Cowboy Valentines by Liz Isaacson

Author:Liz Isaacson [Isaacson, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AEJ Creative Works
Published: 2020-02-09T06:00:00+00:00

A week later, Elliott woke in the cabin by himself. He made a pot of coffee for himself, something Archer had been doing for nine months. He wasn’t a morning person, so he’d let Archer set the alarms, make the coffee, and get them out the door. But he had to do all that himself now.

He’d been down to the valley every evening since his father’s fall. His dad had been released from the hospital yesterday, and Joel had called late last night to ask Elliott to come down again tonight to meet the nursing staff that would be assisting their father for the next several months.

“I can’t be there after the end of the month,” Joel said. “I need you to handle it.”

Elliott didn’t want to handle it. He was the youngest of the four boys, and the only one not married. He worked twelve hours a day, and adding the care of his parents to his plate felt like it was going to choke him.

But he made it through the twelve hours and down the canyon to his parents’ house. Joel’s car was already there, as were two other vehicles, leaving Elliott to park on the street.

Get through this one increment, he coached himself before he entered the house, the familiar smell of marinara meeting his nose. His mother had likely been cooking all day, adding her tears into the homemade sauce while she waited for evening and her sons to come.

“Elliott,” his mom said, coming down the hall from the great room where he assumed everyone would be. She drew him into a tight hug. “We’re just fine,” she whispered.

He drew back, confused. “Who says you aren’t?”

“Elliott’s here,” Joel said before she could answer, and he joined them, drawing Mom back into the great room. Elliott followed, unsure of what he’d find once he rounded the corner.

The kitchen stretched to his right, with a dining set in front of a pair of French doors that led into the backyard. Four steps went down—the site of his father’s fall.

A big living room filled the rest of space, with a large sectional that held Joel’s wife and two kids on the longest side and two women on the shorter one.

Elliott’s gaze landed on a woman with silver-purple hair that only reached her chin. It was very straight, not a hair out of place. She turned toward him, and everything around him fell away.

Only her brown eyes existed. Her heart-shaped face. Her timid yet strong smile.

Elliott needed to know her name, right now. Find out how she got her hair to fall like that. Her skin reminded him of the shimmery-white way the horizon shone when the sun was at its pinnacle, and he wanted to touch her, stat.

Everything rushed forward again, and Elliott managed to smile when Joel introduced the dark-haired woman next to the exotic beauty who’d rendered him breathless with a single look.

“And this is Holland Marsh,” Joel said. “She’s a physical therapist from the home health center.

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