He shook his head. “I like my neck and skull where they are.”
John chuckled.
“I never rode,” he explained. “But Mateo took me to a couple of rodeo bars. I couldn’t drink, but I could do that. He taught me how to line dance that summer, too.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
“He was.”
“Do you think—had he lived—that you and he…?”
Wyatt knew what he was asking and had often wondered the same thing over the years. “I dunno. Sometimes I think we could’ve made a go at it. Other days, I’m not so sure. I think it would’ve been hard for him to leave behind being a ranch hand. It was his whole life. It wasn’t mine.”
“Have you talked to your father since he kicked you out?” John asked quietly.
“No,” he replied with a sigh, knowing John wouldn’t judge him for that.
“I have a confession,” John said unexpectedly. “I may have spoken to your… um, Aunt Nancy the other day.”
Alarm shot through his bloodstream like gasoline and Wyatt quickly sat up, “You what?”
John lifted both hands in a defensive gesture. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interfere with your family life, that’s not my place. But she called the ED the other day, insisting on talking to you.”
“So, you talked to her instead?” he asked, unable to keep the accusatory tone from his voice.
“I had to,” Dr. Donnelly replied. “You were in with Samuels on a cardiac patient, and I had no intention of dragging you out to talk to someone who shouldn’t have called the ED in the first place if it wasn’t an emergency.”
Air exhaled from Wyatt’s lungs and the panic in his chest tapered off. “So—it wasn’t an emergency?”
“No, it was not.”
“What did she want?”
“To talk to you.” John’s eyebrows lifted, “She said you’ve been ignoring her calls and her texts. She sounded worried. Should I be worried?”
“Is this John or Dr. Donnelly asking?”
John exhaled, scrubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry, you’re right. It’s none of my business.”
Wyatt folded the sheet over his lap, deciding itwashis business. Or at least, he wanted it to be. “My dad isn’t doing well.”
John held his gaze, listening.
Wyatt’s throat closed, and he cleared it. This was not how he wanted to spend his lazy day in bed with John. He raked his fingers through his hair, feeling inexplicably nervous. Normally, he was good at talking about his feelings withalmost everything, except when the topic was about his father and therealreason he left home.
“He was diagnosed with prostate cancer a couple of years ago. The treatment was going well, last I heard, until it wasn’t. Then my aunts started callin’, askin’ me to come back.”
John straightened, shifting back against the headboard. “Is he…?”
“Dying?” Frustration swelled in his chest. “Probably.”
“You don’t want to see him?”
“I dunno,” Wyatt breathed. “I dunno…”
He pushed his fingers into his eyes, deciding right then and there to give voice to the hurt that haunted him—the reason he’d been running ever since Mateo had died. He had never really felt settled over the last seven years, like a restless horse trapped in a stable, needing to run.
Just say it.
