Page 39 of The Cowgirl's Secret Love
It was like having a whirlwind join them, and it was perfect. It was family wrapping themselves around her and Zach in the way her sisters always had.
Which made waiting that much easier. She wasn’t alone.
She didn’t have to be alone.
Bright light stabbedthrough the window. A pulse set off at the back of his skull, the same tempo as the blood drilling through his veins. Finn closed his eyes briefly then tried opening them again, but everything refused to focus.
“Slow down, pal. You’ve got nowhere to go and a long time to get there.”
Finn swiveled toward the voice, and a sharp pain struck. “Shit.”
Raising a hand to rub his neck ended with his arm jerking to a stop after not even an inch.
“Finn.Chill.” A hand settled on his arm, and Zach’s familiar voice buzzed on, a low lilt of laughter in the tone. “Figured you’d wake up swinging. You’re okay. You’re in a hospital bed, and you probably feel like you got hit by a Mack truck. Stop jerking yourself around and ease into it.”
It sounded like good advice, so as tough as it was, Finn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Relaxing even as he did a quick assessment of what hurt and what didn’t.
The first list was a hell of a lot longer than the second one.
When he finally opened his eyes and blinked the world into focus, Zach was sitting beside him, his cocky grin noticeably missing.
“Who died?” Finn asked, his throat raspy and dry.
Zach’s lips twisted for an instant. “Bastard.”
“Can’t get rid of me that easily.” Finn glanced down to take a closer stock of the situation. “Hell, that’s going to make it difficult to finish my dance lessons.”
The bed was bent into a vee, pillows behind Finn propping him until he was almost upright. His left leg stretched under the blankets, but his right one was raised in the air, a half dozen pulleys and ropes propping it into a convoluted position.
His left arm was strapped to the guard rail, IV tubes disappearing to the left of the bed.
A curtain to his right, a window to the left, and a clock on the wall that said nine. “It’s a little bright out for that to be nine p.m.”
“You lost a night,” Zach told him. “You were awake earlier but pretty doped up from the surgery. I’m sure the nurses will be in here to explain stuff, but other than head-to-toe bruising, most of you survived a building collapse really well.”
Finn reached up and ran a hand over his thigh. “And the part of me that didn’t hold up well? Looks like crap.”
“I have been up close and personal with more of your bones in the last twenty-four hours than I ever want to see again.” Zach undid the strap holding Finn’s arm in place then leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “There was some fancy medical term for it, but basically you smashed your tibia hard enough that it decided to try and crawl out of your body. Congratulations. You will now set off TSA security. They installed two metal rods while putting you back together.”
Finn examined his leg again. “Hell of a thing.”
He was obviously doped up enough the pain was a low-level buzz, but the sight of the cast made it pretty clear this was nothing he could walk off.
He glanced back at Zach to find his friend staring morosely at the cast. “Everybody else okay? Karen?”
“The rest of us were fine. So is the kitten you rescued.”
“Kitten?” It had to be the drugs. Finn worried for a moment until the memory trickled back in. “Ollie. She found a kitten trapped in the wall.”
“Karen’s got the creature back at her cottage. It’s too little to be alone yet. She said she’d take care of it.”
The mention of Karen’s name washed the lingering question of how the hell did a kitten get trapped in the wall and replaced it with an image of her face. “How is she? This probably set off some bad memories.”
Finally, his friend smiled. “Maybe, but you can ask her yourself. She was here last night until it became clear you weren’t alert enough to remember a thing. I took her back to the ranch for some shut-eye, and the only reason she agreed was I promised to bring her back for visiting hours.”
“She’s here?”
“Got waylaid doing a task for her sister. She’ll be here in a few minutes.” Zach leaned forward, his gaze intent. “You don’t worry about anything, okay? I’ll keep things rolling at the ranch, but if it comes down to it, screw the challenge. We both know Brandon doesn’t really want to have anything to do with the dude ranch. He just wants money. I bet we can work out some deal to convince him to take funds and leave everything to us.”
