Page 96 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late

“Sure,” Trevor said, and Henry passed him his cane so that he could balance on it when he sent the ball back to Palermo.

“You can move around the circle with him,” Henry said. “He should face you and kick it back to you no matter where you go.”

“All right,” Trevor said.

Henry pulled his phone out and said, “Hey, Momma.”

“Henry,” she said, her voice panicked and full of air. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Lone Star,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Grandma,” she said.

The blue sky in front of Henry splintered, cracking with a jagged line right down the middle of it. “Grams?”

“Malcolm just called and said he thinks she had a stroke,” Momma said. “He called an ambulance, and they just arrived when I got off the phone with him. Daddy and I are heading to the hospital right now. We don’t know much; we just want everybody to pray.”

Praying felt so useless in that moment, and Henry wasn’t sure how he could even contribute with something so small and simple as prayer.

“Henry,” Momma said.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m here.”

“I’ll know more when we get to the hospital and talk to the doctors. I don’t want you to panic.”

“You’repanicking,” he said. “How am I supposed to not panic?”

“I’m trying not to,” Momma said, but her voice broke, and that only caused everything inside Henry to break as well.

“I’ll pray,” he said because he didn’t have any other choice.

“I’ll call you again real soon. I love you.” She hung up before Henry could say, “I love you too, Momma,” so he said it to the sky and to himself, hoping the Good Lord would be able to take that message to his momma and daddy and most of all, Grams.

He stood there for a moment, not sure what else to do, until Trevor’s voice broke into his thoughts, asking, “Is everything okay?”

Henry turned toward his friend and said, “Actually, my grandma is on the way to the hospital.”

“Oh no,” Trevor said. He sent the ball back to Palermo and leaned on his cane. “Do you need to go?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “My momma didn’t know a whole lot. She was on the way in. She won’t know for at least an hour.”

“Right. Your ranch is pretty far out.”

“Yeah,” Henry said, surprised that Trevor had remembered such a detail.

“You should still go,” Trevor said with that same authoritative voice he’d used on Palermo.

“I need to talk to Angel.”

“Nope,” Trevor said. “You just go. It’s Saturday, and whatever you’ve got going on today can be covered by somebody else.”

“I have horses to shoe,” Henry said.

“Not today,” Trevor said. “And your day off is tomorrow anyway. We’ll give you whatever you need. This is your family.”

The way he said that—this is your family—as if it came before everything else in the world, struck a major chord insideHenry. He looked at Trevor and said, “You’re right. I’m gonna go. I’ll text Angel.”

“I’ll handle it all. You go. It’s no big deal.”

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