AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll miss you too,” Luke said. “I can call you whenever, right?”
“Whenever,” Slate said. “Absolutely.”
“And you won’t go to Austin without me, right?”
“Never,” Slate promised.
Luke nodded and looked out over the field again. “All right,” he said. “That’s that. Let’s go to lunch if you have time. I’m officially unemployed, so I’m free.”
“I have time,” Slate said. “I’ll always have time for you, Luke.”
“Let’s see if we can get all the boys to go,” Luke said. “I’ll text them.” He did, and within ten minutes, the five of them piled into Nate’s luxury pickup truck and started toward Sweet Water Falls.
Slate let his happiness wash over him, through him, and around him, beyond grateful for a loving Lord who’d brought him to this tiny corner of Texas and allowed him to find a second chance at life, love, and joy.
* * *
A few nights later,Slate was awakened from a deep sleep by Axle’s barking. The dog jumped up on Slate’s bed and gave several loud, overbearing barks in his face.
“What in the world?” he asked. “Shush.”
Axle jumped down and ran to the closed bedroom door. He turned, and barking constantly, ran through the bathroom to Luke’s room.
Slate got out of bed at the same time a light snapped on in Luke’s room. His bedroom door had obviously been open, because Axle’s bark had moved down the hall.
“What is his problem?” Luke asked, appearing in the bathroom doorway.
“I don’t know.” Slate opened his bedroom door and followed Axle. The dog came running back, his barks getting deeper and more urgent. He wasn’t stopping, and Slate had never seen the dog act like this before. He barked at prairie dogs and the rabbits he saw. He barked at the chickens sometimes, but he never barked at people, and never when someone came to the door.
He was usually nervous around new people, but he knew everyone in the house. Footsteps started up the steps, and Spencer joined Slate in the foyer. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Slate said as Axle ran around him in a circle. “He’s going crazy.”
Axle put himself between the two men and the door and faced them, barking, barking, barking.
“I don’t think he wants us to go out there,” Luke said.
“I’ll see what’s out there,” Slate said, moving into the half-bath that sat right off the front entrance. Besides the office to the right, it was the only room with a window that faced the front yard.
“I’ll check over here,” Spencer said.
“What’s happening?” someone else asked, but Slate had already gone into the bathroom. He opened the window, as it had frosted glass that didn’t let him see outside. The air had cooled slightly, but Slate’s chest filled with ice when he saw the figure standing on the sidewalk in front of the West Wing.
A truck had been parked in the gravel lot where most of the cowboys parked, and the headlights illuminated the path toward the West Wing.
In the distance, Slate heard another dog barking, and he recognized Ursula’s voice. Hers got louder in the next moment, and Slate wasn’t surprised to see the German shepherd come tearing around the Annex and toward the West Wing.
The figure turned toward Ursula, and Slate sucked in a breath at the sight of the man’s face.
He blinked, sure he was hallucinating.
He hurried back into the foyer, where Luke stood with Nick, Bill, and Jack—all the cowboys from the Annex. “It’s Jackson MacBride,” he said.
Luke frowned. “What?”
“It’s Jackson MacBride,” Slate repeated. The same fear that had hit him in Austin threatened to debilitate him again, but then Ursula yelped in pain, and that made anger fill him in less time than it took to breathe.
He marched over to the door and opened it. Axle shot outside, joining his voice to Ursula’s. Slate followed the dog a little slower, Luke right behind him. The rest of the men came with them too, though they were all only in pajamas.
