And his daughter.
As to not startle her, Boone tapped on the wood frame.
She jumped anyway. “You scared me.” She smoothed down her long hair and adjusted the blanket. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard about your dad and tried to call, but you didn’t answer. I drove by your dad’s place and then found your address and drove out to your cabin, but no one was home. So I took a chance.”
“You didn’t have to come all the way out here.”
He took a few steps into the dark room. “Yeah, I did.” Hoping not to stumble and trip on anything, he found the sofa and sat on the edge, lifting her feet and resting them on his lap, giving them a good rubdown. “How’s your dad? They said he had a stroke.”
She swiped at her face. “It was a mild one, and he was awake and sort of talking when they brought him up here. His speech is slurred, and he’s struggling to move his left arm and leg, but he’s coherent and giving everyone shit, so they think he’ll recover, though it’s possible he’ll have some limitations from it. They just don’t really know much yet.”
“I’m so sorry.” Boone inched closer, keeping her legs on his lap. “But if he’s already talking and being a pain in the ass, that’s a good sign.”
“I know. It’s just going to be tough for a while, and he’s not going to like me moving back home or having to go to physical therapy or anything that the doctors are going to want him to do.”
Boone let out a short laugh. “He is a stubborn, old mule.”
“When my mom was alive, she could manage that side of him so much better. He worshiped the ground that woman walked on, and if she told him he wasn’t to do something, well, he might bitch for five seconds, but he’d turn around and tell you that his bride said, nope, no can do, and that he always listened to his wife. She knew best. I used to say to him all the time that mom wouldn’t want him to do whatever, and that worked for like six months after she died. Now it just reminds him she’s not here, and it only upsets him.”
A single shiny tear rolled down her cheek. He resisted the urge to reach out and wipe it away. He refrained from doing so much when it came to Paget. She kept her emotions close to the vest, and he’d seen too many men hit on her at the bar.
They crashed and burned.
It had been painful to watch, and at the time, Boone was still licking his wounds from his ex-wife.
But now that he’d been in living in Buhl for a couple of years and he’d gotten to know Paget, he sure as hell wanted to take her out, but the few times he broached the subject, she shot him down before he even got out of the gate. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if she comprehended that he was asking her on a romantic date. And every one of the men in the bar had mentioned that she turned down everyone and most gentlemen had given up trying, wondering if she batted for the other team.
But he knew her life was wrapped up in her work and her father.
And of course, the memory of her mother’s untimely death.
“He talks to me about her sometimes, but he always gets a little teary-eyed and then changes the subject,” Boone said.
Paget rarely talked about her mother or her death. But he didn’t need her to in order to understand the pain behind her soft, blue eyes. That was one of the many reasons why he was so drawn to Paget and her father.
That, and he felt partially responsible. It didn’t matter that he’d been gone from the company for a year when Molly, Paget’s mother, had died. Nor that he had nothing to do with the fast track of bringing that supplement to the market.
Actually, it was that particular chemical compound that made him realize his ex-wife no longer cared about his vision and had turned his ideas into a mockery. He sold her his half of the company and took off for somewhere unknown. The world still believed he was perhaps in the Cayman Islands, being a hermit, or some such bullshit. Well, not entirely untrue. He was hiding. And he wanted everyone to believe he was a recluse, bruised by the corporate greed and disillusioned by love.
One article that had recently come out about him indicated someone spotted him in Bermuda on a fishing charter with a twelve-inch beard. They even printed a fuzzy picture with the caption: William Boone’s gone mad!
Let the world think what they wanted. It was his ex-wife, Rylee, that had lost her marbles.
But there wasn’t a damn fucking thing he could do about it.
“I know he misses her so much. I do too, but we’re both still vertical, and she’d want us both to live our lives and enjoy them, not sulk.”
“It’s not easy getting old alone.” Boone’s heart lurched to the back of his throat. He warned Rylee that he didn’t think the supplements were safe and needed further testing. He also hadn’t wanted to go down that road to begin with. Not only did the marketing target older folks worried about their health, but he absolutely knew what she was claiming was false. When he let her talk him into forming the company, over a not-for-profit foundation, he was under the impression it would be to continue his work to find treatments and cures for illness such as Muscular Dystrophy, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases that plagued the earth. But instead she went into what would make the most money.
Supplements that didn’t do what they claimed and only gave false hope.
Paget glanced at her wrist. “Shit. My Apple Watch is dead.”
“Your phone must be too, because I tried calling and texting a dozen times.”
“How’d you find out?” She leaned back, resting her head on the armrest of the sofa. Dark, puffy circles lined her eyes.
“A couple of neighbors talking about it at the bar who saw the ambulance. I don’t know them by name. I think they live a few streets over.”
She let out a long breath. “I appreciate you coming, but there is no need for you to stay. You should go home and get some sleep.”
“So should you. You’re not going to do your father any good if you get run-down and sick.”
“I can’t leave him here tonight. He’s scared and still doesn’t really understand what happened. The nurses said they’d come get me if he wakes up in the middle of the night.”
He eyed the size of the sofa. For a hospital couch, it was fairly wide and comfy. He had to wonder how many people crashed here overnight. “Well, if you’re staying, then I am too.” He lifted the blanket and scooted in behind her, wrapping his arm around her body, keeping her back tight to his chest, tucking his knees against hers. They fit together like the last piece of a puzzle.
“Hey. What the hell are you doing?” She wiggled, glancing over her shoulder.
He bit back a groan. “This sofa is big enough for the both of us.”
“Like hell it is.” She elbowed him in the gut. “You are not sleeping here with me.”
“I’m not leaving, and this is the only place to sleep. I’d say I’d keep my hands to myself, but that’s impossible.”
“You’re not funny.” She tucked her hands under her cheek.
He took the opportunity to slip his other arm under the pillow. What he really wanted to do was press his lips against her temple, but he wasn’t going to press his luck.
Not tonight anyway.
“Thanks for coming,” she whispered. “I owe you.”