Page 49 of Hometown Cowboy

Gabe’s soft voice made the tears come faster. She couldn’t help the choked, anguished noises that burst from her.

“I don’t understand why that’s upsetting her so much?” Julie said.

Emma’s arms went around her. Gentle fingers stroked her hair. “Because if he doesn’t remember our wedding, he doesn’t rememberafterthe wedding. And he doesn’t remember that she’s pregnant.”

Darby turned her face into Emma’s shoulder. She held on for dear life. “What do I do now?” The last came out in a whisper. Anguish leaked from every word.

“How do I tell the man I love that I’m carrying his child, when he doesn’t even remember we were together?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ryan tried tofocus on the music playing in the headphones, which was supposed to drown out the rattling andthunkingof the MRI machine.

Supposed to.

The deep vibration shook his teeth. He closed his eyes and tried to blank his mind.

That made him laugh. He didn’t need any help there, apparently.

The bed slid out of the machine and a light touch on his shoulder opened his eyes to the assistant motioning him to remove the headphones.

“Don’t move. We’ll do all the work.”

He gritted his teeth and tried to smile. They were doing their job, but it grated like hell that he couldn’t even sit up. The wardsmen transferred him to the waiting gurney and he breathed through the surges of pain that shot up his leg and in his chest as he was wheeled back out to head up to his room.

He’d got off pretty lightly. A cracked rib, cracked pelvis, broken thigh, and various cuts and gashes.

Oh, and the whack to the head.

The open shock and sadness on everyone’s face when they’d realised he’d lost some time confused him. Sure, it wasn’t agoodthing. It meant he’d had something scrambled up in there, but surely it wasn’t that big of an issue, as long as there was no damage or problems?

It cut deep knowing that he’d supposedly been at Gabe’s wedding and couldn’t remember a goddamn thing. That was the only thing that bothered him.

Darby’s distraught eyes flashed in his mind again.

Why had she been so upset? Sure, they were friends—good friends—and they cared about each other a lot, but that didn’t explain her extreme reaction. The whole room had been subdued, a forced joviality coming back in with the group that had spoken to the doctor outside.

It had surrounded them like a visible cloud.

But Darby’s eyes. She’d been crying. But why?

Something tugged at the edges of his awareness. Something that was too elusive to grab on to. By the time they wheeled him back into his room and transferred him to his bed, it was gone.

Maybe they were still in shock about the actual accident?

He knew he would be if it had been one of them. A shudder wound down his spine. He couldn’t handle it if Gabe or Darby had been the one injured. They’d known each other so long they felt inseparable from one another.

Heck, what if Darby had been on the damned thing? She had in the past. The shudder was stronger this time.

No. Not acceptable. As soon as he got home he was going to look into refinancing his farm loan and get a new tractor. Obviously the universe was telling him something. He wasn’t going to wait until someone he cared about got hurt, too.

*

Ryan breathed deepas Gabe turned the corner. Trees in full leaf lined the long driveway as they wound their way slowly up.

It still did his head in to see everything in the full swing of spring, rather than the late autumn he’d believed it to be.

“You don’t have to drive like an old grandpa, Gabe.”