Heartbreakers and Heroes by Box Set

Author:Box Set [Set, Box]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B01DCR0LM4
Published: 2016-06-20T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

Ty stood in the doorway of the ICU room and stared at John, lying immobile in the bed. He barely resembled the father-figure who’d spent so many days gruffly ordering them around, reminding them what it meant to be a man. So many days sweating it out in the pasture, mending fences and herding the cattle that helped fund the facility that turned wayward boys into men. It hadn’t mattered to John whether the boys came from money or poverty; when they were with him, they all had one standard to live up to—John’s.

The antiseptic smell of the room couldn’t hide the underlying scent of despair. Ty’s heart beat in time with the steady beep of the heart monitor and the whoosh of the respirator, but he felt little hope as he stared at the sagging sallow face of the man who’d once demanded his respect, forcing him to stack and restack hay until he confessed to stealing a piggin string from the local feed store to practice calf roping on his own. His charm might have worked on the woman behind the counter that day, but it hadn’t worked on John any better than it had Rayne yesterday.

“If a man can’t be trusted, his word is worth nothing, and that’s all you have in this world, Ty. A real man never lies, especially to a woman.”

And that had been just one of the many rules he’d learned under John’s tutelage. John could have written a book with the many lessons he’d taught them on being men. Lessons about honor, dignity, and justice. Values that most people ignored, John drove home, producing men who would do more good than harm. Unlike many of the boys sent to the ranch by their rich parents to learn a lesson or two, Ty had arrived a juvenile delinquent ward of the state, full of rage and determined to take a shot at his drunk-ass, abusive father. If not for John, he'd have landed himself in jail a long time ago. Instead, Ty tried to get his father help and, when the man drank himself to death a few years ago, Ty had paid for the funeral. He might not have been able to forgive his father enough to attend, but he'd taken care of all of the arrangements for a proper burial from the road because, as John would have reminded him, it was the right thing to do.

“You actually showed up?” Ty spun to see Rayne slip through the door and let it shut behind her with a soft click. “I didn't think you would.”

He felt a sharp stab in his chest. It was his own fault if she saw him as heartless, and after the way he’d left, it was no wonder. He had been heartless in the way he treated her that night. He glanced back at the bed, at the man who'd tried to teach him to never lie. If he'd listened to John, he wouldn’t be in this mess now.

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