Page 72 of Cowboys Next Door

We disconnect the call, and I exhale, my heart still thumping but now with excitement. I don’t need to make any more appointments. I need to get home and greet our woman.

* * *

All the way back to Stannich, I debate whether to call Hudson and warn him about the disheartening meetings, but I decide against it. Rose is coming home tonight, and we can all discuss her venture along with my failed one.

And if we both failed?

I don’t want to think about that. There is no Plan C.

I try calling Connor, but his phone only rings and goes to voicemail. “You can stop your sulking now. Rose is going to be home in a few minutes. You should come and meet her. She wants to see you.”

It’s probably not best to antagonize him when he’s already acting so childish, but I can’t help it. He’s left us high and dry when we needed him, and that’s hardly the team effort we’d discussed before.

I have known Connor my whole life, and I’ve never known him to act this selfishly. He can’t be this bent out of shape over Rose going. He was irritated but showing up until the day before she left. Had he not thought she would go through with it?

Maybe I will swing by his house and force him to talk to me and see what’s really going on in that head of his.

I steer Hudson’s truck into the BB as the sun slides past the pines on the ridge, melding with the horizon line, and I head inside to find Katherine and Hudson watching her old television. A game show blares with the clicking of a wheel as someone asks to buy a vowel in the background.

“There you are!” Katherine calls out gleefully, sitting forward. “I was getting sick of seeing this one’s mug for so long.”

“Did you scratch my truck?” Hudson asks, his face serious.

“I have good news and bad news about your truck,” I tell him with equal deadpan.

His jaw twitches worriedly. “What?” he growls.

“The good news is your air bags work perfectly.” I grin, and Katherine whoops.

Hudson throws a throw pillow at me, and I catch it.

“Rose is going to be here in a few minutes,” I inform them.

Katherine’s face breaks into a smile so wide, it overtakes both her cheeks. She swats at Hudson. “Did you know that?”

He shrugs. “She wanted to surprise you.”

“I just had a stroke. Do you want me to have a heart attack, too?” she scolds him, and I frown as Katherine snickers again.

“How did your meetings go today?” Hudson asks as I toss his keys to him.

I clench my fists, not wanting to lie to him, but before I can think of a way to evade his question, headlights flood the front room and Katherine leaps out of her chair.

“She’s home! My grandbaby’s finally home!”

CHAPTER25

Rose

I’m barely out of the truck when I’m surrounded, Eli literally swinging me off my feet in a hug as Hudson grins at me from beside my grandmother. His arm serves as her support, and my heart swells to see how healthy and cared-for Gran seems in my absence—not that I had any doubts before I left. I knew fully well that they would take great care of her.

Wistfully, I look around for Connor, but I make no comment about his absence, even though it breaks my heart that he isn’t here to greet me when he made such a production about me leaving.

“How was the drive?” Eli asks, kissing my cheek like he hasn’t seen me in a month.

I’m overcome with this feeling of gratitude that I’m so loved.

“I can’t even remember right now,” I admit. “I’m just so happy to be back.”

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