Grumpy Cowboy (Single Dad Collection)

He’s a tough, rugged cowboy who can literally handle having his knee shredded in a bronc riding accident. When he makes the decision to expose himself to me emotionally, I know for certain it’ll need to be on his own terms.

“How are you and Joey doing?” I ask instead of calling attention to anything else.

“Better now,” he says simply, and I close my eyes to keep myself from saying something I know it’s not my place to say. Still, the emotion of what he and Joey must have been going through, all alone in that truck with no information or comfort, is enough to spill a single, fat tear from the corner of each of my eyes. “We should be there in about an hour or so, and I’m hopin’ Joey’ll keep sleepin’ until we get there.”

I don’t question how fast he’s been driving that has enabled him to shave nearly a third off his travel time, though the impulse to do it is strong. Hopefully, now that I’ve given him an olive branch of news to hold on to, he’ll take his time for the rest of the drive.

“I’m glad she managed to pass out, but how are you doing? I know you must be exhausted after how busy the last couple days have been.”

“I’m all right,” he insists. “Tired but wired. You don’t have to be worryin’ about me. Just…let me know if anything changes with my dad, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. And anything you need, just call me back, okay? Even if it’s just a question you think of that you’d rather not wait to have answered. I’ve got your mom’s phone on me, and I’ll keep it where I can feel it vibrate.”

“Thanks, Leah.”

As silence breaks out, and the sounds of the road and Rhett’s steady breathing become all I can hear, I consider mentioning the moment that was almost a kiss.

A flash fantasy of his hands tangled back in my hair and his lips against mine hits me squarely in the chest and holds it, making a slow burn roll all the way down to the space between my legs.

I bite hard into my lip to keep myself from moaning audibly, and I almost have to slap myself silly as Rhett’s voice comes back over the line.

“Leah, you still there?”

I swallow hard, praying my voice will come across as a fraction of normal. “Y-yes. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, well…I guess I’m gonna concentrate on drivin’. And I’ll see ya when I get there.”

“Of course,” I agree. “I’ll let you know if I get any other updates.”

“Thanks, Leah.”

“Safe travels, Rhett.”

I pull the phone away from my ear as the line goes dead, and then out of pure reflex, pull it in tightly to my chest and think back to the kiss again.

My mind races in a million different directions, but at the end of it all, I have but one, resolute thought.

I want it—the missed opportunity.

And for the first time since our almost kiss happened, I consider the possibility that it might not come back around again. The prospect of what that might leave me with is downright terrifying—unrequited love…or lust, at the very least.

I mean, what will I do then? What if he decides it wasn’t a good idea after all?

July 4th, Sunday

Rhett

The room is quiet other than the infrequent beeps of some machine, and the smell is chemical in nature.

I know for a fact that taking a man straight from the middle of a two-thousand-acre ranch and setting him in the middle of a hospital is bound to make him feel like a fish out of water, but even if that weren’t the case, I don’t think I could ever feel comfortable here.

Leah, though, as I saw in the hall when I left Joey with her to sleep, appears to have zero unease about the hospital. Her posture is relaxed, her eyes are calm and assured—this place that feels so foreign to me, to her, feels like a slice of home.

I have to imagine, then, that upon arrival at Shaw Springs, maybe she felt a little bit like I do now—like the world around her was a strange and uncertain place and like everything she’s ever thought she knew to be true was maybe only true part of the time.

I lean forward and rest my forehead on the side of my dad’s bed, clasping my hands in front of my face as he sleeps. I’ve been here for the last three hours, waiting for him to wake up and tell me you’ve got a hell of a lot of growin’ up to do. My mom has been in and out of the room, but for her, sitting around and waiting felt like giving in to what could have been.

It’s funny how something like this makes you appreciate so much you never thought you could—things that, at one point, you outright hated.