She had no idea about suffering. The pain he had felt just sitting there was nothing compared to that moment when they yanked his arm and pushed it back into its socket. Working through it meant a serious “cowboy up” moment. He took a few deep breaths that didn’t really help.
“There, nothing to it.” One paramedic smiled as he said the words.
“Yeah, nothing to it.” Clint shrugged to loosen the muscle, but the pain shot down his arm and across his back.
“It’ll be sore, and I’m afraid there might be more damage than just the dislocation. Best get it checked out with the sports medicine team. Until then,” he held out a sling, “pain meds, and you might want to get a ride home tonight.”
A ride home? For the first time in a dozen years a “ride home” meant a ride to Grove, Oklahoma. And now it meant Willow Michaels living just down the road. He couldn’t quite picture her as the “girl next door.”
Chapter Two
In the midnight-black of the truck, lit only with the red-and-orange glow from the dash, Willow nudged at the cowboy sleeping in the seat next to her. They’d driven the two hours from Tulsa and were getting close to the ranch. Janie hadn’t helped. She had fallen asleep shortly after they’d taken off.
“Wake up.” She nudged Clint again, careful to hit his ribs, not the arm held against his chest with a sling. “Do you have a key to get into this place?”
He stirred, brushed a hand through hair that wasn’t long enough to get messy and then yawned. He blinked a few times and looked at her like he couldn’t quite remember who she was.
“Willow Michaels, remember? We offered you a ride home?”
He nodded and then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”
She didn’t hear the rest because he yawned and covered his mouth. Moments like this were not easy for her, not in the dark cab of a truck, not with someone she didn’t really know.
He said something else that she didn’t catch. Willow sighed because it wasn’t fair, and she didn’t want to have this conversation with him.
This kind of insecurity belonged to a ten-year-old girl saying goodbye to her parents and wondering why they no longer wanted her with them. And always assuming that it was because her hearing loss embarrassed them.
He said something else that she didn’t catch.
“Clint, you have to talk more clearly. I can’t see you, and I don’t know what you’re saying.”
There, it was said, and she’d survived. But it ached deep down, where her confidence should have been but wasn’t.
He looked at her, his smile apologetic as he reached to turn on the overhead light. The dim glow undid her calm, because the look in his eyes touched something deep inside. Wow, she really wanted to believe in fairy tales.
SORRY.
And when he signed the word, his hand a fist circling over his chest, she didn’t know how to react. But she recognized what she felt—unnerved and taken by surprise. When was the last time a cowboy had taken her by surprise?
She cleared her throat and nodded. And then she answered, because he was waiting.
“It isn’t your fault. It’s dark, and you didn’t know.”
How did he know sign language, and how did he know that it made hearing him so much easier? Even with hearing aids, being in the dark made understanding a muffled voice difficult—especially with the diesel engine of the truck.
“I know it isn’t my fault, but I should have thought.” He shifted in the seat, turning to face her as he spoke. “I’m sorry, I’m not quite awake.”
“About the house?”
“I don’t need a key to the house.”
“Aunt Janie, you should wake up now.” Willow downshifted as they drove through the small almost-town that they lived near. Grove was another fifteen miles farther down the road, but it was easier to say they were from Grove than to give the name of a town with no population and no dot on the map. Dawson, population 10, on a good day. The town boasted a feed store and, well, nothing else.
“Janie, wake up.” Willow leaned to look at her aunt.
Janie snorted but then started to snore again. The vibration of Clint’s laughter shook the seat. Willow shot him a look, and then she smiled. He had used sign language—that meant she had to give him a break.
She was still trying to wrap her mind around that fact. It had been a long time since someone had done something like that for her. Something unexpected.
“Where did you learn sign language?”
He shrugged. “I picked it up in college. I have a teaching degree, and I thought sign language would be a great second language. Everyone else was studying Spanish, French or German.”
He signed as he spoke, and Willow nodded. She reached to shift again as the speed limit decreased.
“I’m rusty, so you’ll have to excuse me if I say the wrong thing.”
“You’re fine.” And the sooner she dropped him off at the little house surrounded by weeds and rusted-out trucks, the sooner she could get back to her world and to thoughts that were less confusing.
The driveway to his place was barely discernable, just a dirt path mixed in with weeds and one broken reflector to show where it was safe to turn. She slowed, not sure what to do. The trailer hooked to her truck jolted a little as the vehicle decelerated and the bulls shifted, restless for home.
“Don’t pull in. You won’t be able to turn the truck.”
She agreed with him on that. She didn’t have a desire to get stuck or to have a flat tire. Not with a load of homesick bulls in a stock trailer hooked to the back of her truck.
“But what are you going to do about tonight? Do you even have electricity?”
“I dropped off flashlights and a few other necessities this morning. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” In the light of the cab he had stopped signing, but he spoke facing her.
The snoring from the far side of the cab had stopped. Aunt Janie sat up, yawning. “Clint, don’t tell me you plan on staying here tonight?”
“There isn’t that much night left, Janie. I’ll be fine. Take Willow home, and get some rest. She’s got to be tired after the day you two put in.”
“You’ve had a long day, too.” Willow pushed aside something that felt like anger, but maybe came from leftover feelings of inadequacy.
It had more to do with the past than with the present. It had to do with Brad telling their limo driver to take her home while he went into town, to a party that would have been too stressful for her to attend.
Alone. She’d always been at home alone. And she’d been sent away when she failed to meet expectations. The past, she reminded herself. It was all in the past and God had restored her life, showing her that she didn’t belong in a corner alone.
She mattered to God. He had given her an inner peace and the ability to believe in herself.
“You’re right about that.” He stood in the open door, holding Janie’s hand as she got back into the truck. “You two have a good night. See you tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. When he would invade her life. Willow couldn’t really thank him for that, not if he was going to be another person who found it easy to believe her hearing loss meant she couldn’t take care of herself.
Clint woke up after a short few hours of sleep, stiff