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“Luke should be here any minute.”
“Go,” she told him, waving him out of the room. “I’m fine waiting by myself.” That’s how she’d spent most of her adult life. Waiting by herself. But now she felt like she had a chance to have someone else in her life. Someone who would be with her when she took one of life’s spills.
Except the fall off the horse had felt like a jolt back to reality and forced her to face the fact that she wasn’t Sassy. She wasn’t brave or coordinated or adventurous. She was boring and dull and led a humdrum life of monotony spending her days working at her desk with her dog curled at her feet. She’d given Luke this impression that she was fun and daring, but that wasn’t her. That was Sassy. What would Luke do when he realized she was giving him a false sale of goods?
Luke tried to focus on the room numbers but couldn’t remember if the receptionist had said Kaylee was in Room B or D.
He heard the flurry of metal rings being drawn across a rod and saw Bear step out from behind a curtain.Thank goodness. Kaylee must be in there.
Bear met him halfway to her room as he rushed forward. A deep scowl covered the older man’s face. “It’s about time you got here.”
“How is she? Is she okay?”
“She will be. No thanks to you. Where were you? And what were you thinking leaving her alone with the horse like that?”
He shook his head, angry at himself for the same reasons. “It was only for a few minutes. She was supposed to wait for me.”
“Well, she didn’t. And now she’s gonna have a mess of stitches and a sore body because she got on a horse when she wasn’t ready.”
Luke hung his head. “I know,” he whispered.
“She’s not as tough as she acts,” Bear said.
“I know that too.”
The older man clapped an encouraging hand on Luke’s shoulder. “I gotta go, but I’ll check on you all later. Take care of her.”
Take care of her.
Luke nodded but the words swirled in his head. He wanted to take care of her, but obviously he was no good at taking care of anyone. He hadn’t taken care of Beth, and he’d lost her. That morning, he’d asked Kaylee to stay, but now he wasn’t sure he could go through this again. His heart was too broken, too damaged to try to give it away again.
And he wasn’t capable of going through the pain of losing someone again. He couldn’t.
His thoughts bombarded him, and he felt like he was walking through a thick fog as he took the last few steps to Kaylee’s room and pulled back the curtain.
He sucked in a breath at the sight of her. She was resting, but her eyes fluttered open at the sound of the curtain rings. Her face was pale, even more so against the dark, rusty color of the dried blood streaked across her cheek and drying in her hair. A deep purple bruise peeked out of the bandage across her forehead. He winced at the abrasions on her arms and the cuts on her shoulder and leg.
The sight of the bruises and her poor battered body combined with the smell of disinfectant and the faint scent of blood did Luke in, and his knees threatened to buckle. He grabbed onto the back of the chair in front of him for support.
He could handle seeing a surgical procedure done on one of his cows and could ignore the pain of his own cuts and scrapes, but seeing Kaylee like this…hurting, and in a hospital bed was too much for him.
He’d been fooling himself the last week. For a tiny moment in time, he’d believed he might be able to find love again—had wanted to at least try. But this was too much. He couldn’t put himself through the pain of caring about someone again, only to lose them. He couldn’t do it. Not to himself. And not to this sweet thoughtful woman who looked at him as if he hung the moon. She deserved more. Better. Someone worthier than a broken-hearted cowboy with nothing left to give.
Any hope he’d had earlier disintegrated as she peered up at him.
“I can’t do this,” he said. His throat was raw, and his voice came out gritty and rough. “Not again. Not with you.”
