Page 8 of Waiting in Wyoming

Darcey was touching his face. He grinned up at her. He was a very beautiful man. Meyra had noticed that before. “Keep me from freezing to death, that’s all. If you ladies want to cuddle me together, I am all yours. That would be a good way to croak, I think. Right next to the two of you.”

He flirted a lot, too. She’d seen that before.

Meyra was still on her knees next to him. She scooted a bit. Ignoring the snow. “You can rest your head here.”

His head immediately landed on her lap. Like it had been exhausting him to hold it up.

Tears sprang to her eyes.

Meyra brushed the dark hair off his forehead. His hair was mostly dark brown. Like the best baking chocolate, but sometimes, in the light, she thought there was red in it. Like hers. Hers was mostly light brown, but there was a little bit of red. She just kept touching his hair, especially when he sighed and closed his eyes like he did. He had really blue eyes, but she couldn’t see that right now.

She’d never forget how his eyes had looked right before he’d kissed her that night.

She’d dreamed of his eyes sometimes.

“It’ll be okay. They’ll be here soon,” she whispered to him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I think, ifyou’lljust keep touching me like this, I’ll stay right where I am. I missed you, you know.” He reached one hand up and caught hers. She gasped when he brushed a kiss across her open palm. “Thank you for rescuing me, little one. You are my angel. I’ve known that forever, it seems.”

Then the man just passed out right there on her lap.

She looked at Darcey, her arms around him, snow soaking into her jeans where she knelt. “What do we do?”

“Unfortunately, we just…wait. But he’ll be okay. He’s too tough not to be.” Darcey stood as people came rushing down the path, making so much noise. “I’ll keep the crowd back. Stay with him?”

Meyra nodded. She wasn’t goinganywhere.

She wasn’t going to leave him alone. Tears covered her cheeks, but she didn’t wipe them away. She just kept touching him.

She’d wanted him to come back, but not like this.

5

Meyra wentwith him to the hospital. Darcey couldn’t leave the inn, and none of her cousins or sisters were back yet. Joel, her eldest stepbrother, the sheriff of Masterson County, was going to meet them there to get her statement.

Meyra wanted to go back with Brandt, but Dixie told her to wait in the waiting room, that legally, Meyra wasn’t really allowed to be back there with him unless he woke up and said she could be.

He hadn’t woken up yet.

Meyra called her cousin Charlotte in Finley Creek, Texas. Where Brandt’s family was. Charlotte was good friends with Brandt’s twin sister. Her cousin would call his sister and let her know in case someone needed to make any legal medical decisions over the phone or something. And they just deserved to know.

Joel showed up, looking tall and strong and in charge like her oldest stepbrother always did. Some of the tension running through her lessened a little. Joel was good at being the sheriff. He’d find the men responsible for this.

Her stepbrother Nate was the doctor on duty, too. He’d take care of Brandt, and Joel would find the men who had done this. Everything would be okay. She just kept telling herself that, over and over. Until Joel came right up to her.

“Can you tell me anything yet?” Joel asked after making sure she was okay.

“Not yet. Confidentiality laws and stuff.” All Dixie had told her was that he was stable. And that they were taking good care of him now.

“What exactly happened?”

“I was taking out the kitchen trash before I went to bed. I heard something. I didn’t want one of the guests to be hurt out there, so I decided to check it out. I figured Darcey was probably busy, and I was the only other one of us home tonight. I went out the back door toward the pond. And I found him.”

“What exactly did he say happened?”

“Just that he got beat up at his barn. There were two or three men—and one had a ball bat, I think he said. His truck wouldn’t run. And he somehow walked that entire way to us. He needed help, and I found him.”

“His new property is a good quarter of a mile away through the woods, even with those walking trails, then there is Highview Road and the townhouses back there. He could have gotten help there,” Joel said.