Losers Weepers (Lost & Found 4)

Rowen hung back, slowing her pace to match the paramedics’. As they guided me through the kitchen, she glanced down at me. An all-too-familiar expression was plastered on her face. It said she was debating whether to rip off my balls and shove them down my throat or kick them so hard they wound up in the same place. Unlike most people, I didn’t doubt Rowen would follow through on whatever choice she arrived at.

“You and I are going to talk,” she said, just barely lifting a brow. “And by talk, I mean I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen, and when we’re done with our little ‘talk,’ you’re going to pull your head out of your ass.”

“You know how much I look forward to our talks, Mrs. Sterling-Walker,” I replied, putting on an overdone smile. “I’ll pencil you into my calendar.”

I could just make out Josie flagging the paramedics down the hall as she opened the door to the guest room I’d camped out in for a few months last year. I had some great memories from that room—more of my good memories had originated from that room than from any other facet of my life—and I wanted to keep it that way. I didn’t want to be swept into it as a cripple to spend my waking and sleeping hours trapped in the same bed I’d made love to the woman I cared about. Putting me in there the way I was now, doomed to watch the world and weather pass me by day after day, felt like desecrating a sacred place.

But before I could request I be put up in the barn instead of this room with all of its memories, the stretcher was maneuvered through the door and guided toward the bed. I closed my eyes and swallowed. When I hadn’t been floating from motel to motel working the rodeo circuit, I’d been camped out at Willow Springs in the hand house, occasionally spending a night or two at Josie’s and my farmhouse. I almost felt like a lifetime had passed since I’d last laid my head on this bed.

Once they had the stretcher out from beneath me, the paramedics glanced toward the door. They wante

d out of there as badly as I did. After the long trip they’d just had, and having had to play third party to Josie’s and my arguing, I couldn’t blame them.

“Thanks for the lift, guys. Just put the bill in the mail, and I’ll sell a kidney or something to pay it off.” I tried to wave, but my hand stayed limp on the bed. Sure, Life, why don’t you just keep taking swings at me while I’m down?

They muttered a couple of good-byes before escaping, their footsteps hurrying down the hallway and out the front door. What I wouldn’t have given to be able to do the same.

“Is there anything we can get you, Garth?” Mrs. Gibson bustled about the room, pulling open curtains and switching on lamps. She hadn’t been able to look at me yet.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a new spine in that apron of yours, would you?” I asked, trying to sound like my usual self . . . my old self . . . the self that never could be again.

She paused in the middle of refolding the blanket hanging over the back of the rocking chair. Patting the pockets of the apron she was rarely seen without when she was in the house, she worked up a smile before finally looking at me. “I’ve found a little of everything hiding out in these pockets, but no spines yet. You’ll be the first I inform if that changes though.”

Since she’d worked so hard to form hers, I returned the smiling favor. “Thanks for letting me crash here for a few days, Mrs. Gibson. I don’t want to be an inconvenience . . .” Though how could I not be when I couldn’t move and had to depend on people for everything besides blinking?

“You’re no inconvenience,” she said, almost sounding like her daughter did when I’d said something that ticked her off. “And you can stay as long as you like. No need to rush out before you’re on your feet again . . .” Her whole face fell as she realized what she’d just said.

I wasn’t sure exactly what Josie had told her parents about what had happened to me, but even if she’d told them nothing, it didn’t take a genius to see me and figure out what was wrong.

“I’m going to get dinner started, I think.” Mrs. Gibson powered toward the doorway, pausing to rest her hand on her daughter’s arm. “Let me know if you need anything, okay? I’m just a shout away.”

From the look of it, she’d been talking more to Josie than to me, but I answered when it looked like Josie was too choked up to. “Thanks again. I appreciate it.”

Mr. Gibson was hovering in the doorway, his head bowed and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his denim coveralls. From what I knew of him, he was probably warring with feelings of wanting to do the right thing for his daughter and the right thing for me, knowing those two agendas could never align now. I didn’t envy Mr. Gibson, not even though he still had the use of his body.

“Sorry I won’t be able to help you replace the cattle gate this week, Mr. Gibson. I had to go and bust my back,” I said, lifting my chin at Jesse. “But this guy here’s a strapping young lad and always eager to prove he’s a saint.”

Jesse didn’t scowl down at me as I would have done if he’d just volunteered me for a few hours of gate removal and installation. Instead, he looked at Mr. Gibson and nodded. “Rowen and I will be in town this next week, so I can swing by and help you with it. No problem. Just let me know when.”

A rush of air filtered from my mouth. “I thought you guys had a busy week coming up? You said you could only spare a few days before Rowen had to get back to finish a piece for her art show next month.”

Rowen stepped up to the plate next, crossing one arm over the other as she approached the bed. When everyone else was looking at me with varying degrees of uncertainty or pity, at least she still looked at me as she had pre-broken back—with pure and utter disdain when I pissed her off. “Yeah, and something more important came up, like being there for a good friend when he needs it. So if you could stop acting like an asshole sooner rather than later, that would be spectacular.”

I didn’t make my eye-roll subtle. “Listen, this homecoming reunion has been a blast, but I just travelled across a couple state lines in a confined space with a guy who was under the impression flatulence is something that should be shared with others, along with his opinions on the whole wolf control issue. That boils down to me getting a whole two and a half minutes of sleep in the past twenty-four hours. I’m bushed. So if there isn’t anything else that requires my immediate attention, think you all could move this powwow into another room? I need my beauty rest.”

I shut my eyes, as if what I’d said was less of a question and more of an order, and one by one, I heard them filter out of the bedroom. A minute later, only one still remained in the room. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who that one was.

“Joze, you look in as rough of shape as I do. Get some rest, okay? There’s nothing you can do by hovering beside my bedside day in and day out that’s going to help me get better or make me more comfortable, so get some rest. Go out and live your life for a few hours. Only one of us broke our backs, so there’s no need to act like we both did.”

For a moment, she was silent, so silent I almost cracked open my eyes to see if I’d been wrong about her lingering behind. She finally spoke. “It’s comments like those that make me wonder if you even know the person you’re in love with.”

My brows pulled together, but I kept my eyes closed. “What does that mean?”

I heard her take a step closer. “It means you rise, I rise; you fall, I fall. You hurt, I hurt; you succeed, I succeed. You break your back—” Her voice caught in her throat for the shortest second. “I break my back. Please stop acting like you’re the only person in the world who’s affected by this. Because you’re not. You’re not alone, so stop acting like you are.”

Her words, along with the tone she’d said them in, were enough to make a ball the size of my fist form in my throat. At exactly the right time, she’d said exactly the right words. In a few short sentences, she’d comforted me more than a person in my condition should have been able to be comforted. The problem wasn’t her—it was me. She knew the right words, did the right things, believed in the right ideals . . . but she was hovering beside the wrong man. I wanted to let her camp out at my side and never leave, but I also knew of no surer or quicker way to crush her spirit than to allow her to stay at my side.

“I am alone, Joze. So why don’t you stop acting like I’m not?”