Page 20 of Lucky Cowboy

“Hmmph,” was her father’s reply. Grumpiness wasn’t his customary response, but since he’d so recently had his chest carved open, Val kept that thought to herself.

When a couple of nurses came to take her dad for a scan, Val wandered back out into the corridor in search of Mark. She didn’t find him, and dread that he might’ve had to depart to go back on the job gripped her. The sensation was so visceral, so intense that she wondered at it. Val didn’t know how, but along the way somewhere, he’d become someone important to her. Vital, even.

As much as she hated that he’d likely left, she felt thankful that he’d gone to all the trouble of being here for her dad—for her—in the first place. Huddling alone in the waiting room, she relaxed in a way that she hadn’t until now, not even while sleeping. Mark had driven the two hours from his hometown to be here having never met her dad and without even knowing her all that well.

She didn’t deserve him.

Too full of nervous energy now, Val stood with her back to the people milling about so she could peer out the window. Traveling across time zones meant that she’d gone from Central Standard Time to Mountain, and though that amounted to only an hour’s difference, she still felt as if she was reeling.

So much had occurred in such a few short hours.

And, she remembered, she had a show in San Antonio tomorrow. Tonight, rather. One she hadn’t even thought about cancelling until this very moment. She was hopeless on her own. She really was. Worse, she didn’t even have her phone to contact Mitzi and ask her to do what should’ve done herself.

Then, as if her desperation had summoned him, Mark was there.

Had she imagined him? She blinked, but he kept strolling toward her. Thank goodness.

“Mark, I hate to ask this of you after everything you’ve done…”

“What do you need?”

“Do you have your phone? Mine’s dead and I need to cancel my show for tonight. It’s late notice as it is.”

“No problem.”

She had to Google the number since it wasn’t already in his contacts, and it hit her just how much Mitzi covered for her. She’d have to do something special for her bestie once they were reunited. She owed her big. Huge.

Yet as she got through, the organizer there at the fairgrounds seemed nonplussed. “Oh, yes. I have that information here. Family emergency. No issue at all.”

Mitzi no doubt. Again.

“Everything good?” Mark asked as she gave him back his phone.

“Sometimes I take the people around me for granted, I think.” She glanced toward her father’s room. She’d come shocking close to losing him, and the knot of that possibility filled her stomach, making it ache. “I have to learn to do better by those I care about.”

“I’m certain you’re doing the best you can.”

“Are you always so kind and generous with those you interact with?”

“Considering how often I deal with those breaking the law, I’d have to say no,” Mark answered her, wearing the slightest of smirks. It was attractive on him. Way too attractive.

“I suppose I should avoid becoming a criminal then, huh?”

“That would be helpful,” he teased, reaching his arms out wide as if to embrace her again. Eagerly, she went to him, letting him encapsulate her for a second time. It felt like heaven.

Itwasheaven.

He had this gift for comforting her, yet beneath that was this zip beneath her skin, a zip of awareness and familiarity. She didn’t know where it came from. She and Mark weren’t familiar with one another. Yet it felt as if she’d known him forever.

How was that even possible?

Before the medical staff wheeled her father back to his room, Mark pulled back from her. She could tell how reluctant he was.

“Hate to do this, but I have an early shift tomorrow.”

“I understand. I can’t thank you enough for being here, for being my stand-in.” He’d been plenty more than that.

“My pleasure, Val.”

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