“What do you mean?”

“He left the day after he got out of the hospital. It isn’t unlike him, but…”

“Finish your sentence,” Bree insisted.

“He usually checks in by now, and he hasn’t. My parents are worried sick. So am I, to be honest.”

“Why would he leave? Doesn’t he care how Blythe is? For Christ’s sake, it’s his fault she’s here.”

Blythe winced. It had been an accident. It wasn’t Tucker’s fault. She almost said so, but stayed quiet. She wanted to hear what Jace had to say if he continued.

“That’s why he’s gone. It’s the second time this has happened.”

“Come with me,” she heard Bree say. Blythe wanted to stop them so she could hear the rest, but something told her it was a story she didn’t want to hear. Instead, she turned her head and went back to sleep.

Blythe was going home, but she’d be back in a week for surgery on her arm. Not long after, they’d operate on her leg. It had been explained to her more than once, but she was too groggy from the pain meds to understand much of what they were telling her.

Instead of going to the house in Palmer Lake, the one she’d planned to share with Lyric, she went to her parents’ house. She felt bad, but with everything she still had in front of her, she’d need their help.

Every morning, her parents pushed her to do physical therapy, which she hated. When Bree was with her, she’d let her slack off. Bree would spend the hour talking instead of making her do her exercises.

“You have to have surgery again anyway,” she’d say. “You can do the physical therapy after.”

Renie visited, but she didn’t bring Willow with her. She was afraid the little girl would be too rambunctious.

“You could stay longer if you brought her. As it is, you have to leave an hour after you get here.”

“I’ll bring her next time,” Renie would say, but she never did.

Lyric, who had settled into the house in Palmer Lake by herself, came to see Blythe almost every day. She was able to do some RodeoChat work, until either the pain got so bad that she couldn’t concentrate anymore, or she’d take something for it that made her groggy.

Jace came to see her almost every day, too. She never asked him about Tucker. She had no idea what he’d wanted to talk to her about before the accident, but it didn’t matter now. As he had before, he left. She didn’t blame him for the accident, but it hurt that he didn’t care whether she was okay or not.

“How about a movie today, maybe get some lunch afterwards?” Jace tried to get her to go out, get some fresh air, but she didn’t feel up to it. Until her leg healed more, she had to use a wheelchair to get around. The cast on her arm went all the way from her shoulder to her wrist. It was uncomfortable, and it made her miserable.

It didn’t seem to matter to Jace. He took her bad moods in stride, which only made her more irritated with him.

“Listen, you don’t have to come see me. I’m fine. Aren’t you supposed to be out, chasing girls on the rodeo circuit or something?”

When he laughed, Blythe wanted to punch him.

“Billy and I will be headin’ out soon enough, and we’ll be chasin’ eight seconds more than girls, darlin’.”

“Billy maybe, but you can’t convince me you aren’t gonna be hooking up with a buckle bunny or two.”

“You been talkin’ to Lyric or somethin’?”

As a matter of fact, she had. And it was Lyric who’d asked her why Jace was hanging around so much.

“You two together again?”

Again? No, they weren’t together again, because they’d never been together in the first place. How could Lyric even ask her that? She’d had sex with Tucker, for God’s sake. And honestly, being around Jace was becoming harder and harder. It hurt to look at him because, obviously, he reminded her of Tucker. They were twins.

Whenever she thought about him, she got angry, and then she’d take it out on Jace. The meaner she got, the nicer he was. When he left, he’d kiss her forehead, or her cheek, and it drove her crazy.

“I don’t want you to visit me anymore,” she would tell him at least every few days.

It never stopped him. He might take a day or two off, but then he’d be back, as though nothing had been said between them.

Tags: Heather Slade Cowboys of Crested Butte Romance
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