Page 113 of Promised to the Cowboy

Evie dropping beside me.

“Gabe.”

Her hands are on my face.

“Look at me.”

I am looking. I think I am.

Her features blur and sharpen. Hazel eyes. Dirt on her cheek. Hair everywhere.

Alive. She’s alive.

I try to tell her. My mouth moves. No sound comes out. The flutter in my chest becomes something worse. Not fast anymore. Wrong. Each beat comes from a different place, pulling against the others instead of together. My heart has become a fistful of frightened muscle, every part trying to beat in a different direction.

Ethan appears over Evie’s shoulder. The moment he sees my face, he knows. “Gabriel, tell me what you feel.”

I press my palm to my chest. It’s the only answer I have.

“His rhythm’s unstable,” Ethan says. “Get the kit.”

Someone runs.

Evie grips my hand. “No. Stay with me.”

I’m trying. God, I am trying.

The plane engine rises behind her.

Voss is still moving. Still trying to leave.

Daniel shouts something into his radio.

The helicopter drops the final few feet and hits the field hard enough that the landing skids bounce. The rotors keep turning.

The pilot’s door opens, and my father jumps down. He doesn’t wait for the blades to stop. He ducks beneath them and runs. I’ve never seen my father run toward me. Not once.

He crosses the field with his head down against the wash, one hand holding his hat to his chest until the wind tears it away.

He lets it go and keeps coming.

My heart gives one final heavy blow behind my ribs.

Then nothing.

The world goes quiet.

The helicopter is still there. Evie is still saying my name. Men are shouting across the field.

But all of it moves away from me.

The sky above her is pale blue. Ordinary. I think that’s unfair. The sky should look different when a man’s heart stops.

Chapter 27

Evie

Gabriel’s eyes lose me.