Stone Cold Cowboy(102)
His grandfather walked in and slapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, son, your girl left you a note in the office.”
“What’s it say?”
“How should I know, it’s your note.”
“Didn’t you work in there today?”
“No, I went into town most of the day to get supplies and have my checkup with my sweet thing.”
His granddad loved Dr. Bell, or Dr. Bowden as she went by now that she’d married Dane. She’d always be his granddad’s sweet thing and just Bell to Rory and his brothers. They’d gotten close these last months since she and his buddy Dane got together. Dane was the complete opposite of him. Dane played the field and left every blonde for a hundred miles in his wake, but he’d fallen for Bell, and they shared something special. Rory had seen it every time they got together, and he’d wanted the same for himself. He never thought he’d have it, because while Dane had run wild, Rory had somehow turned into a hermit on his ranch. Not by choice, but by circumstance. Now, he’d give up everything to spend his life with Sadie and their baby.
“Everything okay?” Rory’s concern for his aging grandfather rose up.
“Fit as a fiddle. Blood pressure is down, so she adjusted my medication. What’s going on with you and my pretty girl?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t look like nothing. You keep staring at her like she holds the key to some secret.”
“She’s the key, Granddad. She unlocked everything good in my life.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. Don’t gloat. I get that you’re happy I found someone, but I really don’t need you pressuring me right now.”
“Oh, why is that if everything is so great with you two?”
“It is great, but we’ve got something we need to talk about and some plans to make. Let us do it in our own way and in our own time.”
“Things have moved pretty fast. It seems to be working for you, so why slow things down now?”
“I’m not slowing things down.” In fact, he planned to take a huge leap forward. Forget all the getting to know you better, living with each other to see if things worked out. No, he planned to marry her and love her and do anything and everything to make her happy the rest of her life.
“Okay then.”
“That’s it. After all the pushing, that’s all you have to say?”
“I wanted you to open yourself up to letting a woman into your life and experiencing a real and true partnership that is based on love. You’ve done that. You know what it is now. It is the better part of life. It is what makes us live and live well.”
“You don’t have to convince me that Sadie is the best thing in my life. Everything will work out. It has to.”
“Rory, if something is wrong . . .”
“It’s not. It’s good. Really great. I need her to know that I feel that way.”
His grandfather pushed him toward the office. “Go see what she left you.”
Rory walked into the office thinking of all he needed to do for his picnic, but mostly he tried to think of an imaginative way to ask her to marry him. It needed to be special. Especially after the underwhelming way he’d reacted to the pregnancy news.
The note sat atop the large photos he’d left on the desk. He thought he might frame the one that showed the house, barns, and pastures. With his mind on picture frames, he turned the note and absently read the words.
“Fuck.” Rory read the note again, trying to understand what she meant about him smoking out Connor. “Damnit, Sadie, why didn’t you just tell me where to find him?”
Rory pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed her phone. The nerves in his belly tightened his gut. It twisted painfully when her phone went to voice mail. He waited out her sweet voice telling him to leave a message. “Sadie, sweetheart, call me the minute you get this.”
Something about the note niggled at his mind. He stared down at the photo again and back at the note and back again, wondering what she’d seen that he missed. Her words didn’t make sense.
Smoking. Smoke.
His eyes locked on the spot he’d picked up the letter from and stared at the hills and the puff of smoke that looked more like a wispy cloud. He’d missed it the other times he studied the pictures. He’d been looking for a trailer, shed, or some other makeshift building hidden in the trees or out on some remote spot on the property. He’d never thought to look in the caves.
“Fuck.” Frustrated she’d seen what he missed, and might have put herself and their child in jeopardy by tipping off Connor that she knew where to find him, he tried her cell again. Nothing. Voice mail. It could be nothing but that she’d gotten busy on her shift at the diner and couldn’t answer. She might have left her phone in her purse, despite the fact he’d told her to keep it close just in case.