Page 35 of Boston (Coral Canyon: Cowboys #12)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

B oston couldn’t wait to get back to his cabin, and he practically ran out of the cubicles in the administration building in an effort to get there quickly. After all, Cash had just texted that he’d turned onto the property.

A quiet excitement built inside Boston that he couldn’t quite explain. Cash had definitely been his best friend growing up, and the two of them could simply be in the same room, say nothing, and feel like they’d spent quality time together.

Not only did Boston find comfort with Cash, but his cousin had gone into quiet mode in the past week or two. He’d only just started returning Boston’s texts a couple of days ago, and only with information about his arrival.

Something had definitely happened, and Boston didn’t want to be nosy about it. He simply wanted to offer support if he could.

He jogged every couple of steps, only waving to Cotton as he went by the stables and glancing cursorily to the left, where through the trees, sat Cora’s house.

He wouldn’t see her for a couple of days, as he wanted to dedicate his time with Cash to Cash, because Boston suspected his cousin would disappear as quickly as he had arrived.

Cora had plenty going on with the Fourth of July holiday, and they’d planned to go to lunch with Cash on the third and then help him move into his vacation rental.

He claimed not to have a lot, but Boston had lived with Cash for a few months, and the man sometimes changed his clothes three or four times a day.

Boston smiled just thinking about the amount of laundry his cousin did and how many bags he’d probably packed. Not only that, but Cash traveled with a lot of medical equipment too, despite the fact that he hadn’t been seriously injured in the rodeo.

Yet , whispered through Boston’s mind, because he knew one of Cash’s major concerns with being a career rodeo cowboy was injuries.

Heck, last summer, Boston had sat on the phone with Cash for hours over a month-long period after the injury of one of his friends in the rodeo. It had happened at the Calgary Stampede, which took place around this time of year, and which Cash usually loved to ride in.

Boston wondered if Tyson Greene’s injury had scared Cash off the rodeo circuit this year. Perhaps there were just too many painful memories in Canada, and Cash had decided to take the whole month off so it wouldn’t call attention to that one event. Honestly, with Cash, it could be anything.

Boston prayed as he entered the parking lot of the employee building. “Dear Lord, let me know when to push him and when to back off.”

No matter what, Boston didn’t want Cash to have to suffer needlessly, or alone. He’d been in that situation before, and it wasn’t pleasant.

He hurried down the sidewalk, then cut toward his apartment just as Cash yelled his name. Boston looked to his right, where the sound had come from, and he found his cousin slinging a sizable green camouflage duffel bag onto his back. Boston started to laugh, and he changed directions immediately.

“Hey, brother,” he said as he arrived, grabbing onto Cash despite the big backpack poking up behind his head. “It’s so good to see you.”

Cash said nothing, but his usual vibrant energy poured off him as he gripped Boston tightly and pounded him on the back.

“Boy, am I glad to be here,” Cash finally said, and he cleared his throat as he stepped away. “That was a long drive today.”

Boston watched his cousin swallow, wondering if Cash was dealing with some hidden emotions.

Surprise shot through him, as Cash had inherited a lot of his father’s stoic characteristics.

He could shut out distractions as loud as thirty thousand fans screaming at him from a Las Vegas stadium, as well as the two-ton bulls that he rode, snorting and pawing at the ground, desperate to get him off their backs.

He focused like no one Boston had ever met before, and seemingly nothing ever bothered him.

Well, something does, Boston thought as he watched his strong, powerful rodeo cowboy cousin swallow yet again.

“Where’d you come from?” Boston asked, hoping to give him a minute to continue to compose himself. “I can’t remember if you said you were going to be in Vegas or Denver.”

“Neither,” Cash said, and he headed toward the building. When Boston had gotten the job at Silver Sage, he’d moved out of the apartment he shared with Cash, and his cousin had helped him move in here, taking precious time from his training schedule to do so.

“So where’d you come from?” Boston said, pressing the issue as he fell into step beside his cousin. “Listen, brother, you’ve got to tell me some stuff while you’re here. Okay?”

Cash cut a look over to him, and his jaw turned tight, but he nodded. “I was actually up in Billings.”

“Oh,” Boston said brightly. “What were you doing up there?”

“I’ve been working with a guy,” Cash said. “An amateur bull rider, hasn’t turned pro yet. He was riding a rodeo up there, and I was coaching him.”

“I didn’t know you coached others,” Boston said.

“He’s the only one,” Cash said. “He doesn’t pay me. It’s like a mentorship more than anything else.”

“So he’s got a coach too?” Boston asked, because while he knew a little bit about the rodeo, he certainly didn’t know all the ins and outs.

“No,” Cash said. “You don’t typically get trainers and coaches until you go pro.”

“Oh, sure,” Boston said.

They reached the bottom of the steps, and Cash let Boston go first. He jogged up them to the second floor and opened the door with a flourish, gesturing with one arm toward his enormous studio apartment. He grinned with everything he had. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

Cash finally chuckled, and that set Boston further at ease.

“Thanks for letting me stay here,” he said.

“You’re welcome here any time,” Boston said. “And I’m not only saying that because I managed to get the next two days off to entertain you.”

Cash moved inside the apartment and unshouldered his bag.

“You didn’t have to do that. I told you, I’m real good at entertaining myself.

” He moved to the back wall, which housed the kitchen.

“You guys have a nice pool and restaurants here. And to be real honest, I brought my big bag because it’s the one that has my sleeping pills in it. ”

Boston chuckled. “There’s no rest for the weary,” he said, repeating something his father often told him.

Cash looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, in his expression, and all across his forehead. Boston wanted nothing more than to erase it all from him, and he suddenly knew how his momma and daddy must feel about him, and how Heavenly Father feels about all of His children.

Instead of going around, Boston hopped right over the back of the couch and sank into it. “Come tell me everything.”

Cash sighed, but he moved to the opposite end of the couch and sat down. He swept off his cowboy hat and set it on the front arm of the sofa.

“There’s not much to tell,” Cash said. “It’s a boring drive from Billings to here.”

“Yeah, I don’t mean that,” Boston said. “I mean, why you haven’t answered any of my texts in the past couple of weeks?”

Cash closed his eyes as if he might turn feline and Boston wouldn’t be able to see him that way.

“Or why you’re not doing rodeo this summer,” Boston continued, feeling the spirit tingle through his limbs and telling him to continue. “And anything else you’ve got going on in that smart brain of yours that I can help you figure out.”

“Who says there’s anything?” Cash’s voice sat at a dangerous level of quiet.

“I do,” Boston said. “Because I know you, Cash. Anyone else who does just has to take one look at you, and they’ll be concerned too.”

Cash opened his eyes and stared straight across the room.

A TV had been mounted to the wall there that Boston used very little.

It sat dark now, and as the seconds slipped by, he thought he might have to be even more forceful to get Cash to start talking.

His pulse pinged around his body, because he really didn’t want to have to do that.

Then Cash looked at him, his midnight eyes dark and wide and shockingly pooled with tears. One spilled out of the corner of his right eye, and Cash let it splash against his cheek and flow down his face.

“I had a real bad fight with my daddy,” he said. “And I bought a new phone and left my regular one in my apartment while I went to Montana.”

Boston knew exactly what his father would say about that , but he kept the admonition that it wasn’t safe for anyone to not know where he was to himself. Cash didn’t need to hear it. He’d been living on his own for a while now, and he’d obviously made it to Billings and back alive.

But not well.

“I’m so sorry,” Boston said. “What was it about?”

“Oh, just stupid stuff,” Cash said, waving one big hand through the air at nothing. “Stuff I know we can’t control. Stuff that I didn’t even know I was mad about.” He looked down at his hands and picked at his fingernails. “Cousin stuff, you know?”

Cousin stuff.

So feeling left out. Left behind. Unwanted. Alone. Isolated.

Boston knew the “cousin stuff.”

“Like, I see all these other guys on the circuit with their daddies and brothers, and I don’t have anything like that,” Cash said.

Boston suddenly wanted to quit the one and only job he’d ever liked and go on the road with Cash, simply so he wouldn’t have to be alone.

“Then my manager moved,” Cash said. “And he didn’t take me with him, and I guess that affected me more than I thought it would.

Then another buddy of mine broke his leg doing bareback at the end of April.

And I don’t know, combined with everything, being by myself, talking to Ty in Texas as he pieces his life back together, I just can’t do the rodeo right now. ”