Harlequin Heartwarming June 2021 Box Set

by Patricia Johns

  The doctor glared at the door after she left and then turned to Will. “This is my place of business, isn’t it?” He frowned at Krista.

  “This is Krista Montgomery,” Will said. “She’s—a friend.”

  “More than a friend,” Krista said.

  “We can be honest with him, I think,” Will said.

  “Well, then,” she said and withdrew her hand from his. The empty space felt like a cold draft.

  The doctor glanced between them and retreated to his file. “Right, this is where we’re at.”

  A year of surgeries had taught Will some of the terms that the doctor let fly, but there were new ones, as well. Ones that pointed to exactly how narrow his options were becoming. He’d overdone it with the rodeo and the farm work. Krista was scraping her lip with her teeth, her face scrunched with worry. She seemed to have forgotten she didn’t need to fake it.

  “Are you recommending surgery?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to go that route yet,” the doctor said. “The thing is, it’ll be a wait, anyway, and there’s lots that can be done that’s preventative.”

  “Should his arm be in a sling?”

  “There is that, especially while he’s watching videos or around the campfire or sitting on the deck.”

  “And what is the maximum weight he should lift?”

  “I’m right here,” Will informed her.

  “Good, then you shouldn’t have to be reminded what to do.”

  “I’ve got a list you can get from the front desk,” he said, “of dos and don’ts.” He looked sharply at Will. “Now be honest, how are you managing with the pain?”

  Even now, his shoulder felt on fire. “It’s sore most of the time,” he admitted.

  Krista stood. “I’m going to leave because I’ve seen the X-rays and there’s no way that’s the truth, Will. You never seem to tell the truth when you’re with me. At least be honest with your doctor.”

  “I double every bedtime dosage so I can sleep for a few hours,” he said quickly. “So, I’m managing it, but I could do with some different kind of help.”

  “That sounds about right for what the X-rays show,” his doctor said and tapped his mouth with his fist.

  Head bent, Will noticed Krista’s toes, pink like wild roses. They were curled and as he watched, they slowly relaxed. She resumed her seat and he breathed again.

  She must still have feelings for him, because in this room, she didn’t have to fake a thing. She’d admitted she cared for him when she broke things off, but he figured she’d said that to soften the blow. Gone was her anger because he hadn’t been honest about his shoulder. She could only be upset now because the doctor had nothing good to say. He opened his hand on his knee, palm upward. She sighed and laid hers on his. He quickly clamped his fingers around her hand. There, something real. The doctor was inputting Will’s prescription. “Careful you take this as directed because they are strong enough to knock out a horse.”

  “Speaking of which,” Krista said, “in your opinion, should Will in his present condition be participating in the bareback ride planned for three weeks from now?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend he do anything that risks further injury to his shoulder,” the doctor said.

  Krista looked in triumph at Will.

  “Having said that,” the doctor said, “I’d also have to recommend he avoid stairs because that would increase his risk of further injury, too.”

  “So you are suggesting that he take reasonable risks? Will, are you listening?”

  He had been listening. To his doctor, to his physiotherapist, his mother, Alyssa—and Krista. Listening because they all cared about his health, and who was he to override that? He’d stayed quiet and that had caused confusion and distrust among those he loved. Time to come clean and say what he’d only come to accept in these last few days when he’d lost the one person he wanted most by his side.

  “This is the thing, Krista. This ride is about more than me keeping my word, and it’s more than about the kids. Both mean a lot to me, and I’d do it for either one of those reasons. But I’m doing it because it’ll be my last ride. I’ll never get on a bronc again. I don’t want my last ride to be one where I ended up injured. Defeated. I want one more chance to do it right. I want one more chance where I can make myself proud.”

  Krista chewed her lip and stared down at her pink toes. He jiggled their held hands. “Because the heart wants, right?”

  She flashed him an annoyed look.

  His doctor handed Will the prescription. “Good luck.” It wasn’t the most reassuring thing for a doctor to say to his patient.

  They were halfway out the door when the doctor said, “So what do I tell the camera?”

  Will considered how much of his medical condition was fair game. “Hold nothing back.”

  “After all,” Krista added, “Will isn’t.”

  Will wanted to believe that beneath the irritation and irony, there was the tiniest thread of faith in his determination to leave the arena on his own two feet and his head high.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AS KRISTA WAS about to close for the day, Alyssa came in. She breathed deeply and flopped onto Krista’s sofa. No appointment, no invitation. She held up her phone.

  “I’m taking out your ex.”

  It was yet another meme. The dolls sat on the fence. Krista-doll said, “I could give those kids a speed spa. That’s all they need.” Will-doll’s thought balloon read, “About as useful as this ride of mine.”

  Krista handed back the phone as she took a seat beside Alyssa. It was nasty but—“Hey, Alyssa. It’s just a joke. Maybe you shouldn’t take it so seriously.” Krista deliberately used Alyssa’s exact words from their earlier blowup with Laura before her wedding. The incident that had fractured Alyssa’s friendship with Laura. The two were talking again, though Laura had confided that it was only because Alyssa was respecting Krista.

  Alyssa’s head bobbed sideways, like a dashboard toy, absorbing Krista’s poke. “I hear you,” she said softly, and then her voice rose again, “but this—this is more than personal. It’s about children. It’s...cruel.”

  It was.

  “I’m sure you’d love for this guy to get taken down, too,” Alyssa said.

  “Maybe for the sake of others, but he’s now more like a rock in the shoe for me,” Krista said. She had enough clients now, repeat clients who knew her for who she was. If her conflict with Phillip came up, the reaction was sympathy or a comparable story of their own.

  “A rock I intend to grind into powder,” Alyssa said. “What dirt do you have on him?”

  Back in the winter, Krista had come up with all kinds of malicious scenarios to crush Phillip. But nothing was more satisfying than the sweet revenge of success. “I’m not sure that’s the route to take. It’s important that he’s convinced it was his idea to stop so he can keep face.”

  “This ex must’ve been totally head over heels with you. He’s obsessed.” She sighed sharply. “You really are trouble. The worst kind because you don’t ever mean to be.”

  Was Alyssa handing her a compliment? Krista proceeded with caution. “You sound like Bridget when she had to pick me up from the principal’s office after I got punched in the face from a fight I was trying to break up.”

  “A fight over you, remember?”

  “Yeah,” Krista said. “Those days are over.”

  Alyssa held up the screen of her phone with the dolls. “Really? They’re still fighting.”

  “Phillip but not Will.”

  “Put them in the same arena and see what happens.”

  “Not with Will’s shoulder the way it is,” Krista said. “That is one fight I would definitely put an end to.”

  Alyssa set down her phone and turned to Krista until their knees grazed. “You really do love him, don’t you?�
��

  Krista tried to laugh it off but her breath caught in her throat and she made a strangled noise. “All those guys fighting over me at school? And the only one I really wanted was the guy who flat out rejected me.” She nodded at Alyssa’s look of surprise. “Yep. Will Claverley. I’ve been stuck on him for a long time.”

  “The fish that got away?”

  This time Krista could laugh. “You clearly have not seen him in water. He’s more like a rock. A terrified rock.”

  “I heard about that. Everybody was amazed he got in there for you.”

  “Yeah, well, in the end, I guess he shouldn’t have bothered.”

  Alyssa sucked in her breath, the kind that signaled she was about to blow up. “Krista, you know I was angry when you and Will got together. Here was a guy I hoped could put up with my...explosions. I’m aware that I can be—intense. I so want things to go right that I end up making a mess of them. I ruined my friendship with Laura because I wanted her wedding to be absolutely perfect.” Alyssa twisted her mouth. “I blamed you for abandoning our partnership when you probably left because I was so insufferable.”

  Krista had no idea Alyssa had such a low opinion of herself. “Honestly, you didn’t need me. You could handle the business on your own, and you’ve proved it.”

  “But it’s made me a nervous, high-strung wreck. You had a way of bringing me down. I thought Will could help me chill a bit. And I wanted to make him feel good about himself again. Show him his fans, give him a pep talk when he was low. But then I started taping you two together and I realized—” Alyssa sucked in another breath “—I realized how good you two were together because you weren’t perfect for each other, and neither of you seemed to care.”

  But they had cared, and that was the problem. “Appearances can deceive,” Krista said quietly.

  “Or,” Alyssa said with equal quietness, “they can show what the people in the picture can’t see for themselves.”

  She was wrong, but on the brink of resurrecting their friendship there was nothing to be gained by arguing the point. “Thank you, Alyssa. Is this us patching things up?”

  “It’s me admitting that my own worst enemy was never you.” Alyssa’s head shot up and she snatched up her phone. “Worst enemy! I got it. How about this? The numbers from the video of the doctor visit are high—by the way, you would not believe the stupid hoops that doctor put me through before he’d allow me to record him. He’s the most infuriating, insufferable, conceited man I’ve ever met.”

  “I don’t know,” Krista said, “he seemed genuinely concerned about Will.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he has a heart—somewhere,” Alyssa said. “Probably keeps it buried in a closet and brings it out to scare kids on Halloween. Anyway, views are up but now I’m getting comments and emails that people are worried for Will. I’ve even had a lawyer from one of the sponsors contact me about liability waivers should Will get reinjured on his ride.”

  “Are you saying that this has backfired?”

  “No, but maybe we should address their concern. I was thinking that you could speak for every mom and girlfriend out there who doesn’t want to see their guy hurt.”

  Their guy. Will wasn’t her guy. But the world believed he was, and she’d agreed to play along in this game where the fake and the real had become one. “What’s the plan?”

  * * *

  HOURS LATER, KRISTA leaned against a real fence with a real Will beside her, while Silver had her head over the railing between them.

  Alyssa was a ways off, fiddling with her camera, adjusting for the evening light, which at the rate she was working would soon disappear entirely.

  Silver snuffled in the direction of the pocket on Krista’s hoodie. “You found me out, girl.” Krista withdrew a baggie of apple slices and offered one to her, steeling herself not to flinch at Silver’s giant mouth.

  “You cut up an apple for her? She has teeth,” Will said.

  “But then she’d crunch through it, leave and then where would we be without our prop?”

  “Point taken.” Will tugged at the neck pad of his sling.

  “That sling a prop, too?” Krista said.

  “I’ll have you know that I’ve been wearing it every time my butt’s parked in a chair. You ever try eating with your opposite hand? Austin and I are quite the pair at supper.”

  “That I’d like to see.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Somebody,” Krista informed Silver as she fed her another apple slice, “is grumpy that he has to take care of himself.”

  “The problem is that I’m not allowed to take care of anything other than myself. I’m on lockdown. Dad saddled up my horse today. He hasn’t done that since I was six. I might as well play with Austin in the sandbox.”

  “Quit feeling sorry for yourself,” Krista snapped. “If you were a horse, you’d be shot.”

  Silver jerked her head. “Not you,” Krista cooed. “Who would dare hurt you with those big brown eyes and long eyelashes? And your pretty, pretty hair?” Krista ran her fingers through Silver’s forelock and Silver lowered her head.

  “Why did she do that?” Krista said.

  “Because she likes it,” Will said. He sounded even more irritated.

  “What I said or what I did?”

  Will looked at her as if she was jerking him around. “Both.”

  “Finally, I can pay her back for all the trouble I caused her,” she said, rubbing Silver behind the ears.

  “Don’t worry, we won’t shoot you for it,” he said.

  She’d never seen Will this grumpy. Alyssa had mounted the camera now, so filming might actually start this century. Meanwhile, she’d have to deal with Will. “C’mon, I didn’t mean you should be shot. All I’m saying is that a lot of people would be glad to put up their feet for a while.”

  “That’s not the point,” Will said. “If I was sure that six weeks of rest—or six months!—would solve all my health issues, I’d hate doing it but I would. It’s the uncertainty. Or the realization you might have to give up on your plans and dreams, and that people bound to you will have to change theirs as well because of you. I can’t stand that, and let me tell you, the second I sit that starts running through my head.”

  The raw pain in his voice stabbed Krista. What would she do if she couldn’t operate her spa anymore? If she had to let go of the life she’d created for herself? She instinctively reached out to him, her fingertips on the coarse canvas of his sling. “You will never be useless, Will Claverley. You’ll become a one-armed rancher and carry on. And everyone you love and who loves you will be right there with you.”

  His voice dropped a fraction. “Everyone?”

  His hazel eyes latched on to hers, and she couldn’t pull away. He was asking her if she loved him, and she did. Not the girl-crush infatuation but the hard kind of love. The kind of love that recognized she would do anything to keep him well and happy, even if that meant there was no place for her in his life.

  “Yes,” she said firmly, “everyone.”

  Something leaped in his eyes, something that she’d not seen since the rodeo when he’d asked if he could date her for real. When they agreed to try despite all the differences between them.

  “Cut!”

  They whirled to Alyssa, who was beaming. “Perfect! I got it all. This should show everybody that no matter what happens, he’ll rise stronger than before. The one-armed cowboy thing was brilliant, Krista. I got a good close-up on Will’s reaction. That’ll connect with the kids.”

  Krista opened her mouth to protest that she hadn’t realized the camera was rolling, that her lines were not planned, but then she caught Will’s eye. The special something in his eye had vanished. A hard, wary look had crept in.

  Along with Alyssa, he believed that she’d said it all for the camera. They were wrong. Loving him had never
been the problem. Living with him was. But if she denied it, then he’d clutch to the futile hope that they could work things out. Better to stick to the hard kind of love. After all, she already had a reputation for walking away.

  “I’m glad you liked it,” she said to Alyssa. “I thought it came off pretty natural, too.”

  Will jerked away from the fence. “Since I’m no longer needed here, I’ll be off.”

  He strode off, leaving Alyssa to stare between the two of them. “What did I miss?”

  Krista rubbed Silver’s cheek. “You caught it all.”

  * * *

  NO CANCELLATION OF the celebrity ride this time around. The skies had been wide and blue all day long. Mid-August heat plastered Will’s jeans to his thighs as he waited outside a vendor truck for his fries and burgers. People had pressed themselves under beach umbrellas, overhangs or thin skirts of shade from horse trailers and viewing stands, happy to wait out the break between events with popsicles or cold beer under a tent.

  The evening mutton-busting event was announced over the speakers, and people began to mosey to the arena. His ride would be up in a couple of hours. He’d already given his speech during the afternoon show to rustle up excitement. A bare-bones, Krista-less one.

  She wasn’t here yet. A wedding party had her booked solid into the early afternoon, a wedding he’d be at right now if not for the rescheduled celebrity ride. One his entire family would’ve been at too, except that his mom and dad had chosen to come to watch him ride. Laura and Ryan would go. Keith had better show up, too, because Dana would be there.

  His brother still had a shot at happiness.

  He remembered the glide of Krista’s face away from him, the break of her blue eyes from his, her casual answer to Alyssa. Natural. Three weeks on and the word stuck in his throat. He’d fallen for her little speech about being there for him. But it had all been for Alyssa’s camera. He’d refused to take any more video with Krista, and Alyssa had not argued the point. Maybe Krista had requested the same thing, who knows. They’d not communicated since that evening, relying on Alyssa as a go-between. Yet he still checked for messages from her half a dozen times a day, hopeless as it was. No painkillers for a broken heart.