How to Kiss a Cowboy by Kennedy Joanne

Author:Kennedy, Joanne [Kennedy, Joanne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2014-12-04T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

“We probably should have kept that guy around,” Suze said, thinking of the orderly.

“We don’t need him. Goddamn cowboy,” her father growled.

She’d been talking about the orderly, but his response made her wonder what he’d said to Brady. Maybe he’d run him off. She felt that little clutch of fear again, but she did her best to ignore it. She’d manage. It would just take her a little longer to get things done.

“Just give me your hand,” her dad said.

As she struggled to lever herself out of the wheelchair, she wondered how long it had been since she’d held her father’s hand. His skin was dry and papery, but he was surprisingly strong. That was a good thing, because Suze was surprisingly weak. Spending five days in bed hadn’t done a thing for her muscle tone. She felt like a human gummy bear.

The other surprising thing was how much it hurt. She noticed joints and muscles she hadn’t known existed, mostly in her lower back. As she tried to stand, it felt like a dozen tiny cattle prods were being thrust between her bones, and it was all she could do to keep from crying out in front of her father.

By the time she was settled into the seat of the truck, sweat beaded her forehead and she had to clench her teeth to hold back the sobs that had built up at the back of her throat.

Cowgirls don’t cry. Cowgirls don’t cry.

She’d heard that refrain over and over, at every rodeo and every practice session. It was her father’s mantra. He claimed he’d gotten it from her mother, but Suze didn’t remember her mother ever saying it. In fact, she remembered her mother holding her while she cried about some slight from a schoolmate. The hurt was long forgotten, but Suze held tight to the memory of her mother’s warmth, the way she’d held her across her lap like a baby, even though Suze had been nine and therefore a “big girl.” Her mother had probably been sick then, but Suze hadn’t known it. If she had, she would have held on a little longer and cried a whole lot more.

The drive home should have been a treat, despite the rattling of the crutches in the truck bed and the banging of the loose tailgate. Suze hadn’t seen anything but the four walls of her hospital room for over a week, except for occasional forays to luxurious destinations like the X-ray department and the blood lab, so everything looked new to her, even her dad’s dusty, old truck.

Most people wouldn’t consider Wyoming a desirable destination, but Suze had always felt she’d been born right where she belonged, in a tough land for tough people. Even the wildlife was tough—pronghorn antelope, fast as any racehorse; jackrabbits, with hind legs that scissored like robotic springs; prairie dogs, with their whistled code of warning protecting them from the only predators that managed to eke out a living in the rocky outback: coyotes, mountain lions, and men.

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