Page 35 of Serious Cowboy

“I… I’ll be all right.”

She made her tone stern. “Don’t you go all macho on me. If you need some pain meds, be honest with me.”

Dropping his chin to his chest. “Yeah, okay. Pain meds might be good.”

Callie clicked the nurse button, and let Gary, the one on duty, know what Zeke needed.

“Yeah, looks like he’s due, anyway. Be right there.”

After pumping a syringe of liquid into his IV, the pinched look on Zeke’s poor battered features smoothed out some.

“Better?” she asked him.

“Better.”

“Ready to try to eat?”

She didn’t know why, but his ability to get down some food seemed vital to her. Like, if he could do that, the healing process would legitimately begin. Callie didn’t even know how much truth to that there might be, but it would at least make her feel as if she were helping.

Tentatively, he scooted the drink toward himself. Rather than lift it, he simply tilted toward his mouth. But he did succeed in sipping whatever it was down. He even answered her question without her having to ask.

“Iced tea.”

“Is it good?”

“Meh,” he said, performing a shrug, then immediately stilled as if even that small motion hurt. She hated this for him so much.

It could be worse, she reminded herself.It could always be worse.

He tried the soup, which he didn’t like since it’d grown cold. But he did eat most of the apple sauce and Jell-O. To her, this was a huge win.

“Look at you getting all of that down. I’m proud of you,” she told him, and to her surprise, he actually smiled as if hearing her encouragement mattered to him.

“Are you…” His pause nearly shattered her. “Do you work here?”

“No. I work with my brother, Tim Blum.” She watched him to note if he made any signs of being familiar with that name, but his expression didn’t light up. It was as if she’d told him her brother was a traffic sign. Oh, well. “I’m Callie Blum.”

Again, she scanned his expression for even a glimmer of something that said he knew who she was, but there was nothing. Except…

“You were here earlier. You were here when I woke up.”

She forced a smile. “That’s right.”

“Do we know each other?”

Callie tried to hide how much of a knife in the gut that felt like. “We do. We’re… friends.”

“Okay.”

Then she remembered what the doctor had said. He told her to be honest with Zeke when he asked questions. He would need to truth to start remembering.

“Um, we’re definitely friends, but we also were dating.” She looked him in the eyes to try to tell how he took that bit of news. He blinked several times but didn’t respond to that part of the info.

And on it went.

Over the following week and a half, she stayed with him, spending most of her daylight hours at the hospital. Now that he wasn’t in imminent danger of perishing, she remained in her hotel room at night, but when Tim asked her how much longer she’d be gone, she requested an extension.

“I know this isn’t convenient, but I can’t leave him. Not yet.”