head and wiped his forehead with a red bandanna. “That was close, but at least we’ve got it all inside.”
“Luck is with us today, brother.” Maverick jumped out of the passenger seat of the old farm truck.
“Luck,” Pax whispered under his breath as he pulled his work gloves from the hip pocket of his Wranglers and grabbed hay hooks from a nail on the barn wall. “I’ll finish this if you want to go on to the house,” he said. “It’s only forty bales, and Bridget has an appointment up in Amarillo, doesn’t she? If you hurry, you’ll have time to get cleaned up and go with her.”
“Thank you. I’ll sure take you up on that. Getting U.S. citizenship takes a lot of paperwork. I’m glad we’ve got a good lawyer working with us.” Maverick hung his pair of hooks back on a nail and took off his gloves. He removed his hat and wiped his brow, then resettled it. “We might have supper up there, and maybe even take Laela to the park before we come home.”
“I can fend for myself.” Pax sunk the hooks into a bale and tossed it off the side of the truck.
“All right then, see you later.” Maverick jogged from the open barn doors out to his pickup.
Pax tossed off a few more bales, then hopped over the side of the truck bed and started stacking them. That word luck kept playing through his mind. Little Laela was lucky to have parents like Mav and Bridget in her life. His own father had died when he and Mav were young, and then their mother remarried and handed them off to their grandparents to raise. Fortunately, their grandparents were amazing people who did their best to bring them up right.
“Laela won’t have a mother who ever leaves her behind for another man,” he muttered as he stacked the last bale.
He was jumping out of the back of the truck when he caught a movement in his peripheral vision.
“Hey, Pax.”
He’d know that husky, sultry voice anywhere. He glanced up to find Alana Carey not two feet from him.
Like he’d been doing since high school, he paused to take in her beauty: blond hair and big brown eyes and legs that seemed to go on forever. She was so tall that she looked him right in the eye, and he was over six feet. But even more awe-inspiring than her looks was her attitude. She could outride, out-ranch, and out-dance every cowboy in the Texas panhandle—and she could most likely out-drink all of them, too. Truth be told, she intimidated the hell out of him—and yet her presence was like a magnet at the same time.
But the pain and misery in her normally sparkling eyes brought him up short. “Alana, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Daddy.” She could barely get the words out before she started sobbing as if her heart was broken. Nothing ever rattled Alana, and he’d never heard her voice crack like that.
“What happened?” Paxton stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, coaxing her head to his shoulder. “Let it all out and tell me what I can do to help.”
“The doctor said he’s got cancer. And only six weeks to live.”
“Oh, sweetie.” The soothing words came naturally to Pax. He knew Alana wasn’t the type who needed to be coddled, but he hated seeing her so upset.
“He doesn’t want anyone to know, but…” Another round of weeping began. “I have to talk to you before the whole town finds out.”
“I won’t tell a soul,” he promised. “And I’m glad you came to me. You can’t carry around something this big and this sad all on your own.”
Alana pulled back and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m sorry for getting all emotional on you.” She took a step back and sat down on the nearest bale of hay.
“Hey, that’s what friends are for. When is he starting treatments? Do you need me to take him to the doctor or help you on the ranch? Tell me what to do.”
“No treatments.” She hiccupped. “It’s an inoperable brain tumor, and Daddy says he wants to die with dignity.”
“Alana, I’m so, so sorry.” Pax blinked back tears of his own. It was hard to imagine the strapping man he’d known his whole life wouldn’t be with them for much longer. “Please know that I’m here for you and for Matt. I’d do anything at all for y’all.”