Love in Xxchange: Miles to Go, Bailey Bradford [the reading strategies book txt] 📗

hesitated to work, not even when it was something he despised doing. There were things he disliked more than stringing barbed wire, but he couldn’t think of a single one right then.

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

21

Max reached for the roll of wire he’d brought with him. His walkie talkie snapped with static, then Annabelle’s voice came through loud—really loud—and clear.

“Hey, Max, you busy?”

Max could hear the smirk in her voice. He slid his two-way off its clip and thumbed the button. “Nah, Miz Annabelle, you just caught me right before my nap.” Max never would have thought he’d tease Rory’s sister like that, but after an initial bit of awkwardness on his part, they’d got along great since Annabelle had moved into the bunkhouse. Max had never had a little sister of his own—he was the next youngest in a brood of eight brothers—but he’d always wished he did.

“Well, Rory was going to come out and help you, but he and Chance went tearing out of here after they got a phone call, so that leaves me to help you with the fence. I’m on my way.”

Max started to ask what was going on, but Annabelle would be here soon enough, and he had work to do in the meanwhile. He wasn’t the type of man who’d sit around and wait for help to arrive.

Max had just started to reset the first post when Annabelle pulled up to the gate. She’d driven rather than ride her horse up, a sign of her hurry to get there. Max swiped at the sweat trying to run into his eyes as he greeted her.

“You got here pretty fast,” Max said as Annabelle opened the gate. She had thick leather gloves tucked into her waistband and a brown paper sack in one hand and a couple of thermoses tucked under the other arm.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to be slacking, you know, and I brought some sandwiches and tea.” Annabelle waved the bag. “You’ve been out here for hours, you have to be starving.”

He was, and damn near boiling in his clothes in the Texas. The humidity after even a little rain could make a cool day miserable to work in. His long-sleeved denim shirt and undershirt were both damp in spots. The promise of cold sweet tea had him jerking his gloves off and tucking them away. “Appreciate it, Annabelle.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, handing him a thermos. Annabelle flicked him a

worried look. “So Chance got a phone call, like I said, and he and Rory left almost as soon as the phone hit the cradle. They both looked pretty upset.”

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

22

Max uncapped the thermos and took several refreshing swallows of the cool, sweet liquid. Nothing tasted so good as chilled sweet tea when he was thirsty. He thumbed the excess off his lips and tipped his chin at Annabelle.

“They didn’t say who called or where they were going?” That wasn’t like either man—

normally if something came up, they called Max on the two-way and told him about it. The fact that they hadn’t could only mean that whatever had happened was bad enough to have rattled them something fierce.

“Nooooo, not exactly.” Annabelle looked at him, just a darting glance as her cheeks pinked. “I kind of looked at the caller ID because…because they just don’t act like that, right?”

Max nodded, trying to be patient. He had a nervous itch creeping over his spine—that never signalled anything good.

“It was from a St. Joseph’s hospital, with a 210 area code. That’s San Antonio, isn’t it?”

Sweat dripped into his eyes as he scrunched his eyebrows. Damn, that burns! “Yeah it is, but who—” Max’s stomach plummeted. There was only one person both men knew well

enough to worry about. The same man who had caused Max more than a little internal turmoil. Annabelle’s next words had that turmoil increasing exponentially, and his knees turning to jelly.

Annabelle’s voice was soft as she said, “All I heard Chance tell Rory was that Bo was in pretty bad shape.” She looked at him curiously. “Who’s Bo?”

Max’s heart kicked hard in his chest as Annabelle’s question chilled him more than the tea ever could have. He felt cold clean through to his bones, and had to tense every muscle in his body to stop the shudder that tried to tear through him. “He’s a friend,” Max murmured, his voice oddly calm compared to the chaotic emotions trying to burst past the rigid control he always bound them with. He wasn’t prone to hysterics and wasn’t going to start being so now. “A good friend.”

“How good?”

Something in Annabelle’s voice set off a tingle of alarm in Max as he looked at her. Her eyes were narrowed and he thought if ever anyone could peer into someone else’s thoughts, it’d have been Annabelle with that intense blue gaze. One of her blonde eyebrows arched and it dawned on Max what she was really asking.

MILES TO GO

Bailey Bradford

23

“Not that kind of friend.” How he kept from snapping it out was beyond him. Between being embarrassed at her even asking and his worry for Bo, Max was only tenuously keeping his temper in check. “He’s someone Chance used to know…like that,” he explained. “I met him a while back when he showed up here thinking to, you know, visit with Chance.”

Annabelle snorted and rolled her eyes. “And Rory didn’t kill him?” Then she frowned and glared at him as if Max had done something offensive. “Then why did they go rushing out of the house like he was, well, not like he was some horn dog who came sniffing around for a fuck.”

The tip of Max’s ears burned as anger made his temples throb. He had to remind

himself that Annabelle didn’t know Bo, and even so, she wasn’t entirely wrong about what he’d tried to do. But still! “You haven’t met him. He ain’t like that now, least not with Chance and Rory—or me,” he