Serenity Falls(75)
“I would, but not here.” His voice is strained. Who’s cocky now? Wes grasps my hand in his and pulls me toward the truck. “Come on, I have somewhere I wanna take you.”
After we get in the truck, we make our way toward the outskirts of town. Wes rolls down the windows since it has cooled off a little. “Where are we going?” I ask over the sound of the wind swooshing through the cab of the truck.
He turns off on a dirt road, and points at a spot nestled between two trees. “Right over there.” I can’t help but giggle as I watch him maneuver the truck around potholes. He looks at me and asks, “What?”
“You do know you’re in a truck, right?”
“And?” He gives me an ‘and-what’s-your-point’ look.
“And… it is okay to hit a pothole every now and then.”
“Nope, not in this baby.” He taps the dashboard a couple of times as he pulls the truck between the trees. I chuckle softly at the way he admires his truck. He shoves the gear shifter into park and switches off his headlights. He plugs in his iPod, setting it to shuffle, and then opens the door. With a wave of his hand, he motions for me to join him outside the truck. “Come on.” Jason Aldean’s Night Train comes through the speakers, drowning out the sounds of the chirping crickets.
I throw open my door and run around the front of the truck to catch up with Wes. He reaches for my hand as we walk out from under the trees into a clearing. The full moon above shines down, illuminating the ground below us. I look around and take in the simplicity out here. Tall trees line up behind us, and bushes lie scattered about. Off in the distance, is nothing but grass. The vastness of this clearing humbles me, making me appreciate my place in this world. “What are we doing all the way out here?”
“Every year since I’ve been able to drive, except for when I moved to Dallas, I would come out here to this exact same spot to watch the fireworks. There’re no sounds of people shouting and kids screaming, no lights to ruin the effect of the colors of the fireworks. It’s amazing.” He sits down and drags me with him to settle in-between his legs. I snuggle back against his chest and rest my hands on his jean-clad thighs.
“I like it. This is so peaceful,” I whisper, tilting my head up to look at him.
He looks down at me with a sweet smile, and I smile back. Both of us sit there like that for a little while. Song after song bleeds into the next. It’s just him and me. The peace and quiet. No one else. Exactly what I had hoped for today. “You know, I was supposed to arrive at the ranch a week before you did,” Wes offers quietly, gaining my attention as he breaks our silence “But a good buddy of mine, Blaine, wound up in the hospital. He had to ride the night before. I was supposed to go and cheer him on, but I got held up packing and didn’t have a chance to make it to the rodeo.” I look up at him, but he’s off in another world. I let him have his moment. “Later that night, or early that morning, whichever way you look at it, I woke up to my phone ringing off the hook. As soon as I heard his wife, Devin, crying, I knew something bad had happened. I rushed around my room, pulling on my jeans and shirt. I slipped on my boots, grabbed my wallet, and keys, and raced to the hospital before she had a chance to tell me what had happened.”
“What happened?” Lightly, I begin to caress his thighs, offering my support. Obviously, his friend getting hurt is a big deal to him, just by his facial expressions. The faraway look in his eyes and tight jaw makes my heart for him.
“When I told her I was leaving my house, she told me what hospital he was at and his room number.” He stops for a second to take a deep breath. When I don’t think he’s going to continue, he does. “When I walked in, I saw my friend lying there with a white sheet draped over his body. He was sleeping, but dried blood was still caked on his face. Then I saw Devin in a chair next to the bed, holding his hand, and quietly crying. I cleared my throat before I asked what happened. She gestured for me to take the seat on the other side of the bed. That’s when I noticed a tube slipping out beneath his sheet connecting to a container collecting his blood.” Wes shakes his head. “Devin told me Blaine had been bucked off the bull, and before he was able to get up, the hooves of the bull’s back feet came off the ground, kicking him in the face, and stomping on his chest. It broke a couple of ribs, which, in turn, actually punctured a lung. Then the tubing and container all clicked. She didn’t have to tell me he had a chest tube. That much was obvious. But what Devin said next wasn’t what I was expecting. The bull did it a second time, but this time, it landed on his pelvis, breaking the Ilium bone clean in half.”