Page 106 of Nashville Cowboy
“Because…because maybe it’s too late.” Eve threw the blanket down and started shoving clothes on. Panties. Damp jeans over them. Tee shirt. Socks. Boots. “I’ve got to get to the ranch. The ranch. Can you…can you lock up? H-here’s the keys.”
She didn’t seem to know what she was saying or even thinking. Her only mission was getting to the ranch. Why was her mother at theranch? Maybe looking for Eve, who’d spent far too much time there lately and not enough with her own mother. She would text Hank, the text minimalist, and ask him for details, but better to save time and get herself on the road. In this rain it could take a good thirty minutes or more to get to the ranch.
She wasn’t sure how, but Jackson was dressed and waiting at the door for her. He locked the door to the clinic with the keys she’d given him.
“You can’t think for a second I’m lettin’ you leave here without me.” He dangled the keys to his truck. “And I’m drivin’.”
Eve didn’t answer, just followed him, somehow feeling outside of her own body. The movements were hers, but they didn’t feel natural. As the rain continued to come down, Jackson pulled out onto the street. In rain like this, windshield wipers on the fastest mode hardly did the work of giving a driver much visibility. It was like driving by braille. Or hope. Eve couldn’t see outside to the landmarks of town that were comfort. Routine. She needed a slice of normal. Usually she’d be driving, part of her routine. She’d adjust the mirror, turn on the radio to the country station and hold her hands at two and ten on the steering wheel in this kind of rain. But she had an alpha man taking control of the situation.
Oatmeal.
A lemon scone that Mrs. Hopkins had brought into the clinic as thanks for taking such good care of Pookie, her little Cavalier King Charles spaniel.
Lunch?
Eve hadn’t had lunch! No wonder she’d inhaled that Shady Burger and fries.
“Eve.” Jackson’s strong hand was on her knee, pulling her out of her daze.
Jackson. He was right next to her.
“Did you hear anything I said? While you were getting dressed, I called Mima’s satellite phone and got through. She said your mother’s okay but banged up a little. Fell off a horse, apparently. Hank doesn’t want to drive her anywhere in this rain, so he wanted you to come and take a look.”
He’d called while she was dressing. How long had she taken to get dressed? And she thought she’d been quick.
“She fell off a horse,” Eve repeated.
It happened sometimes, even with experienced riders. Her motherwasn’tan experienced rider. And what on earth had she been doing on a horse? Earlier, she’d told Eve that she was going into town to buy groceries for the week.
“Yeah, baby. She’s okay.” Jackson squeezed her knee, never taking his eyes off the road. “He may have overreacted.”
Eve let out a deep breath, rested her hand on his, and stared at his profile. Jackson always had a way of reassuring her, of calming her fears, when no one else could.
“Drive faster, if you can.”
Chapter 35
Jackson had questions. Quite a few. The first had to do with Eve’s mother, who had apparently been riding a horse. With Hank, or around Hank. Somehow,he’dfound her. How? And where?
His main concern right now, correction, hisonlyconcern was Eve. She’d been in a daze, barely tracking, thinking she was moving but often just staring at a piece of clothing before she slowly put it on. For a moment he’d been worried abouthermore than Brenda. He’d put his hand on her knee to get her attention away from whatever scenario was playing in her head. Then he’d held on to her hand all the way back.
The wind whipped one-hundred-year-old willow trees like they were made out of straw. The sky was gunmetal gray and thunder cracked every ten minutes. Eve didn’t jump quite like she used to when they were younger, and then his chest tightened when he remembered that she only had half of her hearing.
A fifteen-minute drive took forty minutes and Jackson pulled in beside the barn to get closer to the house. He shut the truck off and turned to Eve before she could get out.
“Look at me, baby.” One hand on the nape of her neck, he pulled her close enough to take every other distraction, even the ones in her head, away. “You’re okay.”
“I need you.” Her eyes shimmered with wetness.
“You’ve got me.”
“She…she was there for me after the attack. When I woke up, she was there. She didn’t leave my sideonce.”
Raw, fresh pain hit him as he thought of Eve on that hospital bed so badly injured. Without him.
“Thank God for her.”
“Nothing can happen to her, Jackson.Nothing.”
