Page 1 of Drifter’s Heart

PROLOGUE

WEST

Dirt that doesn’t belong to me clogs my lungs. I rake my hair back from my forehead, spraying myself and the man on the ground beneath me in salt and grit. I’m long overdue for the date with my mirror and a ten-minute buzz cut, but it won’t happen tonight.

Because, like every other day this month, I’ll be here until the sun sets, and then I’ll crawl back to Coyote Falls’s bunkhouse, haul my ass into bed, and pass out. When the sun rises, I’ll get up and do it all over again. All for the man slumped at my boots who struggles to put one foot in front of the other on legs that shouldn’t work after the accident.

Same dusty bullshit, different dusty day.

“You gonna get up and help?” I grouse, though I’m not pissy at him. Just at myself for letting him fall. For not being there when my best friend needed me to catch him.

Again.

Cordell Rand waves a tired hand in my direction. “Give me a minute. Let me get my feet under me, yeah?”

A laugh I can’t control barks raw from my throat. “Right. You do that.”

It’s been five months and fourteen days since The Miracle.

The day that his surgeon said wouldn’t happen, when I was sick of bawling my eyes out in the hospital corridor, my ego well and truly trampled, not caring who saw me. That was after nearly a dozen operations. After Cordell’s medical team came out to tell me that he refused to wake up this time. Because one fucking bull nearly ruined his damn life.

But of course the stubborn-as-fuck CEO of Rand Enterprises didn’t just wake up. The fucker walked out of his room and greeted me himself. He limped. He hurt. Hell, he made some sounds that none of us had ever heard a man make before. But he walked.

And so six months later here we are, planting fence posts and doing a whole heap of shit that would turn the nice doc’s hair a fresh shade of snow.

“You stay down there,” I tell him. “I got this, princess.” The term isn’t derogatory between us, and he knows it. It’s just the two-way shit we sling at each other every day. I grab another fence post and slam it into the next hole along, straining my back. The action earns me a splinter the size of Montana in my palm. “Motherfu⁠—”

“West. Stop.”

“No can do, bossman.” I grip the mallet that’s been resting against my butt cheeks and move my hand just in time.

Breathe. Swing. Break another blister.

Repeat. Like I do every damn day I wake up. Over and over and over.

Again and again.

“West. Would you⁠—”

“Do you want this done by the time the sun sets or not, Rand?”

“I want it done without you killing yourself.”

That’s a cute joke. “Doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Breathe. Swing. Don’t slap your best friend.

That last is kinda close. Rand tugs himself up by my belt. The concept of boundaries is foreign to us. We left those behind long ago, somewhere between showering together when his legs refused to hold him up and me wiping his ass on a bad day. Therapy was the worst and his pain threshold plummeted afterward. Shit stopped working the way it should. Everything fucking well hurt in places it shouldn’t have. We managed.

“Of course it matters. For fuck’s sake. Stop!” Rand’s hand closes on mine, yanking backward.

The mallet loosens in my grip. I duck as the damn thing sails over my head, but that’s not what terrifies me. My knees bite rock as my arms scoop beneath the body that crumples a second time. I catch Rand, ignoring the pain that shoots through my bones, or maybe relieved by it.

That’s my penance after all. Pain. His, and mine. Anything I can garner for letting him ride that bull that night. The one that broke his back. He was my responsibility.

“Dammit, Rand,” I mutter, cradling him as he hunches over in my arms. “You’re supposed to be resting. Don’t—” My throat clogs. “Don’t you fuck this up. Not after everything. Not now.”

He wheezes over my knees as I stroke his back, humming. Not that I can hold a tune for shit, but neither of us care today, or any day. Eventually, his breathing eases, and he lets me roll him over against the fence post that we just set in. It’s crooked. He’s leaning sideways, but none of it matters.