Jesus, I really needed to tell him what happened. I needed him to know it wasn’t his fault.
I needed him to know he didn’t chase me away.
I opened up my phone and called the only restaurant in town that I knew took reservations, and I made one for us for 7 o’clock tonight. I still wasn’t sure how I would get in touch with Flynn, but I was sure if I asked around town enough, I would figure it out. That’s the thing about a small town, you never really can hide from where you are and where you’ve gone.
Unless, of course, you up and leave without telling anyone except your parents in a note.
I tossed the piece of paper to the floor after I hung up my phone and I sped down the road towards the stables. I used to go there whenever I felt overwhelmed or needed to think, but the owner’s son knew Flynn from high school. If they still owned the barn and he was still working there, they might know where Flynn was, and I might be able to get in a relaxing ride before cleaning up and meeting Flynn tonight.
That is if he would come.
I weaved my way to the stable as if I had been there yesterday. I looked exactly as I remembered it: apple trees lined the half mile gravel driveway so the horses could have snacks while they were out to pasture. The grass was a lush green that could be seen for miles. My parents owned the second-largest piece of property to this stable. It sat on close to forty acres of rolling hills and land, and no matter how much the city tried to buy out some of their land, they simply paid the higher taxes and kept on going with their services. They provided everything anyone could possibly want when it came to horses and their care: boarding services, breeding services, grooming services, shoe services, and even training services. They gave lessons and had a partnership with my parents in the summer to help with the summer camps, and they even held horse shows and competitions so the local kids learning to ride horses could compete.
It was where I found my solace whenever I felt stressed during my days in high school or college, and I volunteered my time whenever I could in the summer to help out when I was a kid. I shoveled stalls, I brushed horses, and I even helped birth a few foals in my day, too.
My smile hurt my face as I pulled up to the stables, and the shaggy-haired boy I’d known throughout high school turned around with the face of a man plastered onto his neck.
“Well, I’ll be! Chelsea is that you!?”
I threw the car into park and barreled up the parking lot. I jumped into his arms, and he swung me around, and he held me for a while before he put me down.
“You ain’t been ‘round here in a while! How ya been!?” he asked. Bradley had always been such a good kid, even after losing his mom so young. His dad stepped up the best he could, and the two of them decided to open this place when he was in middle school. They dedicated it to her and everything. They always said this place had her soul: she loved apples in the fall and there was nothing she loved more than a horse in white. Every horse they ever purchased to own of their own volition either had white coats or white manes and tails, and it made me teary-eyed every time I thought about it.
“Thinkin’ ‘bout mom, aren’t ya?” Bradley asked.
“Sorry,” I sniffled.
“Don’t be. So! What brings you here? Wanting to take a ride?”
“Well, yes, and there’s something else,” I said.
“You wanna know where to find Flynn,” he smirked.
I felt my face flush before he held out his phone.
“Give it here.”
I watched him open it up and type something in, and when he turned it around, I realized he had put Flynn’s number in my phone. I looked up at him with tears in my eyes before taking the phone from him, and I slipped it back into my pocket before throwing my arms around his neck.
“I don’t know what happened with y’all, but call him. He’d be happy to see you.”
Lord, didn’t I know it.
“Any chance I can cash in that ride?” I murmured.
He led me out to the barn and showed me this beautiful white horse. His coat was white, and his mane and tail were black, and I could have sworn the horse had a mischievous smirk on his face.
“This here’s Oreo. Let’s get you saddled up, and you can take him out. He hasn’t been out yet today, so he’ll love you just for gettin’ him out of his stall.”
“You think I don’t remember how to put one of these on?” I asked. Bradley laughed while he saddled up Oreo, and when I swung my leg over, he whistled lowly before he turned to walk away.
“Flynn’s a lucky guy!” he called back.
I wish I could’ve believed him. The truth was Flynn deserved better. I fell in love with him, and I knew he loved me, and yet when I was tossed my dream job I left his side without so much as consulting him in the matter before I booked a flight for Paris. On the one hand, that’s my career. They handed me my dream on a platter and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna turn it down. But Flynn was my soulmate, the man I clung to all through college. I supported his bull-riding endeavors even when his parents were too worried about his safety to see how happy it made him. He supported me in my fashion passion, even though he repeatedly admitted he didn’t understand a lick of it. We feasted on each other’s presence during the day and dined on each other’s bodies at night, and we had dated so long that our parents had already begun planning our wedding before Flynn had even proposed.
It was just… one of those things you knew would eventually happen. We knew it, our families knew it, and the entire town knew it.
The least I could do was give Flynn an explanation as to what happened. Even if my assumptions were incorrect and even if he would’ve followed me to Paris or, at the very least, supported me as I went, I needed to let him know that it was all in my head.
I needed him to know that I still cared for him and that there had been no one after him.
God, there was so much I wanted to say over dinner, and I felt my hands trembling as I held Oreo’s reigns.
“Steady now,” I whispered to myself.
I ducked us out of the barn and got us going in the field. I ripped my hair down from my ponytail and let the wind comb through my hair, and I held my arms out while my hips synced to the rhythm of his thunderous hooves. My god, I had forgotten how powerful I felt on the back of a horse. I always used to tell Flynn that being on the back of a horse was more liberating than being on the back of a bull, and then he’d just smirk and tell me I hadn’t been on a bucking bull before.
And then I’d prove to him wrong every single night whenever I straddled his hips.
Everything was going so well. I had Flynn’s number, I had reservations, I finally had the guts to tell him what happened all those years ago, and I had actually gotten to sink my hands into the thick of his muscles again. I was on top of the most beautiful horse in this town, I was galloping through the greenest fields this state had to offer, and I felt absolutely unstoppable.
But then, Oreo reared back onto his haunches and started shrieking up a storm.
“Whoa! Oreo… calm down, boy. Whoooooooa.”
I grabbed tight onto the reigns and flexed my thighs, but my foot slid from the stirrup to my right. I felt my body slowly slide off to the side and figured if I tucked and rolled, I could at least run back to the barn while Oreo shook off whatever it was that was spooking him.
But, when I looked down, I realized it was a massive snake.
“Shit,” I bit.
I tried desperately to rein him in, but when he brought his feet back down, he bucked back with his hind legs. He was whinnying in pain, and I was in unfamiliar territory, and I heard Bradley screaming behind me as the hooves of another horse quickly approached. I felt my body being thrown from Oreo as Bradley continued to roar my name in the background, and when I hit my back, the last thing I remember is Oreo’s hooves above my face and a sharp pain ricocheting down my neck.
And then? Everything went black.
Chapter 9: Flynn
I’d finally gotten
done mucking out the stables when I heard my phone vibrating on the counter. It rang, and it rang, and I rushed over to catch it just before it fell off the counter and onto the tiled kitchen floor. I didn’t recognize the number on the screen, and part of me was tempted to simply let it go to voicemail. It was easy around here for people to get numbers and then start soliciting things, and while I loved buying cookies from the scouts around the area, I didn’t like politicians and churches calling me up and asking stupid questions and wanting me to donate money to some campaign I’d never heard of.
But, something told me I needed to take this call. Something in the pit of my gut told me that the local area code that was flashing meant something terrible had gone wrong. I thought of all the things that could’ve happened: maybe someone broke into my parent’s old home I renovated, or maybe something had happened to Bradley at the stables. I told him he was taking on too much work with his dad climbing up in age, and I’d offered my services on a part-time basis time and time again to him.
However, the voice I received on the other end of the line was one I never thought I’d ever hear again.
“Flynn!?”
I recognized Chelsea’s mom immediately. There were so many nights I spent at Chelsea’s parents’ house after dinner shooting the shit with them around a fire. Her father would always put a beer in my hand, and her mother would always tell me stories, and she was always so sweet to inquire as to how my parents were. I always just felt the longing need to tell her everything: about my mom’s inability to have more kids and how she always took in the more unfortunate ones around the neighborhood. I talked to her about how much I loved her daughter and how I wanted to marry her one day.
I’ll never forget the bright smile on her father’s face when he clapped me on the back and asked me if he could be part of the ring shopping I did for his daughter.
How the hell could I say no to him for that?
“Mrs. August? Everything alright?” I asked.
“Oh God, Flynn. It is you. I didn’t realize you and Chelsea were still in touch like this.”
“I’m not sure what you mean…?” I asked.
“I’m calling from Chelsea’s phone, Flynn.”
She said it like a fact. Like I should’ve known who was calling. I had no idea what she thought, but my gut reaction was that Chelsea was up to her old antics again. Creating lies and spinning webs so no one would backlash on her when they found out she was bed-hopping with her college sweetheart on a whim because she was bored and home. I needed to give her more credit, though. When she started crying on the couch in my trailer about how sorry she was, she seemed sincere.
And then, she uttered five distinct words that ripped me from the rush of questions running through my head that shivered me to my core.
“Flynn, there’s been an accident.”
“Where’s Chelsea?” I asked lowly.
“She uh… she's... we’re-... at the hospital. She’s-”
Chelsea’s mom started sobbing on the phone, and that’s when I heard rustling on the other end. A gruff voice, one I’d never forget so long as I lived, picked up the talking on the phone while I rushed around and grabbed everything I needed to get to the hospital in town.
Something has happened to Chelsea, and I felt a protective need to get to her.
“Flynn? It’s Barber.”
“Hello, Mr. August. What the hell’s happened? Where’s Chelsea?”
“Chelsea’s in a medically-induced coma. She, uh… came to the stables in town and Bradley set her up on a ride.”
“Why is she in a coma!?” I roared into the phone. I unlocked my truck and ripped my door open, and it was then my neighbor came running up to me. News traveled fast in a small town, and she mouthed something about going inside and taking care of the dog while I was away. I nodded quickly and unwound the key to my house from my key ring and sent her on her merry way while Barber continued talking into my ear.
“The horse got spooked by a snake and started buckin’ her every which way. Bradley heard the commotion and got on his horse and went runnin’ towards her, but by the time he got there, she’d already been thrown. The snake that spooked the horse bit her neck, and then the horse came down onto her shoulder.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered to myself. I sped down the road and ignored the stop sign at the intersection before I got on the main road into town. Of all the times, I had to be fifteen minutes outside of town, this had to be it.
My parent’s home would’ve been a hell of a lot closer…
“When did this happen?” I asked as I took a hard-right turn.
“‘Bout three hours ago. They set her shoulder, but the venom from the snake is taking a while to work through her system. No one saw the snake, so a basic anti-venom is all they got until they pinpoint what’s in her system. They are doing tests on her now.”
“And it’s been three hours since the doctors did that!?” I exclaimed. What the fuck were these doctors doing?! Standing around with their thumbs up their asses!?
“Chelsea’s mom told me she’d seen you at the rodeo, and when we found your number in her phone, we figured y’all had reconnected.”
I’m still not sure how she got my phone number or why she would’ve needed it, but if she was at the stables Bradley was still running, then there was a good chance she asked him for it. I’m not sure why, and right now I didn’t care. All I knew was I was still eight minutes away from the hospital, and Chelsea was unconscious and alone in a hospital bed.
“Thank you for callin’ me, Barber. I’m eight minutes away. Get a doctor. I wanna talk to one when I get up there.”
“See ya soon, son.”
That was the thing about Barber, it was always so comforting when he called me son. Even though I hadn’t seen or spoken to them since Chelsea up and left, I still considered them family. They were just those types of people: they imprinted on your life, and they just didn’t leave. Throughout the whole conversation, I could hear Mrs. Mrs. August sobbing in the background, and something told me I was walking into a very dark scenario that would shock Chelsea when she came to.
If she was ever gonna come to.
I sped into the hospital parking lot and whizzed by a police officer. He whipped on his lights and followed me to the spot I picked, and when I got out of my truck, he paused when he realized who I was.
“I’m so sorry, Flynn,” he offered.
That’s when you know it’s bad. When a police officer won’t arrest you for buzzin’ around in a hospital parking lot, things are never as good as you want them to be.
I busted through the hospital doors and made my way over to the nurse’s desk. I rattled off Chelsea’s name, and their faces got dark, and my stomach began to churn and the bile I was trying so hard to fight off rose to the top of my throat. I sprinted to the stairs and took them two by two, and when I shoved the door to the fifth-floor open, I started looking around frantically for the room numbers.
But a familiar voice caught my ear, and when I whirled around, I saw Mrs. August runnin’ to me down the hallway.
“Oh, Flynn,” she breathed. I cloaked my arms around her trembling body and slowly walked her back into the waiting room, and that was when I saw Barber. His pale face was in his hands, and I could tell by the way his shoulders were shaking that something had happened. Between the time I cut that phone call ten minutes ago and now, the doctor had news I hadn’t been privy to yet.
“Where the hell is the doctor?” I glowered.
“Right here, Bullhead.”
I held Mrs. August close to me while I turned towards the familiar sound, and I recognized the woman walking towards me. Ashley Lawson, a girl I attended high school with, had a smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Hey, Ash,” I breathed.
“We got her venom tests back, and it’s not good. A rattlesnake got hold of her and bit her right in her main artery. She’s got a great deal of brain swelling, so we’ve just got don
e inserting a tube underneath her skull to help drain off some of the fluid while the anti-venom takes hold in her system.”
“Her… her brain is…”
I couldn’t think straight. Just last night I was thrusting into those beautiful hips and dreaming of her juices on my tongue. Just this morning I cursed her for leaving her scent behind without her body, and all day I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that maybe-- just maybe-- if I tracked her down I could have her thighs squeeze around my hips one last time before she left.
Because we all knew she’d eventually leave and go back to wherever she came from.
“We have her in a medically-induced coma to try and reduce the amount of stress her body is under, and she’ll be like that for the next few days. She’s had that venom in her system for a while, so leeching it from her muscle tissue is gonna take some time, and her body needs to rest, so she had the energy for it.”
I heard Barber’s sobs from behind me, and it was all I could do to keep my composure. My Chelsea, the woman I dedicated my life to, the must for my riding-- the woman I realized I never wanted to let go of ever again-- was lying in a hospital bed for no other reason than happenstance. She was an expert horse rider, everyone knew that.
But nothing can prepare you for an animal randomly turning into a rodeo bronco.
“Can I stay with her?” I asked. I felt Mrs. August look up at me while my eyes connected heavily with Ash’s. I knew her parents would want to stick around the hospital, and I knew there was a good chance she would have many different visitors for the past couple of days. I could already feel Mrs. August tensing underneath my grasp, and I could tell that everything within Ash was about to tell me ‘no’. But, I saw something flash for a split second behind her eyes before she looked around at the people that loved Chelsea August as much as I did, and she took a step closer to me and lowered her voice.
“Don’t let anyone catch you,” she said.
I nodded and pulled Mrs. August away from me before I wiped her tears away.
Baby Makes Three: A Brother's Best Friend's Secret Baby Romance Page 42
