Page 19 of Love Me Again

When she finally arrived—long after Boone should have been out at the stables helping dig out of things, not that his leg was up to it—she didn’t say anything to him. About where she’d been or where he should be.

She just swept into the kitchen, noted him there at the table, then crossed to the coffee machine and started to make a new pot.

“So, what have you been up to this morning?” he asked, congratulating himself for adopting the same tone she might have used if it was three in the morning and he was sneaking up to his bedroom smelling like beer and cigarettes.

She looked over her shoulder at him, a faint glimmer of amusement in her eyes as she was no doubt remembering the same thing. But her mouth was in a firm line, and her words were pointed. “I just brought Josie some things to help her with her stay.”

“Mom…”

“She’s a very nice girl.”

He hunched a little, because even though Mom said it like an observation, it felt like an admonition.

“She is,” he muttered.

Silence settled over them, except for the sound of the coffeemaker percolating. When it was done, Mom poured two mugs of coffee. She put one in front of him, then took the seat next to him with hers.

“So, why don’t you tell me why the hell you never told us about her. Because after having a nice breakfast with her, I cannot for the life of me understand what on earth happened.”

Boone didn’t pick up the coffee. He just stared at it. “And if the answer sucks?”

“I want the sucky answers over no answers, Boone. I always have.”

Boone didn’t think that was at all true. Not always. But maybe now… He inhaled. Let it slowly out.

Things were different now. He could recognize that a lot of that was just the maturity born of years and failures and having to crawl back home, bruised and battered, whether he’d wanted to or not. And then, somewhere over the past year and a half, coming to the decision to stay.

That was his decision, wasn’t it? Shane had told him he needed to find a reason to go or stay, not just sit around hoping for something to go right. And sure, if this surgery fixed things, he planned on going back to the rodeo for a bit—but he understood mortality now, and it wouldn’t be—couldn’t be—forever.

He’d come to accept that beyond a potential return to the rodeo, beyond proving to himself that maybe he could take care of Josie, if he could get healed up, there had to be something on the other side.

Was it really the Tyler Ranch? Part of him couldn’t fathom anything else.

And the rest of him couldn’t fathom any kind of future ranching.

“We met at the rodeo,” Boone said, stiffly, his voice hoarse.

It was his mother’s surprise, so clear and evident on his face, that maybe spurred him on. She’d expected a bigger fight from him. She thought she had to go to Josie to get answers. He understood why she was surprised he might engage with her question after years—maybe decades—of never explaining himself to his mother.

Which he supposed was why he, perversely as always, gave her what she wanted.

Or maybe he could admit, all mixed up from Josie’s appearance, he just wanted to tell his mother in the vain hopes she would know how to fix this mess he’d made.

“Her dad was a vet who traveled the circuit. When we first met, she was finishing up her degree to become a vet too. He was just getting done with his cancer treatments. His second round of cancer. I found out later he’d had it the first time when she’d been in middle school.”

“Poor thing,” Mom murmured.

And maybe she’d understand. Maybe if he led with that important fact and truth—that she had indeed been a poor thing whether she considered herself one or not—Mom could understand why he’d done what he’d done.

“I’d come to talk to her dad, but she was there and…”

Boone could still remember that moment with a clarity he had for very few moments in his life.

The first Christmas without Dad when he’d caught Mom sobbing in the dark kitchen…then tiptoed away before she saw him.

The first time he’d punched Shane in anger—and had actually done some damage.

The first time he’d been thrown from a bull.