him on his ass. His dog had obviously been well taken care of by the ranch hands as his bowl was full of fresh water and he’d been fed. As Wes drove away from the cabin, Conner couldn’t quite believe everything that had happened in the last thirty-six hours. He managed to make it up the steps and opened the front door.
The faint smell of coffee and Beth’s flowery perfume drifted out to greet him and he swallowed hard. Without her the cabin felt both too big and too lonely.
“Stupid fool,” Conner muttered to himself as he felt in his pocket for the painkillers and antibiotics Dr. Tio had given him that morning. “Get over it.”
It wasn’t like him to be sentimental, but maybe he was just worn out and needed a good night’s sleep to set his mind at rest. He swallowed down the pills with a glass of milk and the rest of Beth’s chicken, used the bathroom, and got himself ready for bed. Dr. Tio had dressed his wounds and told him to leave them alone until the morning.
He lay down and listened to the sounds of the night—the distant howls of a coyote pack and the much louder song of the grasshoppers. In the all-encompassing silence he tried to work out when things had gone wrong with Beth and still couldn’t put his finger on it. For the first time in his life he didn’t know how to fix things because in the past he’d never bothered and had just shrugged his shoulders and moved on. But something about Beth had changed him.
He had only known her for a couple of months, but everything inside him was yelling at him to stop dicking around and pay attention. And he’d learned to listen to his gut in the military. There was something there—something tantalizing and new. He wanted to reach out his hand and find Beth’s waiting for him.
Even as he considered what to do, the painkillers kicked in and he was suddenly asleep.
* * *
“You didn’t need to wait up for me,” Wes said as he came into the kitchen and found Beth sitting at the table.
“I know.” She shrugged. “I made the mistake of having more coffee and now I’m wide awake again.”
That was partially true. Wes didn’t need her to spell out that she’d needed to see him return safely unlike his half brother.
“Mikey will be okay,” Wes said.
“I’m sure he will,” Beth agreed.
It was rapidly becoming clear to her that her boys didn’t need her as much as they used to, which was both a blessing and a curse. Her father always said that the best thing a parent could do for their child was give them the tools to become responsible functioning adults, so she supposed she’d done her job. She’d always be there for them, but she definitely needed to let them live their own lives and make their own mistakes.
Which sounded great in principle, but was obviously a lot harder to put into practice than she’d realized.
“Are you mad that he wouldn’t come home?” Wes asked.
Beth sighed. “Yes. I wish I wasn’t and could be a better person, but I can’t seem to manage it right now.”
“Maybe Mikey just needs to work things out for himself,” Wes suggested.
“That’s what Conner said.”
Wes paused at the bottom of the stairs. “I know it’s none of my business, but you were pretty salty with Conner, considering what he did for you today.”
“I didn’t ask him to come with me,” Beth said. “And I did say thank you when we arrived back here.”
“I kind of told him you were probably overtired.”
“Why?”
“Because he was obviously worried about you and trying not to let you know.”
Beth snorted. “Conner O’Neil doesn’t worry about anyone. He’s a tough guy who likes to keep people at a distance and that suits me just fine.”
“But he didn’t keep you at a distance,” Wes said slowly. “In fact, he went out of his way to help you.”
“Wes.” Beth rose to her feet. She really wasn’t going to discuss everything that had gone down between her and Conner, but she could see from Wes’s perspective that she might have come off as cold. “I don’t need a lecture from you right now. I’ll call him up in the morning and apologize, okay?”
She moved toward Wes, who was blocking the stairs.
“You like him, don’t you?”
She rolled her eyes even as her cheeks heated up. “Sure, like a woman who has two teens in