I looked around.
For so many years, I’d been desperate to get Nettie here to play for the Cowgirls. Now that the time was here, I felt like I was getting all my prayers answered. I had my girl. A baby on the way. My wife’s job was here. My mom was mostly out of the picture. My life seemed to be working out.
That was one of the last happy moments that I had for a while.
I wish I would’ve soaked it in a little bit longer.
Twenty-Three
The struggle bus should have a loyalty rewards program.
—Nettie to Boone
Boone
“A five-and-a-half-minute mile is pretty impressive for seven months pregnant, don’t you think?”
“I think that conceit doesn’t look good on you,” I teased.
She laughed and held out her hands. “Can I drive?”
I thought about telling her no, but decided to let her seeing as she did it so rarely. Plus, I always thought she looked so damn cute driving my old truck. She had to lean way forward, practically touching the steering wheel.
She eased into the seat and sighed. “I am pooped, though. That was harder than it should’ve been.”
“That was likely easier than it should’ve been,” I pointed out. “I mean, what pregnant person do you know that can run that fast? Hell, I can vividly remember a few of our friends gaining quite a bit of weight when they had kids. You don’t look like you’ve put on any at all.”
“I’ve put on fifteen pounds,” she pointed out as she buckled her belt. “I…”
I don’t know what happened.
One second I was buckling my seat belt, and the next I wasn’t.
I woke next in the hospital unaware of how I’d gotten there.
“Mr. Windsor,” a doctor said as he noticed me awake. “How’s the pain right now?”
Pain?
“None,” I mumbled. “Why?”
He looked pleased. “You were in a car wreck. Do you remember?”
A car wreck?
“What…” Understanding hit me. “My wife!”
“Calm down, sir.” The doctor pushed me back onto the gurney. “You have a lot of damage to your right side. You can’t get up right now.”
“My wife,” I pleaded. “Is she okay?”
The doctor’s grim face told me all I needed to know.
No, she was not okay.
She wasn’t okay at all.
Two days later
