“Watch your mouth, Little Brother,” Eli scolded. “From the looks of that dislocated shoulder, she did you one hell of a favor getting a hold of me rather than making you wait in the emergency room in what I bet is a hell of a lot of pain.”
Casey’s chest tightened. Her endgame tonight had been her and Boone finding some common ground on this friends-with-benefits situation. They should have been on top of his office desk together doing things to each other that were a lot more fun than Casey ratting Boone out to his brother after a second fall from a horse. So Eli could hopefully fix Boone up without him having to go to the hospital.
“So you called a vet?” Boone asked, eyes narrowed at Casey.
She crossed her arms, her anger surpassing any guilt she felt at having done what she needed to do.
“Eli’s a doctor,” Casey reminded him. “And he fixed up Chewbarka’s shoulder—RIP to the best mutt in the world—several years back when he was still in vet school. Figured he could do the same for you, especially after all his years of experience since then.”
Boone squeezed his eyes shut, and for a second Casey wondered if he missed the dog they’d named together as much as she did.
“So what you’re saying is that I’m a dog in this scenario?” he inquired, meeting her gaze again.
Eli sighed. “What she’s saying is that you got knocked off a horse twice since you’ve been back in town and haven’t said a damned word to me because you think I can’t handle it. News flash, Little Brother. I’m not so damned fragile, and even if I was, it’s not your job to keep me safe, especially when you can’t seem to get the job done for yourself. Now you’re in a heap of trouble and pain, and Casey cared enough to ask for my help so you’re not spending Thanksgiving in the hospital. If you ask me, I’d say a thank-you is in order for your friendly neighborhood bartender here.”
Casey raised her brows and waited.
Boone growled, but amid the noise, Casey detected a couple of words that sounded like thank and you.
“You’re welcome,” she crooned with a self-satisfied grin.
“Okay,” Eli started, clapping his hands together. “Lie back down. I can sedate you if you want, but you’ll be groggy for a while after that. Or we can just do this, which will hurt like hell, but then it’ll feel a lot better.”
Boone blew out a breath. “I don’t want to be all loopy. Let’s just get it over with.”
Eli nodded. “Then you’re coming back with me to the clinic so I can do an X-ray to figure out how long you need to keep it immobilized. I’ll fix you up with a sling as well, and then I’m putting Casey in charge of making sure you go straight home to rest and ice it.”
“What?” Casey asked. “That wasn’t… You didn’t tell me—”
“I’ll be fine on my own,” Boone insisted, interrupting her stammering.
Eli shrugged. “Forgive me if I don’t trust you to do as you’re told. You can stay at my place. Though a pissed-off brother might not have the best bedside manner.”
Boone groaned. “Can we call it even if I let her take me back to my place, get me situated, and then we go our separate ways?”
Casey’s cheeks burned. “If you let me take you home. Seriously, I don’t know who you think you are that it would be my privilege to take care of you, but—”
“Okay,” Eli said. “It’s settled. We put your shoulder back where it’s supposed to be, X-ray it and make sure all that’s needed is the closed reduction, and then Casey takes you home, sets you up with a bag of ice and maybe locks your door from the outside so you stay put, and then you two can go your separate ways. Deal?”
Casey opened her mouth to protest, a little voice in her head telling her it would serve Boone right to have Eli babysit him for the night. But this time, her anger gave way to sympathy. Boone wouldn’t have been out on Cirrus, racing her, if she hadn’t taunted him in the first place. In fact, if she hadn’t decided to take charge of her fate or destiny or where the chips fell, Boone would have had the night off and would have been injury free.
She sighed. “Yeah. Okay. Deal,” she finally replied.
“Deal,” Boone grumbled as well. Then he laid himself back down and let Eli get to work.
A little over an hour later, the two stood outside Boone’s door at the Meadow Valley Ranch guesthouse. His arm was in a sling, which—according to Eli—he’d only have to wear through the weekend since there was luckily no other damage from the fall other than the dislocation, which was now relocated.
Casey could still hear the growl of pain that tore from Boone’s throat when Eli set his shoulder. God, the man was stubborn, refusing sedation. But then again, she still remembered her own confusion coming out of general anesthesia all those years ago. She’d been sick to her stomach and so turned around, at first not even remembering why she was at the hospital and then feeling the loss all over again when everything clicked back into place. So maybe she could understand wanting to stay lucid, but she couldn’t wrap her head around him choosing pain when he had an alternative.
“You look kind of pale,” she told him.
He huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, well, it’s been a night. And I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“Shit,” Casey said. “And you took those pain meds at Eli’s on an empty stomach.” Eli had mentioned the medication would probably make him groggy, but Boone hadn’t mentioned his empty belly to his brother. She grabbed the keys from his hand and hastily opened his door. “We need to get some food in you, or you are going to lose whatever is left of that breakfast really quickly.”
She burst through the door, tore off her coat and tossed it over a chair, and then slipped between the two counters that made up the room’s kitchenette and started rifling through Boone’s small refrigerator. When she finally came up for air, she was hugging half a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and another jar of raspberry jam. Boone was still standing just inside the doorway, staring at her with his brows furrowed.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She sighed. “What are you doing? I told your brother I’d make sure you got right in bed and iced that shoulder. So get your butt into that bed, and let me do my job.” Boone raised a brow, and Casey’s cheeks flushed. “You know what I mean, Murphy.” She glanced down at the items in her arms. “And I’m going to make you something to eat so your stomach settles. I wish I could say I’m surprised that this is all you have in your fridge, but I can make do if you have a pan or a skillet of some sort.”
Boone shrugged off his vest, which was only half on to begin with, and let it fall onto the same chair that held Casey’s coat. But when he sat on the foot of the bed and tried to pull off his boots one-handed, he wasn’t as successful.
Casey dropped her fridge bounty onto the counter and rounded the corner to meet him at the bed. She lowered herself to her knees and pulled off his first boot, then the other.
“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled. “Why the hell did I get on that damned horse again?”
She sat back on her heels. “Maybe because you see something in him? Like a need in him that you’re trying to fulfill. Animals who are mistreated have a hard time trusting, so they act out or get spooked easily. I’m guessing that can start a cycle of neglect if they’re not rescued by the right person.” She shrugged. “You gave him a second chance. And maybe he made the same mistake again, but you didn’t punish him for it. I saw you out there. You showed him love and kindness, and that brought him out of whatever that damned rodent triggered in his head and back to the present, to the sound of your voice. He needed someone to trust, Murph. And he found that tonight in you. That’s why you got on that damned horse again and why I’m pretty sure you will once more, when you get the good doctor’s permission, of course.” She cleared her throat. “Also, I’m—I’m sorry.”
Boone’s brows rose. “For what?”
Casey swallowed, pushed herself to her feet, and then sat down next to him on the edge of the bed.
“For taking off Saturday morning before you woke up. In my defense, I did come back to talk to you after I cleared my head as best I could, but you were already gone.”
He sighed. “I could have called or texted, but—”
“We don’t have each other’s numbers,” she interrupted, finishing his sentence.
Boone laughed. “I could have asked Ivy.”
“And I could have asked Carter,” she admitted. “But instead I just showed up uninvited and took what could have been a quiet evening in a whole other direction.” She nudged his shoulder with her own, and he turned his gaze to hers. “Do you think it’s some sort of sign from the universe that after all these years, our paths start crossing again, but only due to emergency room–caliber injuries?”
He narrowed his gaze at her. “I guess it was your fault I spaced out the first time Cirrus tossed me. And tonight you did sort of push my buttons in an attempt to goad me, which has left me unable to even take off my own boots. So if you’re asking whether the universe thinks all we’re good for is hurting one another, the answer might be yes.”
He pressed his lips into a smile, but Casey saw another kind of hurt in his stormy blue eyes.
She blew out a shaky breath. She could play into his humorous deflection. After all, she was the one who’d suggested the correlation between their injuries and the two of them reconnecting after more than a decade. Or she could let one tiny ounce of realness seep through. Not enough to put herself in danger but enough to let him know he wasn’t only deserving of pain, if that was what he truly believed.
“If you hadn’t given Adeline those airbags, I’d have been a lot worse off than just a mild concussion and a few bumps and bruises. So no, Boone Murphy. I don’t think we’re only good at hurting each other. I think maybe we might be able to heal some of those wounds too.” She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, then stood and squared her shoulders. “Speaking of healing, time to get some food in that belly of yours so you can rest and recuperate.”
She spun back toward the kitchen, grateful for a reason to change the subject.
“Pan’s under the sink,” he called over her shoulder, and she nodded as she retrieved it and then found a half stick of butter in the refrigerator door.
As she busied herself upgrading the everyday PB and J to a buttery, grilled PB and J, Boone slid back on the bed, awkwardly yet successfully propping himself up against the headboard on his two pillows.
She flipped the sandwich in the pan as she watched Boone lean back and close his eyes.
“I hoped to hell you’d never need those airbags,” he noted. “But I’m so damned grateful they worked. I can’t imagine if I’d—” He opened his eyes and cleared his throat. “If something worse had happened and your parents and Ivy had—” He shook his head but didn’t finish either sentence. “Holy hell, that smells good,” he said, glancing up at her as she plated the one-course meal and cut the sandwich into two gooey triangles.
She dragged a chair from the small round table on the kitchen’s outer wall to the side of Boone’s bed, setting the plate on the nightstand.
“You mean to tell me you’ve only ever eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cold?” she asked.
He nodded. “No offense, but the last time you tried cooking for me, it didn’t go well.”
She furrowed her brows, then threw her hand over her mouth as she gasped. “Your birthday brownies!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “When I confused the sugar with the salt! In my defense, I was sixteen, and I’ll have you know that we label all canisters in the tavern kitchen now.” She glanced down at the still untouched sandwich and then picked up one of the halves as she perched herself precariously on the edge of the bed, waving her creation under Boone’s nose. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid I somehow confused the ketchup for jam? I thought you said it smelled good.”
He leaned forward and tore off a hunk with his teeth, molten peanut butter and jam dripping onto his chin.
“Hot!” he cried, his mouth hanging open. “Shit! Burning my tongue. And my face.”
Casey burst into a fit of laughter, then realized there was no napkin nearby. So she swiped at the sticky glob on his chin with her thumb and hastily ate the cooling mess herself.
Boone was laughing too as he was finally able to chew and swallow. “Are you sure the universe doesn’t have it in for us? Because I don’t think I have any taste buds left.”
Casey snorted, then lost her balance, bracing her free hand against the headboard—right next to Boone’s head—to keep from falling onto his injured shoulder.
Their laughing ceased.
She licked her lips as she stared at his. “If the universe is plotting against us, why does it also keep putting us close enough to do things to each other that are very much the opposite of inflicting pain?”
He let loose a shaky exhale. “Walsh,” he whispered.
“Murph,” she whispered back. Then she dropped the sandwich back on the plate, pressing her other hand to the other side of his head.
“I don’t think Dr. Eli would approve of whatever it is that’s going on in your head,” he admitted, his voice rough as gravel. “And I sure as hell know he wouldn’t approve of what’s going on in mine.”
“Should I call him and ask?” Casey teased, and for a second, she didn’t even recognize the sound of her own voice.
His chest rose and fell against hers, and she thought she might actually explode—disintegrate into millions of tiny particles—if she didn’t kiss him soon.
“It’s not out of my system,” she said softly, just putting it all out there. “I came back on Saturday morning to tell you that I didn’t want it to be just that one night. Not after we—I mean, we were really good at it, weren’t we? Like you just knew where to… I knew exactly how to… I’m just saying that I don’t think we should put our excellent skills to waste, you know?”
He closed his eyes and sighed, any trace of a smile leaving his face.
Oh god. Maybe it wasn’t as good for him as it was for her. What if she thought her skills were excellent when in reality they were barely mediocre? It wasn’t like she was new at this, but she also hadn’t been doling out exit interviews in previous relationships, however fleeting they were.
She pushed herself off the headboard and let her hands fall to her lap. Only then, when he likely felt her absence, did Boone finally open his eyes.
“Fine,” Casey grumbled with a shrug that she hoped looked a hundred times more breezy than it felt. “I get that my physical enjoyment of the other evening was completely one-sided. Just…um…forget I said anything, okay? I’ll clean up the kitchen while you finish your sandwich and then get you a bag of ice for that shoulder. I’ll head out after that. I didn’t mean to make things weird.”
Except she was feeling fifty freaking shades of weird and other locked-away emotions she couldn’t name. But her stomach churned, and her head swam. If she didn’t get out of his small room, which felt like it was shrinking by the second, she feared she would either vomit or faint, neither of which sounded appealing at the moment—or ever.
She moved to stand, but Boone’s good hand wrapped around her wrist, squeezing her tight enough to say don’t go but loose enough that if she wanted to wriggle free and get the hell out of Dodge, she could.
“It wasn’t one-sided, Walsh,” he admitted, his voice low and even yet somehow on the verge of something that made her want to run before another word escaped his lips. Except he was still holding on to her, and she wasn’t trying to wriggle free. “And I don’t think…” He groaned and banged his head softly against the headboard.
Run, Casey. Shake him loose, and run straight out the damned door.
The voice in her head grew louder, repeating its request. But she didn’t move. Couldn’t move until she heard the rest of his thought.
“You don’t think what?” she asked.
He straightened and set his blue eyes on hers.
“I don’t think it was only physical for me. I think that maybe I know why I couldn’t go through with the wedding. Casey, I think it was because of you.”