One Night with her Bachelor(12)

With Josh fastened to his chest, Gabriel stepped back from the ledge and they dangled on the rope. “I don’t know if you remember, but your uncle Scott was my best buddy.”

“You took me to McDonald’s.” Josh’s words were slurred and his head slumped against Gabriel’s chest as they climbed.

“That’s right. You remember.”

“Big Macs.”

“I bet your mom’ll take you for a Big Mac as soon as we get out.”

Josh shook his head and murmured, “Big trouble.”

Yeah, Gabriel was sure of that—but it probably wasn’t the kind of trouble Josh was picturing. Gabriel really didn’t like the look of Josh’s injuries. “Your mom’s going to be so thrilled to see you that she’ll probably buy you a million hamburgers.”

Josh went quiet, and Gabriel kept glancing to make sure he was conscious as they scaled the rope.

“Gabriel?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“I can’t feel my legs.”





Chapter Four





?


January

Molly stood on a ladder and adjusted the moose head on her living room wall. “How about now?”

“Still wonky,” her friend Lily said from below. “Nudge it a little to the left.”

Molly shifted the bottom of the head to the left.

“No, the other left.”

Hands full of moose head, Molly glanced down Lily. “The other left? What are you talking about? There’s only one left.”

“Move the top of it to the left.”

As if she could reach the top. She was struggling just to hold onto the dang thing. Molly nudged the bottom to the right and took her hands away. “Now?”

“Perfect.”

Thank God. Her shoulders were aching. That moose had to weigh twenty pounds, and she’d carried it up the ladder before lifting it over her head to hang it on the hooks. She stepped down, stood next to Lily and shook her aching arms out. Staring at the grotesque monstrosity she always swore never to decorate with, she grimaced. “Who ever heard of mounting a moose head as a welcome-home gift?”

Lily slung her arm over Molly’s shoulder and pulled her close. “He’ll love it. Seriously, he’ll go ape shit all over it. Or moose shit. Either way, you might want to put a tarp down.”

All the adrenaline she’d mustered to get the huge head up the ladder seeped away from her, leaving her awash in naked reality.

Bringing Josh home was going to be the beginning of her challenges, not the end. Together they would have to figure out how to cope with his injuries, and learning to let go of trivial details—like hideous moose heads on her wall—was crucial. “You’re right, he will love it. It’s perfect. I don’t know where you found a fake moose head around here, but thanks for getting it for him.” She paused. “It is fake, right?”

Lily stiffened. “Uh, yeah. Obviously I got a fake one. I know how much you hate hunting.”

Molly’s eyes narrowed and she took a long look at the moose’s glassy-eyed stare. “It looks really realistic.”

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, Lily said, “Uh, yeah, it’s… um… it’s high-quality workmanship. Totally fake, though. Totally.”

Liar. But Molly didn’t care anymore. Josh had loved hunting with her dad. As probably the only vegetarian in Montana, Molly had refused to dress any of his kills or decorate her house with carcasses. Now, though, she would do anything to make Josh smile. As usual, Lily had known exactly what Josh would like. She laid her head against Lily’s shoulder, so grateful for all the ways her friend had supported her through the horror of nearly five months.

Surgery after surgery. Good news—He’ll live—followed by bad news—He has incomplete paraplegia and may never walk again. Lily had been there through it all, holding her hand, wiping her tears, holding back her hair as she’d vomited all her terror, and sometimes even making her smile. Lily had helped her wade through the bureaucracy and legal issues. And when Molly had discovered there weren’t any specialist spinal hospitals or rehab units in Montana or any of the surrounding states, Lily had helped Molly make the toughest decision of her life—taking Josh to live with his dad and step-family in Boulder so he could get the care he needed.

With an avalanche of bills smothering her, Molly couldn’t afford to take unpaid leave from her job. So she’d had to say goodbye to her baby boy and trust Greg and his wife Sharon to become Josh’s everyday family instead of people he saw every couple of months. Every Friday afternoon, Molly had driven ten hours to Boulder and slept on Greg’s couch so she could spend the weekend hanging out with Josh at the rehab unit Greg was paying for. She’d been there when her boy had learned he would probably spend the rest of his life sitting down. She’d screamed and yelled and attacked a punching bag alongside him when he’d discovered his rodeo days would never come.

She would exchange everything she had for a chance to see Josh on a bronco. It made no sense, since she would probably wet herself with fear, but every cell of her body raged at the unfairness that he would never be able to make his one dream come true.

She’d driven home overnight every Sunday, showing up at work on Monday mornings completely unprepared to face twenty five-year-olds who wanted to sing “When You’re Happy and You Know It.” But she only had to make the journey one last time. Josh was graduating from the rehab program tomorrow, and on Sunday she would bring him home.