper. Cody jumped to his feet and scanned the large crowd, shock covering his exhaustion.
Darren’s phone went off, but he couldn’t pick up Farrah’s call right then. By the time he wrangled the crowd, told the story, and sent everyone home, the clock read almost midnight. He stuck his head in Rae’s room to find Ben curled up beside her in the narrow hospital bed.
He opened his bleary eyes and gave Darren a half-smile. “I’ll check on you tomorrow,” Darren whispered before slipping out.
He called Farrah from his truck, but she didn’t pick up. He knew she started early in the greenhouse, and instead of going all the way home, he went back to the Bybee’s.
Neither Jim nor Corey was awake, but he tiptoed up the stairs and collapsed into a bed in one of their spare bedrooms where he’d taken a Sunday afternoon nap before. His dreams were filled with red and blue police lights, tanks of tilapia, and the caramel-blonde hair of Farrah.
chapter
twelve
Farrah could watchDarren sleep for hours. His handsomeness was only enhanced by the lack of cares, the unconsciousness of his mind. But Corey hadn’t sent her up here to watch him sleep.
