Page 49 of Cowboy Heat

There’s a silence between us again. Just like the ride over here. I shouldn’t have come. I’m making this all worse.

I should tell Beau to take me to Mimi’s.

Say sorry.

Say thanks.

Promise another rain check for when I’m feeling more like myself.

More human.

I open my mouth to try and conveysomething,but Beau’s soft voice breaks the quiet again.

“You know, I was in a really bad accident last year in Orlando,” he starts. “I was working undercover, trying to get something on this atrociously bad guy. A human trafficker. Worst kind of worst.” Beau’s looking straight ahead. I can see his scar clearly at the angle. Just like I could at the bar. A terrible line of shiny, jagged skin. The same scar I searched at my house when I took his face in my hand on reflex. “After a lot of work, I’d finally gotten a break with my undercover alias,” he continues. “This guy, well, he finally trusted me. Enough to ask me to drive him to their base of operations, a place we hadn’t been able to find yet. It was a huge win and a break in the case we’d been trying for months.”

He takes a pause. I think it’s for effect, but maybe it’s to get his thoughts right. His hand fists on this thigh then relaxes back out with what looks like great effort.

“I remember walking to his SUV, him already inside, and I’m happy as punch that we’re getting him. Finally. Then, I get a call from my chief. He said there was some concerning chatter. Talk of a car bomb, specifically. And there I am, walking toward this bad guy’s personal vehicle, him inside. I start running on instinct, trying to save them.”

He sighs. Then barrels into it.

“I’d never seen a vehicle blow up before, but I can tell you it’s a singularly horrible thing. One second the world was fine, and then in the next, everything was burning.”

He touches his scar and then his leg.

“I was close enough to get some shrapnel but far enough from the blast to be very lucky that all I have are some scars and a limp. Everyone else in that vehicle— Well, I was really lucky.”

He saysthemandeveryonequick. Like the words hurt.

I wonder who else was in his suspects’ vehicle, but I don’t pry. He has a point to make, and I want to know what it is.

“The adrenaline rush was crazy after that. I didn’t even know I was hurt for a while. Not until a bystander came up to me. I didn’t feel anything but energy. But later? When everything settled? I couldn’t. Not like everyone else around me.” He shakes his head. “It’s hard to slow down when something so violent happens to you. It’s like the world is out of sync with you.”

He looks at me.

I want to touch him.

To tell him I’m sorry for him having to go through that.

Thank him for sharing.

But he’s right. I feel steps behind.

“I’m not sure I’m processing it all,” I admit. “I-I know it happened, but it doesn’t feel real.”

His smile is there, but it downshifts into pure and poignant sympathy. “It will feel real soon. And it’ll suck. But it’ll be good too. You can’t move on and heal from something if you can’t come to grips with that something happening.”

He snorts. Just a little.

“Which is what Maximus said to me when I got out of the hospital.” He shakes his head, humored. “For all of our sibling rivalry, he does tend to be the one who’s most right out of the six of us.”

He reaches out and takes my hand.

His skin is warm.

“So Miss Lawson, would you like to eat something with me? If not, there’s always drinking.”

He winks, actually winks.