I was up early. And once again, it was too early for visiting hours at the hospital, but not too early to go down to the stables and check on the horses. Lucy stuck close, following me even if it was to the bathroom.

She whined beside me as we passed close to Gracen’s house.

I reached down, putting my hand on her head. “She’s okay, girl. She’ll be home soon.”

A thought struck me, and I practically jogged across Gracen's yard and barged into the house. My mind was set on getting her phone, not lingering around to look over the scene of her downfall. I found her cell buried in the bottom of her purse. The battery was dead.

Lucy, who'd stopped yards from the front porch of the house, followed me into the barn and then laid at the opening as I worked my way down the stalls to say hello to Ghost and then Buxby.

They neighed, excited to see me after so long.

Happiness bloomed in my chest. I was home. Gracen would be okay. Clint would be caught, and I would figure out how to make it right. All of it. Being home was a start.

Marley showed up a few minutes later. “Slade! Damn, it’s good to see you. When did you get in?”

“Night before last. Need some help?” I asked, opening Buxby’s stall. Holding his halter out, I slipped it over his nose.

He bobbed his head, bumping his nose into my arm. “Missed me, did ya?” I asked, hooking the lead rope to the harness and leading him out of his stall. As I tied him off, Ghost whickered and Marley opened his stall.

Marley didn’t hook the lead rope to him; he just let him out. Ghost came right to me. It might not seem like much to some, but to me, knowing the horses missed me just as much as I did them told me I’d been gone far too long. That I never should have left.

“How’s Miss Gracen doing?” Marley asked from the other side of the slatted boards from where he shoveled Buxby’s stall.

“Right now, she’s being kept sedated. Lex said the doctors will be taking her off the heavy medication later today. After that, it’ll just be a matter of her waking up and then… healing,” I answered, feeling a lump form in my throat.

Marley’s shovel hit the ground hard. A curse of his own was muttered as the blade scraped along the floor. “I don’t get it. How could he hurt her like that? Miss Gracen’s the nicest girl I’ve ever met. Being around her is like talkin’ to the sunshine. She just lights up around people, and it makes them feel all lit up. A man ain’t much of a man if he can try to darken someone like that… try to take their light.”

I had no answer to justify that. I could never understand a man putting his hands on a woman with the intent to hurt her. That Gracen had been a victim of it made me sick. What happened couldn’t be changed. All we could do was move on. Show Gracen it would never happen again.

Anger rolled in my gut. The need to hit something burned deep inside me. I wanted to lash out, but there was nothing to lash out at. Nothing I could do but be there for her.

“I went down and talked to Miss Mavis. Told her what happened.”

“Thanks, Marley. I know Gracen will appreciate you letting Mavis know. Did she say if she’d need anything with Gracen not being able to come in?” I asked, grabbing a shovel and scooping the last of the old hay up, then dumping it into the wheelbarrow.

Marley chuckled. “She said… well, I won’t tell you all she said. That woman can cuss like nobody’s business. Anyway, she said she figured something was up. Wouldn’t be shocked if she didn’t try to round up her own posse and hang him from the nearest pole barn.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me one bit, Marley.” Mavis was protective of Gracen. A mother hen of sorts that looked out for her own. And Gracen was one of her own. Had been for years.

After we finished, Marley scooped out the feed while I checked their water, then led them into their stalls, dumping feed over as Marley handed their buckets to me over the top rail.

“Thanks for the help, Slade. It’s good to have you back,” Marley said, dusting the hay off his jeans.

Lucy wandered over, sniffing Marley’s pant legs. He knelt and put his hand out to scratch her. Lucy panted, tongue hanging out when he ran two fingers down the bridge of her nose.

“I should have known there was something wrong with him, Slade. Lucy knew. She didn’t want anything to do with him, and he found every reason in the world not to have her around,” he said, looking up at me. He sighed, running his hands over her ears, stopping at her neck. “That’s okay though, right, Lucy girl? You and me, we found things to keep us busy.”

That gave me an idea, watching Lucy soak up Marley’s attention. “When I head out to the hospital, can Lucy hang out with you? Lex was gonna watch her but—”

He stood, smiling as he dipped his head. “Sure thing. Anything special I need to do?”

“Come on up to the big house and I’ll get you her medication,” I answered.

Lucy happily followed Marley out the door as he talked to her about going for a ride to check the herd in the south pasture. She only looked back at me once as if asking if I was coming along. “Go on, girl. I’ll come get you in a little bit.”

She tried trotting off, but slowed when it bothered her. Marley kept in step with her, telling her to take it easy, that they weren’t in any hurry.

I took my very first full breath in days and let it go with a long sigh.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been the only one in the house. It was a quiet that wrapped its arms around me, embracing me with its silence like a warm hug after a long absence. With Uncle Joe gone, Lex was the only one who lived there. I could remember when the walls echoed with footsteps and laughter. There was always someone bustling around in the kitchen and something warm and delicious smelling in the oven.

Ranch hands would come every Sunday afternoon for a big dinner that Aunt Brenda worked all morning on. Gracen would be in one of her frilly dresses she insisted her daddy buy her. Each hand would be sure to tell her how pretty she looked, even when she lost both front teeth at the same time and spent more time whistling her words than saying them. I missed those days. Would there ever be a time where we would get back to that?

So many things had to change first though. Lex and I would have to sit down and figure out what it was we wanted for the future of the ranch, and then how we could make it work. There was no doubt that if we worked together, we’d accomplish whatever we set our minds to do.

I wasn’t going to focus on anything until Gracen was home, though.

* * *

The doctor leaned over Gracen with a penlight, thumbing her eyelid up to check her pupils. He made a sound of approval before moving on to her other eye.

The small light clicked off as he turned to Lex and me. “We took her down for an MRI last night and everything came back good.” He turned to the nurse, giving her instructions, “Have me paged as soon as she wakes up.”

He walked out, white coat billowing out behind him like a sail as the nurse fiddled with one of the lines connected to Gracen’s IV. When she was done, the nurse gave me a curt nod. “If you need anything, just press the call button.”

When the nurse left, Lex and I moved closer to Gracen. Seeing her laying so still was unnerving.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Lex whispered, clutching the raised rail of her bed.

I took her hand in mine. The heat from my hand was drastic against the chill of hers. “You know she will. She’s a fighter, Lex. She might be down right now, but she’ll get back up. And we’ll be there for her. Every step of the way.”

“Do you think she’ll want to go home? Should I… should I get a room ready at the big house, just in case?” he asked as his eyes searched her face.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to see when she wakes up,” I answered.

“I’m sorry I had to call you back for this…”

“Don’t be sorry, Lex. I was planning on coming home in the spring anyway.”

“Not what you thought it’d be?”

“No, it really wasn’t.” I sighed, forcing my attention from Gracen to Lex. “I’m sorry I left after you asked me to stay. I shouldn’t have gone. I shouldn’t have left you here to figure it out on your own, and I damn sure shouldn’t have walked away from Gracen.”

“What happened? With Gracen, I mean.”

I pinched my eyes closed for a brief second. “I tried to make her see me. Tried to show her I could be everything she needed.”

“She was miserable when you left. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so down. If what you say is true, and you wanted her to see you… she did. She saw you. She’s seen only you for a long time.”

That confused me a little. Part of the reason I left was because she’d told me she wasn’t the right girl for me. What if she meant it as if she thought she wasn’t the one? And if that were the case, I left under a total misconception. I’d left, making her think I agreed with what she said instead of it being the complete opposite.

“I’ve loved her most of my life, Lex. I’ll love her until the day I die.” My throat clenched, eyes filling with tears as I reached out and traced my fingertips down the side of her face with a feather-light touch. “She’s my best friend,” I whispered.

The corner of Lex’s mouth turned up. Not quite a smile, but almost. “I’ve always been sort of envious of you two.”

I cocked my head, eyebrows pulling together. “Envious?”

He gave me a half shrug. “You two have always been thicker than thieves. For a while, when we were little, I wished Uncle Joe would send Gracen and her daddy away so I could have my brother back.”

I snorted. “Before Gracen came along, you spent every minute trying to think of some way to keep me from following you.”

“That’s what big brothers are supposed to do to little brothers.” He smirked.

“Read that in a book somewhere?”

Lex opened his mouth just as Gracen’s hand squeezed mine. The steady beeping coming from the heart monitor picked up.

“Gray? Can you hear me?” I asked, gently squeezing her fingers to let her know I was there.

Her eyes fluttered open, blinked, and then opened again.

Lex pushed the call button. When the nurse answered, Lex informed her that Gracen was awake.

We didn’t get much of a chance to talk to her. Her room flooded with a handful of nurses and her doctor. They gathered around her bed, poking and prodding as they fired question after question at her. I clenched my hands, wanting to push them all back and tell them to give her a minute to breathe.

Lex’s hand came down on my shoulder, telling me to be still and let them do what they needed to do. Gracen made it even worse for me every time her eyes locked with mine.

“Do you remember what happened?” the doctor asked.

“I can’t… I don’t think…”

The doctor put his hand on her arm. “That’s okay, Ms. Lowell. It’s common for memory loss after a blow to the head like you’ve incurred. Some regain their memories. Some don’t. Time will tell. For now, your primary focus should be on healing.”

Lex leaned in close. “The cops are gonna want to talk to her about everything. If she can’t remember what happened and Clint finds out, he could lie and walk.”

“He won’t find out. We just need to make sure the cops don’t slip up and tell him about her memory loss.”

“I’ll talk with the chief. He was here when they rushed Gracen in. He’ll know the best way to get Clint’s full confession,” Lex said, fingers digging into my shoulder like an oath.

“…on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate…” one of the nurses asked as I turned to Lex.

“What are the chances that son of a bitch is still around?” I asked out of the corner of my mouth.

Lex brought his hand up muffling his words as he answered, “Be a damn shame should they never find the bastard.”

“Is that why you have Marley checking the south pasture?” I asked.

“And Grant’s hands are riding his property, too. If he’s anywhere near either ranch, the authorities won’t ever find him. I can guarantee you that.”

There was a look in Lex’s eyes. One I’d never seen before. He was beyond angry. He was beyond doing the right thing. I had a feeling if Clint were standing right in front of him, Lex would probably snap his damn neck and smile the whole way to prison.

“No one hurts my family and gets away with it. No one,” he said, brushing past me and stepping in between two of the nurses. They squawked in protest, but Lex ignored them.

“Slade’s gonna stay here with you while I go check on a few things. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Gracen’s face paled as she whispered, “Lex… is he still at the ranch?”

“No, he’s gone. The police are looking for him, but you’re safe here. Slade won’t leave your side.”

She darted a look at me and then focused back on Lex.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I took a page from Lex’s book and wandered up to the foot of her bed. When one of the nurses pegged me with a look that said I was in her way, I gave her one right back that told her she needed to take the two extra steps to walk around me, because I wasn’t moving.

She huffed in response as she moved around me with the blood pressure cuff and lifted Gracen’s arm up.

“I don’t know if I should be jealous of you, or annoyed with them,” the nurse said, pumping the cuff up.

Gracen’s lips pulled into a slight smirk, ending on a hiss when the corner of her mouth pulled tight. She blotted a trickle of blood with her knuckle and said with a croaking voice, “Try living with them.”

The nurse’s eyebrow climbed up her forehead as she put the end of the stethoscope against the pulse at Gracen’s elbow, looked up at the clock, and then she asked, “Both?”

“Since I was five. There have been days where I could have shot ‘em just as easily as hugged ‘em.”

The nurse looped the stethoscope over her head and let it fall against her neck, then tugged the edge of the blood pressure cuff free. The sound of Velcro separating masked her chuckle.

“Everything looks good. I’m going to order you some breakfast, Jell-O for a start, and come back with a new bag,” she said, pointing at the emaciated-looking IV bag hanging from the pole beside Gracen’s bed. “You want to sit up or lay down?”

“Up, please,” Gracen answered.

The nurse raised the back of the bed and got Gracen situated in no time. “I’ll be back in just a little bit. Try not to talk too much. There’s still quite a bit of swelling along your throat. Must feel like hot rocks in there, huh?”

Gracen nodded. The nurse poured a small amount of water in a cup and handed it over. “I’ll bring you some ice chips when I come back.”

When she walked out the door, I moved over to Gracen’s side and took her hand in mine.

“You’re back.”

“I am.”

“Slade, I…”

“We have a lot to talk about. And we will, but it doesn’t have to be right now.”

“You never called me. You said you would, but you didn’t.”

Typical Gracen. It didn’t matter that she was sitting in a hospital bed, busted up with missing memories. She was just as stubborn and hardheaded as ever.

Gracen gave a sigh that ran soul deep and said, “You gave up without even fighting for us.”

“Gray, I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry. I couldn’t stay here and watch you fall in love with someone else. To know how much I love you and not have you love me back. “

“Not love you? How could I not love you? I loved you before I even knew I loved you. How could you leave after everything? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I winced at the graveled cracking sound of her voice and the way her face flashed a brief echo of pain when she spoke.

“You said you weren’t the one for me. I didn’t know what else to think. You’ve always put so much emphasis into telling me about finding ‘the one’ that I thought you were telling me I wasn’t that for you.”

She closed her eyes, but not fast enough to keep the tears from falling. “How could we have been so blind?”

My voice was hoarse, the words scratching against the inside of my throat like glass when I answered. “I don’t know, Gray.”

She reached out and plucked a small box of tissues off the rolling table, snatching two of them out and dabbing the corner of her eyes.

Her heartbreak etched in every twitch of her face as she said, “I tried taking your advice. Tried opening myself up to see where things would go with… with him, with Clint. It was a mistake from the very first moment.”

“Gray, you don’t have to explain—”

“Yes, I do. I have to accept responsibility for some of it, Slade. You’re not the only one who can beat themselves up over this. I knew he wasn’t the right guy for me. I knew it because he wasn’t you. And that made it so much worse, because no one could ever be what you are to me. But I tried anyway because you were right when you said I never gave anyone a fair chance. That I’d always had some great expectation.”

“That wasn’t fair of me to say.”

“Maybe not, but it was true.” Her shoulder hitched so slightly I would have missed it had I not been watching her so closely.

“If that’s the case, then I take full blame for it. I should have told you how I felt. I should have waited for you to come back and told you I didn’t want to watch you fall in love with someone else. I couldn’t stay and love you from a distance.”

Tears fell down her cheeks. She left them unchecked and pulled my hand into her lap. “Slade, are we done hurting each other now?”

I leaned over and placed a soft kiss to her lips. “I’ll never walk away from you again, Gray. I love you too damn much.”

“Promise?” Her lips brushed against mine when I didn’t pull back.

“That’s one promise I’ll keep without even having to think about it.”

“I love you, Slade.”

Her hand came up and caught the back of my neck. My lips bumped against hers hard enough to click our teeth.

I winced, pulling back to look into her eyes.

She smiled at me. “Love hurts sometimes, huh?”

I shook my head at her. “Can you keep from adding more bruises to yourself before you leave this place?”

She sat back slowly, sighing when her body relaxed against the bed. Closing her eyes briefly, she said, “How can I be so tired after just waking up?”

“That’s because you’ve been through quite a lot, Miss Lowell. Excuse us for a moment, would you? You can wait out in the hall if you’d like, or go grab a cup of coffee, but for right now, you can’t be in here,” the day-shift nurse said, shooing me toward the door when I stood.

Gracen gave me a slight smile that eased a wave of fear that rolled over me. “It’s okay, Slade. I think she wants to remove the catheter, which I’m in complete agreement with.”

I nodded. “I’ll be right outside.”

The door hadn’t closed behind me before the nurse said, “Got a handsome cowboy, huh? I thought about getting me one of those.” The ruffled sound of sheets paused her for a moment before she continued. “But every one of them I meet comes in here all busted up. No fun in playing with a broken cowboy, now is there?”

Gracen hissed briefly and then followed it up with an attempted chuckle as she said, “Well, you’re not half wrong there.”

Once the nurse deemed it okay for me to go back, I found Gracen still sitting up. She gave me a smile and put her hand out, beckoning for me to come to her. I was across the room in three strides.

The nurse paused at the foot of Gracen's bed and said, “Now, no overdoing it. You just rest a while and I’ll be back to clean you up a bit.”

I paused for a moment, holding my finger up to Gracen before following the nurse out the door. I caught up to her by the nurse’s station.

When she saw me, her eyebrow quirked. “Need something?”

I wasn’t sure what information, if any, she’d give me, but I asked anyway. “Other than what I can see, is Gracen okay… physically?”

She eyed me hard, looking at me longer than I was comfortable with, and then gave a brief huff. “Now you know I can’t give anyone but immediate family any information about her.”

I nodded. “I understand. It’s only… my brother and me? We’re the only family she has left. We’ll be the ones taking care of her, so…”

Her eyes cut left to right with a quick glance down the empty corridor. Leaning in, she said, “She’s a little weak on her pins, but I think she’ll be up and around in no time. No lasting physical damage, but I can’t say as to what her mind will do.”

“Thank you.” A small portion of the weight on my shoulders lifted. As long as she was physically all right, the rest would work out over time.

“Did you need anything else?” she asked, turning to walk away.

“One more thing. Can I bring her some pajamas from home?” I asked.

The nurse smiled brightly at me. “I think that would be a wonderful idea.”