Sweet Devotion
Book Nine of the Honeysuckle Texas Series
Chapter One
The parallel bars were winning.
Aiden Boglioli would never say that out loud — not to the red-headed force of nature currently watching him from the end of the mat with her arms folded and a clipboard tucked under one elbow, and definitely not to the guy in the bed across the hall who complained about everything and had somehow made a full recovery ahead of schedule, which Aiden chose to find inspirational rather than infuriating. Standing in the PT room of the Army hospital, just as he had every day for weeks, he would say it to himself, because a man should at least be honest with himself, and the truth was the bars were winning.
He shifted his weight and reset his grip on the bars.
“Slow it down.”
He didn’t. All he wanted was to forget the convoy blast ever happened. Forget he’d been blown clear of the truck and that a concussion and pelvic ring fracture with joint instability kept him from getting up and walking away. And right now, forget that these damn bars were winning over his determination to strut with confidence and not a limp.
The therapist said something else, but it blurred under the sound of metal and rubber and his own breath. He stepped forward again, forcing the movement, ignoring the hitch when his left side lagged half a beat behind the right.
The redhead raised a single brow at him. "You're compensating again."
"I'm walking."
On a heavy sigh, she barely shook her head. "You're waddling."
Something deep in his core protested, sharp and quick, then settled into a dull burn he could work around. He adjusted. Shifted more weight to the right. Shortened the stride on the left. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. "A man who beat every kid on his block in a barefoot sprint across the sand at Orchard Beach does not waddle."
“Orchard Beach?”
“In the Bronx.”
“Right.” Stepping forward, she set two fingers against his right hip. "You're dropping this side to protect the left. Square up."
He squared up. His left hip sent another nasty message to his brain, terser this time.
"There." She stepped back. "Now walk."
He walked. Slower than he'd moved in his entire adult life. Slower than the elderly woman in Room twelve who used a walker and still beat him to the coffee station every morning. One measured step, then another, the bars cool and solid under his palms, the fluorescent lights above giving everything in this room the same flat, unforgiving quality.
Halfway down the bars the door to the PT suite whooshed open behind him. He didn't bother to look. Turning around on the parallel bars was not in his current repertoire.
"You look like a man who has spent too much time on a horse.” The voice was unhurried, dry.
Aiden made it to the end of the bars. Gripping the terminal post more tightly, he turned — carefully, deliberately — and found Staff Sergeant Kade Sweet leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed and a look on his face that did its level best to pass for casual. Beside him, wearing the expression of a man trying not to smile and not entirely succeeding, Josh Coleman took in the room with a single sweep.
"Comedian." The single word was all Aiden could muster at the moment.
"I’m here nightly all week." Grinning, Kade pushed off the doorframe.
The physical therapist looked from one visitor to the other, barely nodding before making a note on the clipboard. "Five more lengths. Don't drop the hip."
"I never drop the hip," Aiden did his best not to snap—not in front of his sergeant.
Closing her eyes and heaving a sigh, the woman forced a smile and walked away.
“That wouldn’t be Attila, would it?” Kade watched her go.
Aiden took a second to catch his breath before answering. “The one and only.”
Scanning the room the way he scanned every room — exits, obstructions, anything that moved—Kade nodded. "How's the hip?"
"Fine." Aiden started back down the bars. He wasn't going to stop his session because they'd shown up. He wasn't going to give his hip the satisfaction. "We're making progress." He kept his eyes forward, the far wall, the motivational poster that said Every Step Forward over a picture of a mountain that had nothing to do with pelvic fractures. "You two didn't drive out here to watch me waddle."
"No." Kade lifted his chin in a gesture that told Aiden an order was forthcoming. "Discharge paperwork cleared this morning."
Aiden stopped.
"They're releasing you." Josh smiled. "Today."
His gaze darted between them. “And you’re delivering the good news?”
Kade stepped closer to the bars. “We’re picking you up.”
The room was the same as it had been thirty seconds ago — same flat light, same equipment, same poster — but something in the air shifted. Aiden had been waiting for this long enough that he'd stopped letting himself think about it.
"Today." He said it flat, checking how it felt.
"Today." Kade pulled a folded paper from his jacket pocket. "Which brings us to the second part of this conversation."
Aiden looked at the paper, then at Kade, then at Josh, who had the expression of a man who had been on the receiving end of this particular conversation and was now very much enjoying watching someone else have it.
"You've both got that look." Aiden returned his gaze to the papers in hand.
"Look?" Kade raised a single questioning brow.
"The look that means I'm about to be voluntold."
A slow steady smile took over his sergeant’s face. "My mother sets a real good table, Boglioli."
* * * * *
“Don’t pull him.” Colleen Gleeson forced an easy smile.
The woman’s hands tightened anyway. The gelding lifted his head, ears flicking back, then forward, reading everything the rider hadn’t said out loud
.
Colleen stepped in without breaking stride, one hand settling lightly against the woman’s calf, the other brushing her wrist.
“Loosen it.”
“I am.”
She didn’t argue. They took two more steps. The horse drifted off the line, shoulder edging out, testing. Colleen adjusted the rider’s leg just enough to shift her weight back where it belonged. “Again.”
The woman exhaled this time. Not much, but enough. The reins softened. The gelding’s head dropped a fraction.
“There.”
They moved forward, slow and even, dust rising under each step. The rhythm settled in—one beat, then the next—until the tension bled off and what had been work started to look like something easier. Even though it wasn’t.
Colleen walked beside them, close enough to correct, far enough not to interfere. This was it. Her last day under the tutelage of Hannah Farraday Johnson. Though not that much older than Colleen, Hannah had a reputation throughout all of Texas, the neighboring states, and often beyond, for running one of the best equine therapy operations. As a teen, ever since her friend was in a nasty car accident and Colleen watched her suffer through therapy trying to regain full use of her leg, Colleen had known she wanted to be a physical therapist and help people reclaim their lives as easily as possible. Not till this last year at an equine therapy center in far east Dallas did she realize how very much she wanted to go the extra mile and help people heal with horses. That newly found dream made her chance to work here with Hannah at the Farradays all the sweeter.
In the case of Hannah’s cousin Connor Farraday, well, the man was known as the best horse breeder and trainer from shore to shore. If there was such a thing as a horse whisperer, Connor had that skill in spades.
Colleen was learning it all and from the very best. Her wristwatch buzzed. Time was up. She cued the horse to halt with a shift of her weight and a quiet word. Her patient eased to a stop and sat for a moment before swinging down, landing with more confidence than she had a month ago, steadying herself briefly against the saddle before stepping away on her own.
"Good session." Colleen smiled.
“You’ll be meeting with me again next week instead of Colleen.” Grinning as though she’d won the largest Kewpie doll at the state fair, Hannah strolled up.
The woman nodded, turned to Colleen and offering the first sincere smile Colleen had seen from her, spoke softly. “Thank you.” Without another word, she nodded and limped away. To Colleen’s satisfaction, not nearly as pronounced as it had been when Colleen first arrived three months ago.
“We wish you could stay.” Hannah handed the horse’s reins over to one of the stable workers.
“I have to admit,” she fell into step with Hannah toward the main house, “I’ve been tempted.”
“But not enough.” There was no censure in Hannah’s tone, not even a hint of optimism.
“Honeysuckle is home. Between school, training, licensing, getting my hours, and… well, here,” she waved an arm across the expanse of the Farraday operation, “I’m ready to go home.”
“Still planning to hang your own shingle?”
She nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“Horses?”
With a shrug, she tipped her head momentarily to one side. “Definitely my own therapy practice, but the equine part, that may have to wait.” There were certainly plenty of ranches with horses in her neck of Texas, but nothing like the set up Connor Farraday had. Of course, that didn’t mean that maybe some day…
“Have you talked to Alice Sweet? They’ve been doing a lot of improvements over there. If all goes as well as I expect with her special patient, maybe their ranch could work out permanently.”
“Maybe.” She had thought the same thing. After all, it was upon the recommendation of Alice Sweet, and in reverence of the Farraday patriarch Sean’s friendship with her late husband Charlie Sweet that she’d gotten this chance to train with the best.
At the front of the main house where Colleen had been staying, Hannah eyed the bed of her truck. “You’re all packed?”
“Yeah. I figure it’s like changing Band-Aids, easier in the end to just rip off the old one.”
“Ouch.” Hannah cringed but still managed to smile. “So we’re an old Band-Aid, huh?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant, as excited as I am to go home, leaving here isn’t going to be easy.”
“Just so you know, you’re welcome any time. As a friend or a therapist. Whatever you want.”
“Thanks.” Colleen leaned forward and gave her new friend a tight hug. “I’ll remember that.”
“You’d better keep in touch!”
“You bet.” She stepped back, climbed into the truck, blew out a big sigh, and started the engine.
Hannah took a step back. Connor came out the front door and stood beside his niece.
She’d already said her goodbyes to Connor and his family after lunch, no point in starting that all over. She lifted her hand, waved at the two smiling Farradays, and pulled away. The windows went down. The radio went up. The gravel of Farraday's long drive crunched under her tires, then gave way to the standard West Texas blacktop.
The truck climbed a low rise and the land opened up the way it did out here — wide and unhurried, the sky taking up more room than anything else, the late sun burning everything copper and amber all the way to the horizon. Now her thoughts turned to her mom and dad, her sister in Millers Creek, the Saturday afternoon corn hole games in the park, the delicious scents from the candle shop owned by her friend Jillian Sweet, Iris the gossip queen, and everything about Honeysuckle that made her smile.
Resisting the urge to grab her phone and spend a good chunk of the drive chatting away with her sister, she rolled down the window a little further, let the warm air come in, and with a smile as wide as the Rio Grande, drove toward home.
The parallel bars were winning.
Aiden Boglioli would never say that out loud — not to the red-headed force of nature currently watching him from the end of the mat with her arms folded and a clipboard tucked under one elbow, and definitely not to the guy in the bed across the hall who complained about everything and had somehow made a full recovery ahead of schedule, which Aiden chose to find inspirational rather than infuriating. Standing in the PT room of the Army hospital, just as he had every day for weeks, he would say it to himself, because a man should at least be honest with himself, and the truth was the bars were winning.
He shifted his weight and reset his grip on the bars.
“Slow it down.”
He didn’t. All he wanted was to forget the convoy blast ever happened. Forget he’d been blown clear of the truck and that a concussion and pelvic ring fracture with joint instability kept him from getting up and walking away. And right now, forget that these damn bars were winning over his determination to strut with confidence and not a limp.
The therapist said something else, but it blurred under the sound of metal and rubber and his own breath. He stepped forward again, forcing the movement, ignoring the hitch when his left side lagged half a beat behind the right.
The redhead raised a single brow at him. "You're compensating again."
"I'm walking."
On a heavy sigh, she barely shook her head. "You're waddling."
Something deep in his core protested, sharp and quick, then settled into a dull burn he could work around. He adjusted. Shifted more weight to the right. Shortened the stride on the left. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. "A man who beat every kid on his block in a barefoot sprint across the sand at Orchard Beach does not waddle."
“Orchard Beach?”
“In the Bronx.”
“Right.” Stepping forward, she set two fingers against his right hip. "You're dropping this side to protect the left. Square up."
He squared up. His left hip sent another nasty message to his brain, terser this time.
"There." She stepped back. "Now walk."
He walked. Slower than he'd moved in his entire adult life. Slower than the elderly woman in Room twelve who used a walker and still beat him to the coffee station every morning. One measured step, then another, the bars cool and solid under his palms, the fluorescent lights above giving everything in this room the same flat, unforgiving quality.
Halfway down the bars the door to the PT suite whooshed open behind him. He didn't bother to look. Turning around on the parallel bars was not in his current repertoire.
"You look like a man who has spent too much time on a horse.” The voice was unhurried, dry.
Aiden made it to the end of the bars. Gripping the terminal post more tightly, he turned — carefully, deliberately — and found Staff Sergeant Kade Sweet leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed and a look on his face that did its level best to pass for casual. Beside him, wearing the expression of a man trying not to smile and not entirely succeeding, Josh Coleman took in the room with a single sweep.
"Comedian." The single word was all Aiden could muster at the moment.
"I’m here nightly all week." Grinning, Kade pushed off the doorframe.
The physical therapist looked from one visitor to the other, barely nodding before making a note on the clipboard. "Five more lengths. Don't drop the hip."
"I never drop the hip," Aiden did his best not to snap—not in front of his sergeant.
Closing her eyes and heaving a sigh, the woman forced a smile and walked away.
“That wouldn’t be Attila, would it?” Kade watched her go.
Aiden took a second to catch his breath before answering. “The one and only.”
Scanning the room the way he scanned every room — exits, obstructions, anything that moved—Kade nodded. "How's the hip?"
"Fine." Aiden started back down the bars. He wasn't going to stop his session because they'd shown up. He wasn't going to give his hip the satisfaction. "We're making progress." He kept his eyes forward, the far wall, the motivational poster that said Every Step Forward over a picture of a mountain that had nothing to do with pelvic fractures. "You two didn't drive out here to watch me waddle."
"No." Kade lifted his chin in a gesture that told Aiden an order was forthcoming. "Discharge paperwork cleared this morning."
Aiden stopped.
"They're releasing you." Josh smiled. "Today."
His gaze darted between them. “And you’re delivering the good news?”
Kade stepped closer to the bars. “We’re picking you up.”
The room was the same as it had been thirty seconds ago — same flat light, same equipment, same poster — but something in the air shifted. Aiden had been waiting for this long enough that he'd stopped letting himself think about it.
"Today." He said it flat, checking how it felt.
"Today." Kade pulled a folded paper from his jacket pocket. "Which brings us to the second part of this conversation."
Aiden looked at the paper, then at Kade, then at Josh, who had the expression of a man who had been on the receiving end of this particular conversation and was now very much enjoying watching someone else have it.
"You've both got that look." Aiden returned his gaze to the papers in hand.
"Look?" Kade raised a single questioning brow.
"The look that means I'm about to be voluntold."
A slow steady smile took over his sergeant’s face. "My mother sets a real good table, Boglioli."
* * * * *
“Don’t pull him.” Colleen Gleeson forced an easy smile.
The woman’s hands tightened anyway. The gelding lifted his head, ears flicking back, then forward, reading everything the rider hadn’t said out loud
.
Colleen stepped in without breaking stride, one hand settling lightly against the woman’s calf, the other brushing her wrist.
“Loosen it.”
“I am.”
She didn’t argue. They took two more steps. The horse drifted off the line, shoulder edging out, testing. Colleen adjusted the rider’s leg just enough to shift her weight back where it belonged. “Again.”
The woman exhaled this time. Not much, but enough. The reins softened. The gelding’s head dropped a fraction.
“There.”
They moved forward, slow and even, dust rising under each step. The rhythm settled in—one beat, then the next—until the tension bled off and what had been work started to look like something easier. Even though it wasn’t.
Colleen walked beside them, close enough to correct, far enough not to interfere. This was it. Her last day under the tutelage of Hannah Farraday Johnson. Though not that much older than Colleen, Hannah had a reputation throughout all of Texas, the neighboring states, and often beyond, for running one of the best equine therapy operations. As a teen, ever since her friend was in a nasty car accident and Colleen watched her suffer through therapy trying to regain full use of her leg, Colleen had known she wanted to be a physical therapist and help people reclaim their lives as easily as possible. Not till this last year at an equine therapy center in far east Dallas did she realize how very much she wanted to go the extra mile and help people heal with horses. That newly found dream made her chance to work here with Hannah at the Farradays all the sweeter.
In the case of Hannah’s cousin Connor Farraday, well, the man was known as the best horse breeder and trainer from shore to shore. If there was such a thing as a horse whisperer, Connor had that skill in spades.
Colleen was learning it all and from the very best. Her wristwatch buzzed. Time was up. She cued the horse to halt with a shift of her weight and a quiet word. Her patient eased to a stop and sat for a moment before swinging down, landing with more confidence than she had a month ago, steadying herself briefly against the saddle before stepping away on her own.
"Good session." Colleen smiled.
“You’ll be meeting with me again next week instead of Colleen.” Grinning as though she’d won the largest Kewpie doll at the state fair, Hannah strolled up.
The woman nodded, turned to Colleen and offering the first sincere smile Colleen had seen from her, spoke softly. “Thank you.” Without another word, she nodded and limped away. To Colleen’s satisfaction, not nearly as pronounced as it had been when Colleen first arrived three months ago.
“We wish you could stay.” Hannah handed the horse’s reins over to one of the stable workers.
“I have to admit,” she fell into step with Hannah toward the main house, “I’ve been tempted.”
“But not enough.” There was no censure in Hannah’s tone, not even a hint of optimism.
“Honeysuckle is home. Between school, training, licensing, getting my hours, and… well, here,” she waved an arm across the expanse of the Farraday operation, “I’m ready to go home.”
“Still planning to hang your own shingle?”
She nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“Horses?”
With a shrug, she tipped her head momentarily to one side. “Definitely my own therapy practice, but the equine part, that may have to wait.” There were certainly plenty of ranches with horses in her neck of Texas, but nothing like the set up Connor Farraday had. Of course, that didn’t mean that maybe some day…
“Have you talked to Alice Sweet? They’ve been doing a lot of improvements over there. If all goes as well as I expect with her special patient, maybe their ranch could work out permanently.”
“Maybe.” She had thought the same thing. After all, it was upon the recommendation of Alice Sweet, and in reverence of the Farraday patriarch Sean’s friendship with her late husband Charlie Sweet that she’d gotten this chance to train with the best.
At the front of the main house where Colleen had been staying, Hannah eyed the bed of her truck. “You’re all packed?”
“Yeah. I figure it’s like changing Band-Aids, easier in the end to just rip off the old one.”
“Ouch.” Hannah cringed but still managed to smile. “So we’re an old Band-Aid, huh?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant, as excited as I am to go home, leaving here isn’t going to be easy.”
“Just so you know, you’re welcome any time. As a friend or a therapist. Whatever you want.”
“Thanks.” Colleen leaned forward and gave her new friend a tight hug. “I’ll remember that.”
“You’d better keep in touch!”
“You bet.” She stepped back, climbed into the truck, blew out a big sigh, and started the engine.
Hannah took a step back. Connor came out the front door and stood beside his niece.
She’d already said her goodbyes to Connor and his family after lunch, no point in starting that all over. She lifted her hand, waved at the two smiling Farradays, and pulled away. The windows went down. The radio went up. The gravel of Farraday's long drive crunched under her tires, then gave way to the standard West Texas blacktop.
The truck climbed a low rise and the land opened up the way it did out here — wide and unhurried, the sky taking up more room than anything else, the late sun burning everything copper and amber all the way to the horizon. Now her thoughts turned to her mom and dad, her sister in Millers Creek, the Saturday afternoon corn hole games in the park, the delicious scents from the candle shop owned by her friend Jillian Sweet, Iris the gossip queen, and everything about Honeysuckle that made her smile.
Resisting the urge to grab her phone and spend a good chunk of the drive chatting away with her sister, she rolled down the window a little further, let the warm air come in, and with a smile as wide as the Rio Grande, drove toward home.
E-Books
|
|
|
|
|
|
Save 10% on E-Books when you buy direct from Chris !
