Before I can finish my sentence, the door opens and a nurse walks in with a tray in her hands.
“Hello, I’m Betty. I have some food for you if you’re up for eating something.” Her smile is kind, her eyes fill with sympathy. “Your mom left already?”
I nod numbly, and she continues without noticing the hopelessness slowly seeping into my bones. Nothing like a situation such as this to show me how alone I truly am. “Well, I hope she’s back tomorrow. You’ll need the help once you’re out of here. These meds you got prescribed are no joke.” She chuckles. “I remember when I broke my wrist and had to take them. I was sleeping a lot the first week and fought feeling loopy when I wasn’t sleeping.” She places the food on the cart next to my bed before she leaves without another word.
Her words keep reverberating inside my head, destroying my feeble attempts at trying to figure out what to do now.
“Honey,” Bob says, grabbing my attention, and I look at him, catching his brown eyes. “There is one option left. You could call your dad—”
“Fuck no,” I say on an inhale, surprised he’d even mention it. “I’m not calling him. I’ll figure something else out.” There is no way in hell I’ll call my father, who I haven’t heard from in fourteen years. There is no way I’ll go crawling back there asking for help.
“I don’t think you have a choice.” He grabs my hand again and sits next to me on the bed. I know what’s coming, but I don’t want to accept defeat just yet. “You can’t do this on your own. According to Betty, you’ll be out of commission for most of the week. Who’s going to take care of Whisky? You know damn well no one at the stable will go near your crazy horse without you, me, or Dakota around. He doesn’t let anyone else near him. And with his injury, he needs to be hosed down several times a day, he needs wraps for sure, and short walks to encourage the healing of the tendon. You need help. And if anyone can handle Whisky, I’d assume it would be one of the best horsemen in the country and the one who raised both his parents.”
He has a point, not that I want to acknowledge this. I’m cornered, and I don’t like the uneasiness taking over my thoughts. I’m used to be on my own, taking care of myself. I’m not used to needing anyone else since I taught myself early how to be self-sufficient.
“I don’t know if I can.” I look at our hands, his rough one holding mine. He’s the only constant parental figure I’ve had in my life since I was ten years old. “And anyway, I don’t even have his number,” I deflect.
I did delete his number in a fit one day when I was eighteen after staring at it for years, hoping the phone would ring. It’s ironic I’m about to do the one thing I swore I’d never do. I wasn’t going to be the one to break the radio silence. Nothing like begging for help from the person who clearly never cared for you.
“That’s okay,” he says, impervious to my pouting, and holds out a piece of paper with a number scribbled on it. “I asked around for it a while ago in case I needed it one day.”
“Ugh, fine,” I grumble. I suck up my pride and hurt feelings—something I’ve never been very good at—and grab my phone from the cart next to the bed. I know it’s my only option, but I don’t have to like it. I type in the number on the paper. Taking one last fortifying breath, I hit the call button, hoping desperately it’s the wrong number or he won’t pick up.
“Hello?” His voice is just like I remember—deep, raspy, like he smokes two packs a day, even though I don’t think he’s ever touched one. Hearing his voice causes my brain to flood with memories. How he taught me to ride in the paddock, how to work with a horse in the round pen. Picnics at the stream running through the land his family has owned for generations. His arms around me, holding me tight, after my mom would yell at me. Him telling me he loved me.
Lies. Lies. Lies, I remind myself. I can’t let myself go back to the vulnerable child who’d do anything to gain his attention.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
I squeeze my eyes shut tight. “It’s Montana. Your, um, daughter…” I stammer, feeling like an idiot, but I power through before I lose my nerve. “I…uh…I need help. And, well, I had no one else to call.” My voice sounds defeated even to my own ears.
Chapter Two
“Montana?” The voice I only ever hear in my dreams stirs me from sleep. “Montana, wake up. We’re home.” I feel a featherlight touch on my arm, dragging me out of my drug-induced slumber. His words don’t register at first, and it takes me a minute to wake fully. But once my brain functions again, the words slice through me like a knife. They make me wish I had a place to call home instead of living in a sparsely furnished, one-bedroom apartment whenever I’m not on the road.
I take a breath and slowly sit up from my slumped position in the front seat of the spacious Chevy Silverado. I wince after sleeping in the same position in the front seat for nine hours and push my lilac hair out of my face. Those painkillers they gave me were strong, knocking me out for most of what must have been an eleven-hour drive from Seattle to Bozeman, Montana. I don’t usually haul Whisky for such a long drive, but I guess my father, Wayne, wanted to
