Page 58 of Forbidden Cowboy
He had probably taken a taxi back to the airport. I called for one, and headed the same way, scared of what I might find when I got back to Gunnison.
Chapter Twenty
Wyatt
Iwas sitting on my back porch once more when a figure seemed to materialize out of the darkness.
It was a cloudy night, so the moon had given me absolutely no warning before the hobbling gait of my best friend appeared from nowhere.
He was marching (as much as he could march) around the side of the house, yelling my name.
“Wyatt! You fucking dick!”
I didn’t know what I had done to anger him, but it was obviously intense. I didn’t even know he’d been discharged from the hospital.
“Beau!” I called in response.
I jumped off the top step of the porch, and dashed through my gate. Beau looked unhealthily pale, a clammy sweat building on his face. I pushed forward until I could support him, but as I reached out, something unexpected happened. Beau pulled the arm not holding onto his cane back, and it darted forward to sock me. It landed short, clipping my collar bone instead of my face like he clearly meant, and held about as much force as if Anna had tried to do it, but the action was what sent me stumbling back a step. My best friend, the brother I’d never had, had just tried to punch me.
“You fucking asshole,” he panted, and I became genuinely concerned.
“Beau, please, let’s just sit for a moment—”
Beau nodded, eyes rolling, already falling to the ground.
Shit, he hadn’t sat voluntarily, he had passed out.
* * *
Beau was back in his hospital bed (“How did he even sneak by us?” One of the nurses asked, bewildered) before Sierra even arrived.
I wasn’t sure how she had heard about her brother, but I got a call from my own home number, and when I answered, thinking it would be Eliana on the other line, I was shocked to hear the one voice I had been craving for months.
“Where’s Beau?” was the first thing she asked.
“We’re back at the hospital,” I responded.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s physically exhausted and overexerted himself,” I said tersely, looking at the unconscious man in his bed. “He’s asleep now, but he gave me a fright.”
“I’ll be right there,” she said, and I could tell she was about to hang up.
“Wait!” I rushed, “they aren’t letting anyone see him right now—they’re actually kicking me out. He needs rest. Just—just stay at the house, okay? Please?”
I heard the begging quality in my voice, but I couldn’t suppress it. She needed to know how much I needed this. Even if it was just for a goodbye. I needed answers.
“Okay,” she said quietly, and the line went dead.
I drove home as fast as I could without being pulled over.
When I pulled in the driveway, I saw that there was a light on somewhere deeper in the house. I moved quickly, and entered the house, toed off my muddy boots like I could sense Sierra’s stern gaze if I were to track mud through the house, and walked down the corridor towards the kitchen. I took a left just before, into the living room that Anna preferred. Sierra was actually in Anna’s favorite chair, but not curled up like I had seen her do so many times. No, she was sat with her back stiff and straight, the light next to her on, and at first, I thought it was a trick of the light, but then she stood and—
“Oh.”
But that couldn’t be right. Because she couldn’t be pregnant. Because we had taken contraceptive measures, and besides which, she was clearly much farther along than even the first time we’d slept together, looking closer to a whole nine months and ready to pop. I couldn’t have forgotten that much from Eliana’s pictures.
I thought she’d been a virgin when we first slept together?