My teeth creak. “Please.”
His knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. “You’re gonna lose that girl if you don’t look after her. And don’t give me shit about not being able to look after yourself. I don’t mean physically. She needs to know you’re there for her. Right now, a fucking heartbeat counts. She’s not saying it, but I will. She’ll walk, and everything you think you have will be gone.”
“Noted. How’d Winnie take it?” I keep my eyes closed and myhands relaxed at my sides. Everything within me screams with either a need for Lanie, or to punch the shit out of West. Right now, I can’t do either of those things, and it hurts. Fuck, everything hurts. The inability to act or react. The need to hold her.
More silence.
I finally crack an eye open.
West’s face closes down.
I raise an eyebrow. Those still work. Kinda.
“See for yourself.” West pulls into the yard, stopping the truck smoothly, his fingers quick on my seat belt buckle.
The door flings open, and a body dives at me, pigtails flying. My arms wind around Sally automatically when she throws hers around me. Winnie’s and Lanie’s cries mingle above a general cheer that sounds like the entire complement of the ranch has turned out.
I wave them down and focus on the hot rock intent on snuggling into my belly. “Heya, Sally.”
“Hi, Rand!” She snuggles deeper. “Mom said you might not come home, but I knew you would. Nothing stops you.”
A laugh rips pain through my lower spine, but I force the sound out anyway. And it feelsgood.
Patting her back, I ease Sally away, West tugging her from the cab to settle her on the ground. I slide gingerly to the dirt, gripping the seat back for support. West helps even when I snarl quietly at him.
Sally holds out her hand. “Uncle Rand?” she asks, her voice quiet, hesitant.
“Yeah, chicken?” I bend down as best as I can without falling on my ass or doing further damage to myself.
She motions me closer. Winnie watches from her place next to Lanie on the veranda.
“I want to ride a bull,” she whispers in my ear, her hands cupped around her mouth.
I laugh again, though less pain is involved this time. “Let’s try you on a poddy calf one day, or maybe a woolly, huh?”
“Okay,” she agrees, bouncing back to Winnie.
“You think she has any idea what a woolly is?” West scratches his chin.
“Not a chance.” I reach out a hand for Lanie, shuffling forward. Her skin glows, the dark hollows beneath her eyes almost gone after a few days’ sleep since I banished her from the hospital.
She slips under the railing on the porch and is at my side in a moment. Her shoulders duck beneath my arm as she wraps herself around me.
“How do we do this?”
West and I show her what the PT demonstrated on me, though with an awkwardness factor the energetic asshole lacked, dammit. I lean a small portion of my weight on her for balance alone, working my legs in short, slow steps.
Slow, excruciating, and beyond frustrating.
But they’re steps nonetheless.
TWENTY-TWO
LANIE
What Can’t Be Undone
Cord’s arm drapes heavily across my shoulders as we totter along the hall. Winnie holds back her formidable vocabulary as he passes her with a weak smile. I’m relieved because I don’t have the energy to support anyone else right now. Just one man. That’s my limit for today, and I’m not even sure I can do this part right.
