Chapter Nine
Blake
Being sober might be my newest addiction.
Seeing the world with fresh eyes is life altering. Watching sunrises in the hills, curling up by a fire pit as the sun sets at the end of a long day, cooking with my new—and first—bestie Sienna, all of it seems crisper, clearer, and calmer than anything has before.
The kitchen smells like mix of expensive vanilla and maple syrup—a scent I am also growing addicted to. Sienna glances across the island as she sts down a fresh tray of her maple cookies, and I pretend to be drooling. They are good, but when she sets them beside my much darker batch, I just laugh.
“It’s unavoidable, Sienna,” I laugh, reaching over to snatch a cookie up from both trays.
Squinting at her perfect brown treat compared to mine, I huff out a sigh.
“I am a calamity in the kitchen, ye bonny lass,” I try out one of the stupid names we’ve taken to calling each other.
“This is all user error,” I admit with a shrug.
“We will get it right, toots. We won’t let you take that batch to Brooks,” she teases, brushing a stray hair back with her forearm. She leaves a white streak of flour right across her forehead.
“Oh, chicken nugget, you’ve got a little something…” I point to my own forehead.
She rubs it but only succeeds in making it worse. She looks like she’s wearing war paint. “Better?”
She is adorable so I just nod and give a thumbs up. “Perfect. You look like a professional. Sterling would approve.”
Sienna spins back to swat me with a towel.
“Stop teasing me about him,” she chastises, her cute southern twang making me smile.
“He might hear you.” She flushes not from the heat of the kitchen but the mention of our boss, Sterling.
Our very hot, very sweet, very enamored boss who she definitely bakes her ass off for.
“Girl, I hope he does. Let the fool get a clue. You and Kenna,” I mention her two-year-old daughter, “are the best things to happen to that cowboy,” I declare, raising my voice in hopes he does hear my unsolicited opinion.
“Since we’re talking about cowboys...have you...said anything new to yours as of late?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks, and it has nothing to do with the hot cookie I just shoved in my mouth. “Weevenotsaid anything,” I mutter between delicious bites of maple sweetness.
“Uh....want to try that again, twinkle tits?”
Swallowing, I laugh before I take a long drink of sweet tea. “We’ve not...we’ve not said anything about it since...”
“Since he claimed you as his bride before all the people who matter in his life. Right, right. I recall the moment well.
I nearly choke on the tea. “He didn't claim me. He just... expressed his long-term goals. Very loudly. In front of the entire ranch. With the kind of confidence that is impossible to contest.”
We share a sigh at the romance of the moment my sweet, surly Brooks put on for the entire ranch. It’s been less than a week and those words he said that day, the pretty ones he said about wanting to make me his wife and give me his name, have volleyed in my head ever since.
“Would you even try to contest him honey buns?”
“Not even a little bit, puddin’ pop,” I shoot back with a finger gun and a click of my tongue.
Sienna laughs, a bright, honest sound that fills the kitchen. “Blake, those words, that moment, it will happen for you when you need it to. He will wait forever to hear them because that man is down bad for you.”
“Well, I am still bringing him your sweets instead of mine, to make sure he stays down bad,” I tease, popping another of her cookies in my mouth.
Just as we pull the last batch from the oven—tossing my burnt ones directly into the trash—the house seems to shudder.
I nearly drop the good cookies when Sterling’s voice booms through the halls, rattling the windows.
Panic floods Sienna’s face. We bolt from the kitchen and round the corner, colliding head-on with him in the foyer.
“What is going on?”
“Tell me we’re not about to have another public speech. Not sure I can handle...what? What is it, Sterling?”
His eyes lock onto mine, and the floor feels like it’s falling away. I know instantly—this is about Brooks. I can feel it in a way that defies logic, a hollow ache deep in my marrow. It’s an ache tried to bury in the bottom of a bottle since I lost my Uncle Jed.
“It... it’s Brooks...he was...I don’t...fuck, he was riding Stormchaser, I have no idea what went wrong. He’s...Gunner is taking him to county.”
My knees give out, but Sterling is faster. He catches me, Sienna right behind him. I can’t seem to draw in enough air. The sweet maple on my tongue turns to ash—to dirt and salt—as tears flood my eyes before I can stop them. Before I can even find out how bad it is, I'm already breaking.
Because I know it is bad, I see it in his eyes.
“Let’s go. We need to get there, honey,” Sienna takes control of the situation, pushing both of us towards the door. “Caleb! Come to the house, look after Kenna for me, sweetheart. Your keys, honey,” Sienna speaks soft, low, to Sterling, seeing he is just as shaken as I am.
Somehow, she steers the two of us to his truck and gets us to the small county hospital. If someone asked me later, I could not answer how we got down the halls, to the tiny emergency room. I have no memory of the nurses trying to keep us out or the fit that Sienna threw to get them out of our way.
All I know is that I am in a hospital room that is too bright.
Too loud. It smells too clean. I am hit with a craving for the scent of leather and bourbon.
I am so cold I am shuddering, teeth chattering, as we stand feet away from a broken body.
They said it is Brooks, but it is not. There is no way that frail thing in the bed with the tubes and blood and twisted wires is my Brooks.
“...a broken clavicle, some brain swelling, internal bleeding.... thrown from the horse.... tangled up in the saddle...”
Turning from the room, I run to the hall.
I make it to the closest waste bin before I double over, retching.
My knees hit the chipped linoleum floors, pain jarring me back to life.
A light buzzes overhead as god-awful words play on a loop in my head.
No—not again. How could it be the same? How could the same thing happen to me twice?
“Honey, come on, lets get up. He is going to need you, Blake.”
Peering up at Sienna from my crouch on the floor, I shake my head. “No. No, he will not need me. I-I…I can’t do that again. I can’t…” my words come out in a painful scratch.
“Oh, yes, you can—you will. I am not about to let you run out on him,” Sterling is there too, knelt close behind Sienna. I almost smile because, gosh, they look so cute together.
“What the hell does that mean? Do you think I ran out on someone before?”
“Did you not run off the night you two met, Blake?”
“Screw you,” I hiss before the tears come hot, fast, stinging my vision. “Yes, I did. I ran. I was not…I was not here for him. I was here for me. He was not supposed to find me at the bar that night.”
“Honey, he did,” Sienna whispers, shooting a glare at Sterling that even I wince from.
“You told us you went there to fall off the wagon in spectacular fashion. Brooks was there to be sure he caught you. You were there for him even if you were not sure until this moment. Now, you will regret it if you run off again, honey.”
Gaze swinging between them, I make a mental note right there on the cracked floors of the county hospital.
Well, two, actually. I was looking for him that night, I just had no idea he would be my new addiction.
That one night with my stud cowboy would not ever be enough for me.
Second note—these two need to get together and bone, like, stat.
“Mr. Vale,” a voice beckons down the hall. “We’ve stabilized Mr. Carter for the time being.” We all shoot to our feet to rush to the doctor as she prattles off updates rapid-fire. “We will monitor him tonight, see to it he is comfortable before….”
Sterling and I exchange a look that only someone who knows Brooks, who loves Brooks, could understand. “Before we move him to ICU in Fellow Falls tomorrow. Tonight, we will monitor his vitals, manage his pain, take the best care of him we can until then.”
“Is he…is he going to wake up? I mean…he is, right?’
“Not tonight, we have sedated him to lessen his pain.”
“I…I need to talk to him. He has to hear me tell him. I need to say it before he…I need him to know.”
Before I lose my nerve or go looking for a drink, I rush back to the room.
I stumble a little at the door when I see him again.
How battered. How little my big, solid, safe cowboy looks lying in that tiny hospital bed.
It reminds me of those nights spent tangled together in the tiny cot in my bunkhouse, before we started staying at his cabin.
Moving to his bedside, I crouch on the floor beside him, taking his hand. I bite back a sob because even his hands seem smaller somehow. Drawing his hand to my face, I pepper tiny, tender kisses to any spot not bandaged or connected to wires.
“I am not sneaking off this time, stud. Not after you promised to put a ring on it and give me your last name,” I tease, rubbing his hand against my face gently.
“You do not get to say that then leave me. You promised to take up just the space I needed you to fill. Well, you filled all of the empty spaces inside me, baby,” I whisper, smiling through my tears.
“We made cookies,” I stammer, pulling the smashed bag from my pocket.
I do not even remember how they got there.
“Because…because I love you, Brooks. I mean, we made cookies because I love these damn cookies. I love you too, stud. More than cookies. More than horses or mucking stalls. Brooks, I love you more than bourbon.”
I stay by his side all night. I am there when they transport him, and back at his side in a private room Sterling arranges for us in Fellow Falls. I am taking up all the space I can until he comes back to me.