"Cole?" Ryder croaked. His tongue felt like sandpaper. "Where am I?"
"Stone Creek," Cole said, turning a page. "Welcome home, Hollywood."
"I can't be here," Ryder panicked. The monitor beside the bed beeped faster. "I have... I have a contract. Vegas. The rehab center in Texas..."
"The rehab center in Texas costs thirty thousand dollars a month," Cole said calmly. "You have four hundred dollars in your checking account, Ryder. I checked."
"I have winnings," Ryder argued, though the memory was fuzzy. "I have sponsors."
"Youhadsponsors," Cole corrected. He closed the magazine and stood up. "But when you break a femur and tear a rotator cuff in the same eight seconds, the phone stops ringing. The agent dropped you yesterday. The truck was repossessed this morning."
Cole walked to the bed. He looked down at his brother. There was no pity in his eyes. Just the pragmatic assessment of a rancher looking at a lame horse.
"You're broke, Ryder. You're broken. And you're uninsured. So you're here."
Ryder stared at him. The humiliation was worse than the pain. He had sworn—sworn—he would never come back to this house unless he was driving a brand-new dually and holding a goldbuckle. He was supposed to come back as the King, proving that he didn't need the land.
Instead, he had been dragged back like a sack of feed.
"I don't want to be here," Ryder whispered.
"Nobody wants you here," Cole shot back. "I just got the house quiet. I have a wife. I have a life. And now I have a cripple in the guest room."
Wife.
Ryder blinked. "So the rumors were true? You married the city girl?"
"She's not a city girl anymore," Cole said. "And she's the one who set up the bed. So show some respect."
Cole checked his watch.
"She's here," he said.
"Who?"
"The Physical Therapist. I had to call in a favor. A big one. Because nobody else would take a charity case with a history of non-compliance and opioid seeking."
"I'm not an addict," Ryder snapped. "I'm an athlete. I manage pain."
"You manage reality," Cole corrected. "And you're bad at it."
The front door opened. Footsteps in the hallway.
Ryder’s heart hammered. He tried to straighten the sheet, tried to wipe the sweat from his face with his good hand. He didn't want a stranger seeing him like this.
"Cole?" A voice called out.
Ryder froze.
The air in his lungs turned to ice.
He knew that voice. It was a voice from a different life. A voice that smelled of river water and summer grass. A voice he had ignored for six years because hearing it hurt too much.
"In here," Cole called back.
Ryder looked at the doorway. He wanted to run. He wanted to phase through the mattress.
Please, God, let it be a hallucination. Let it be the morphine.
