Page 36 of Boston (Coral Canyon: Cowboys #12)

His voice had risen an octave too high as he fought and spoke through his emotions. He drew in a deep breath, and Boston watched him settle himself. One second was all it took, and Boston admired his mental and physical strength.

“So when my daddy just sat and questioned me and questioned me and questioned me….” He looked over to Boston again and gave a wobbly, watery smile. “You know how they are. They never let up.”

“No, they don’t,” Boston said, and yes, his own parents had irritated him on many occasions with their needling questions, especially to things Boston didn’t have answers for.

“And instead of telling him about the rodeo, and that I’m scared of being injured, and that I don’t know why I can’t do it right now, or why I feel like God wants me to be in Coral Canyon, I just let all the other stuff out. It was stupid, but I don’t know how to go to him and apologize.”

He shook his head and took a few more breaths. Boston gave him the space and time and silence that he required, because now that Cash had started talking, he’d see it through to the end.

“I’ve got to go over there,” Cash said. “I’m just going to have to act like he’s the bull, and I’m going to get on the fence, and I’m going to face it.”

“If there’s anything I know about your dad,” Boston said. “It’s that he’s one of the most forgiving men on the planet.”

Cash looked over to him, curiosity zipping through his expression, and questions being asked that he didn’t verbalize.

“It’s true,” Boston said, fighting his own emotions. This was not about him, and he didn’t want to overshadow Cash’s pain. “Your daddy’s done some things in his life that he’s not proud of. He’s hurt people. Heck, from what I heard, he was real mean to Aunt Faith when they were dating.”

Cash nodded, his teeth gritted tightly together. “He was.”

“But he made it right,” Boston said. “He takes off his hat, and he holds it in front of him, and he humbles himself before God, and then he goes to that person, and he makes it right.” He sniffed, simply to pull back on his emotions again.

“And you’re his son,” Boston said. “You have that gene inside you too, and I know your daddy, and he only wants you to come back.”

“Yeah,” Cash said, but the word didn’t carry any conviction.

“How many times has he texted you?” Boston asked.

“I think there was a thirty-seven next to his name.”

“Any calls?”

“Ten.”

“That’s not a man who’s not going to forgive you.”

“I know,” Cash said. “But what it also is, is a man who I hurt, and I can’t take back the words I said, even if I didn’t mean them ten seconds later.” He looked over to Boston with such hope in his eyes. “Have you ever done that?”

“Said something I didn’t mean that I regretted immediately?” Boston chuckled. “All the time, brother. Every day.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Cash gave him a smile and shook his head. “But thanks for playing.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, come on, Boston,” he said. “You’re all easy-going and casual conversation. Nothing upsets you. Nothing riles you up.”

“I get riled up,” Boston said. “I take offense to that.”

They sat there for a moment, and then they both laughed.

“Yeah, I can tell you’re really upset.” Cash blew out his breath and sobered again. “I almost did something real stupid too,” he said in a much quieter voice. “With a woman, after the fight.”

Boston’s heart stopped again.

“Yeah.” Cash nodded, his expression unreadable now. “God shouted at me real loud that night. Thankfully, I got out of there before I did something completely idiotic.”

“Well, I’m happy about that, then,” Boston said.

“Me too,” Cash said. “Because I don’t think I deserved to have His Spirit warn me like that.”

“Of course you do,” Boston said. “A fight with your daddy doesn’t make you a bad person. Heck, I haven’t even spoken to my father in oh, nine months.”

Cash drew in another breath and laid his head back against the couch. “But you talk to your daddy here.”

“Sometimes,” Boston said, knowing he needed to do better.

“All right, I can’t talk this much without a drink,” Cash said. “What you got?”

Boston chuckled as his cousin got to his feet. “I hope you know this is no amateur hour. I stocked that fridge with all your favorites.”

“All my favorites?” Cash opened the fridge, whooped, and then pulled out a bottle of Teton Ridge root beer. “You got my favorite brand.”

Boston got to his feet too. “I told you this wasn’t no amateur hour. Get me the grape one, would you?”

Cash bent back into the fridge and got the soda that Boston had bought for himself.

“You know this took a special trip to town,” he said. “Forty-nine minutes, one way.”

“You’ll survive,” Cash said. “Did you take your pretty girlfriend with you?”

“No,” Boston said. “She had a couple of meetings and couldn’t go.”

Cash grinned at him and twisted off the bottle cap with his bare hands. Boston used a bottle opener and took a hearty swig of his soda. The fruity carbonation was about the best thing he’d ever put in his mouth.

“I do need your help with something though,” Boston said casually.

“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”

“Cora’s got this favorite place she likes to visit, and she wants me to guess it,” he said. “I’m up to five clues now, and I have no idea where it is.”

“I’m sure I could help with that,” Cash said, grinning. “Seeing as how I don’t live here and haven’t for seven years.”

Boston chuckled with him, and this time he sobered first. “I think you’re an amazing person, Cash,” he said. “No matter if you disagree with your daddy, or yell at him, or do whatever with girls, I don’t care. You’re my best friend, and I love you.”

Cash’s eyes turned glassy again, and he nodded, then grabbed onto Boston and hauled him in for a hug. He held him tighter than he ever had before, and he said, “I love you too, Boston. Really, you have no idea what it’s like to have someone like you who’s safe, who doesn’t judge me.”

“Never,” Boston said. They parted, and Cash nodded and looked away as he wiped his eyes for the second time that day.

“All right, tell me the clues, and then tell me you got a dinner reservation at the steakhouse here.”

“Reservation at seven,” Boston said. “That was the earliest we could get. I figured you wouldn’t mind, since you’re usually out all night anyway.”

“Seven is great,” Cash confirmed.

Boston turned back to the couch. “Okay, here are my clues. I need bug spray to go there. I don’t need a fishing pole. It’s brown. You only want to visit at a certain time of year.”

That had been Cora’s fourth clue, and he’d gotten it when he’d arrived at the mountain cabin midweek last week. She’d given him another clue when he’d gotten home on Saturday night. “And we’ll eat like kings after we go.”

He looked over to Cash and then tipped his head back as he took another long drag of grape soda. “It’s got to be a fishing spot,” he said. “Somewhere with water. It’s not Silver Lake. I already guessed that.”

“Brown,” Cash said. “That’s really throwing me. No fishing pole…. Why do you think it’s water?”

“Why would I need bug spray if it’s not by water?” he asked.

“Fair point.”

“Eat like kings, only visit a certain time of year. I thought of things you might harvest,” he said. “Like blueberries or huckleberries.”

“There could be bugs out in those,” Cash said.

“No fishing pole, eat like kings.” Boston said, “Does she really think kings eat berries?”

They both chuckled, and then Cash said again, “It’s the brown that’s throwing me.”

“Eat like kings,” Boston mused. “Maybe good fish.”

“What’s the best fish up here?” Cash asked.

Their eyes met, and Boston said, “The salmon run.” Understanding flowed over him. “It only happens at a certain time of year.”

You don’t need a pole,” Cash said. “They jump right up out of the water.”

“You do need bug spray.”

“We’re back to brown,” Cash said. “It’s a weird clue.”

“She said it because my truck’s brown,” Boston said. “But maybe….” He picked up his phone and tapped on his maps app. “Maybe the brown is in the name of the place.”

Cash let him search, and a few minutes later, Boston scrolled on his phone, moving along the waterway north of Rusk.

“I think I got it,” he said. Quiet excitement built inside him. “Right there, right in the middle.” He passed the phone to Cash, who peered at it.

“Little Brown Bear Falls. Brother, that’d be the perfect place to see the salmon run. You could reach a net right out there, grab some fish. No fishing pole. After you spray yourself down with a bunch of bug spray.”

Boston reached for his phone and said, “I’m texting her right now.” He did, and Cash chuckled.

“What?” Boston said. The text on its way to Cora, he stuck his phone under his leg, determined not to lose himself in texts with his girlfriend while his cousin was here and needed him.

“You should just see your face, Boston,” he said. “You really like this woman.”

Boston took another drink of his soda, hoping it would cool him down. “Yeah,” he said, suddenly seeing no reason to deny it. “I really like this woman.”