Page 24 of Sweet Devotion

“And you?”

“The Cowboys.”

He winced.

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, that was definitely something.” She inched toward the edge of her seat, her gaze on him, the play on the field forgotten.

“I’ve just never met anyone who could say the Cowboys with that much loyalty and that little embarrassment.”

Hand to chest, she gasped. “I don’t know that we can be friends.”

His response of a deep belly laugh just made her smile even wider.

In the end, the Hawks won by a field goal and the crowd jumped to their feet with deafening cheers. Anyone watching would think these high schoolers had just won the Super Bowl. Gathering their belongings and bagging their trash, the Sweet family stood and moved around.

“Did you have fun?” Colleen asked.

Holding out his hand to help her down the bleachers, Aiden nodded. “I did. More than I thought I would.”

“I’m glad.” She glanced toward the field, then back at Aiden standing at her side, ready to break her fall or give her a hand up if she needed it and for the first time all evening, she realized she wasn’t sure which she’d enjoyed more—the game or the man beside her.

Chapter Ten

Another week had slipped by. Aiden kept track without meaning to—the way he’d kept track of everything in the hospital, in rehab, in the long institutional sameness of recovery where days blurred unless you anchored them to something. Somewhere in the past week, that anchor had shifted from the pain and the struggle to Colleen, and now, Romeo.

Standing on the back porch, coffee cup in hand, Aiden took in the morning routines in the nearby barn and paddock as Clint and the hands did what they did so well. From the moment Aiden had set foot out the back door, Romeo sat at his feet like he’d been assigned there by military order. The crate was still tucked beside the porch wall, its door propped open the way Alice and Sarah Sue preferred, but Romeo barely used it anymore once Aiden stepped outside. The dog would come out, stretch, shake off sleep, and then, as if he had one job in life and Aiden was it, attach himself like Velcro.

It should have bothered him. A few weeks ago, maybe it would have. Now he found it oddly reassuring. Brady trotted across the yard with a stick in his mouth and dropped it near Romeo. At least the dog no longer cowered at Brady’s presence, but Romeo had no intention of doing anything that did not include Aiden. He had to give Brady points for trying. With the sigh of a put-upon saint, Brady picked the stick back up, and carried it away to enjoy his game without help.

Aiden took another sip of coffee and shifted his weight. Careful. Automatic. By now he noticed the difference without trying. He still limped. There was no use pretending otherwise. But these days it felt less like he was dragging one side of himself behind the other and more like his body was beginning to remember what to do. Not consistently. Not gracefully. But enough that some mornings, like this one, the ache in his hip felt familiar rather than punishing. Progress. Maybe. Then again, maybe he was fooling himself.

Sometimes, like this morning, he caught himself wondering if this was just who he was now. A man with a limp. A man who moved carefully. A man no longer in Uncle Sam’s army. He thought about the parallel bars, the months of effort that had produced—this. He thought about Colleen on the paddock fence watching him ride Boots with the expression of someone seeing something she’d been looking for, and wondered if she was seeing progress he couldn’t feel yet, or if she was simply optimistic the way good therapists were optimistic because the alternative wasn’t useful. He didn’t know. He only knew he was walking a little easier, sleeping a little better, and thinking a whole lot more than he ought to about a woman with sky-blue eyes and enough football knowledge to make a ref question his calling.

A waste of time? His mouth tilted. Anything that put him in Colleen’s orbit was far from a waste.

The porch door opened behind him. “Aiden?”

He turned to find Alice coming outside, wiping her hands on a dish towel, her expression pleasant but purposeful. That usually meant she needed something and had already decided he was her man for the job.

“Yes, ma’am?”

She came down the porch steps slowly, glancing once at Romeo, who stayed planted beside him like a sentry. “Would you mind running an errand for me?”

“Not at all.”

“That’s what I hoped you’d say.” She folded the dish towel over one arm. “I ordered a dress online for the fundraiser next week. At least I thought I had enough sense to ship it here. Turns out I sent it to the store in Millers Creek.”

Though he didn’t get away from the ranch much, he still knew that Millers Creek was a good drive away from Honeysuckle.

“It’s a bit of a drive, and if you think it’ll be too much for your hip—” Leave it to Alice to say out loud what he had been thinking quietly.

“Nonsense.” The word came out fast enough that even he didn’t quite believe it.

Alice noticed. Of course she noticed. She noticed everything. Still, she only smiled. “Well, if you’re sure.”