“Huh.” Annabelle didn’t look particularly mollified though she wasn’t glaring, exactly.
“So he’s just everybody’s friend.” The way she said it sounded kind of snarky, but Max wasn’t going to call her on it.
“Yeah.” Max turned and strode to the truck he’d just loaded then opened the driver’s door. He’d left his cell phone charging since the battery was messed up and it tended to go dead minutes after unplugging it. He leaned in to make sure he didn’t stretch the cord too far. The missed call icon caught his attention, but he ignored it in favour of dialling Rory’s number. The first call rang a few times then went to voice mail so Max hung up and tried again. Rory answered on the second ring and started talking before Max could so much as grunt.
“Max, I’ve been trying to call you. Did you get the message? Bo’s hurt. He’s at St.
Joseph’s in San Antonio, and we don’t know what happened except he wasn’t the one who called us, some nurse did and she said Bo managed to give them Chance’s name. Took them a while but the nurse finally found a number and he’s been beat up. We don’t know how or why or who did it, but as soon as we do…” Rory finally trailed off.
It was stupid to feel hurt that Bo had given Chance’s name instead of his, but Max couldn’t stop it or the twinge of jealousy hearing that caused. Then he processed the rest of what Rory had said and a cold ball of fury coiled in his stomach.
Someone had hurt Bo, deliberately from the sound of it. Max tried not to let any possible scenarios for what happened develop in his mind. He didn’t want to think about Bo MILES TO GO
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maybe having done something that got him beaten, like coming on to another man’s guy. He didn’t want to assign the blame to Bo at all, and he wouldn’t, because even if Bo had put the moves on someone he shouldn’t have, that didn’t mean he deserved to wind up in the hospital over it. Guilt slammed into Max as he recalled one of the conversations the other night in the diner—Bo asking him to visit. It had been, in Max’s opinion, a spur of the minute invitation. Bo had mentioned going to a club first. If Max had gone to San Antonio, would Bo not have been lying injured in a damned hospital now?
“Let me know as soon as you find anything out,” Max muttered as he closed his eyes.
The guilt was almost as strong as his anger at whoever had hurt Bo, although maybe he should just put both emotions squarely on himself. It wouldn’t have hurt him to take a couple of days off. The others would have been able to handle it if the mares had foaled, which they hadn’t. That had only been an excuse anyway. Max just hadn’t wanted to deal with a situation that would have been uncomfortable for him.
“What’d you find out?”
Max set the phone down and shrugged. “Just that Bo got beat up somehow. Rory said they’d call with more information when they got it.”
The hand on his shoulder startled him, and he turned around partially to dislodge it and partially because he was confused about why Annabelle had touched him. The
sympathetic look on her face made him feel even worse than he already did, though, so he started to walk past her only to stop when she caught his wrist. Max looked at her hand on him first then up into her eyes. He hoped she wasn’t this touchy-feely all the time. She sure hadn’t been up to now.
“I’m sorry about your friend getting hurt,” Annabelle said in a voice so soft he had to strain to hear it. “I hope he’s okay, and I’m sorry if I was judgmental about him coming on to Chance. It obviously didn’t make Rory hate Bo, and even though my brother can be naïve at times, I don’t think he’d go rushing off like this for someone who wasn’t a decent person.”
Max grunted at that then pulled away and headed back to the downed fence. If
Annabelle hadn’t insisted they eat first, he wouldn’t have bothered, but he let her have her way and managed to eat his sandwich even though he didn’t really taste it. Annabelle was blessedly quiet as they ate, not trying to strike up a conversation. Max was grateful. His thoughts were filled with ‘what-ifs’ and ‘should have dones’.
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Those were bad enough, but even worse was owning up to why he’d refused Bo’s
invitation. The fact was, Max was scared to say yes. Bo made him feel things he just didn’t know how to deal with, and even now he wouldn’t examine those things too closely. Max had been alone for more years than not. He hadn’t felt any particular desire to be with another person, not in any way. He knew that made him well past odd and it wasn’t something he cared to shout out from a rooftop or anything. There were reasons for it, he imagined, but he’d never delved too deep in his psyche to search them out. It had just been easier to accept it and keep to himself outside of working relationships.
And yet, here at the Galloway Ranch, he’d kind of made friends, of sorts. Work friends, at least. It’d been impossible to keep Chance and Rory neatly labelled as just bosses, and there was Annabelle. Max hadn’t been around a lot of women; he’d pretty much stayed on whatever ranch he’d worked on except when he couldn’t get out of it. Even then, it hadn’t been like there’d been women throwing themselves at
