Change of Hart (Wells Ranch, #3)(31)

Let me in. What the…

Tiptoeing, I made my way to the window and peeked from behind the curtain. Sure enough, there was Denny, slumped down in a patio chair with the rain and wind howling around him.

“Denny,” I whisper-yelled, sliding the window open with a grating squeal.

Within seconds, my best friend—also the boy I had the world’s biggest crush on—was dripping wet and shivering in my bedroom in the middle of the night.

“What’s going on?” I gawked at him, awkward and unsure of how to handle the situation. Whatever the situation was.

“It’s…uh…” He let out a ragged breath. “Sorry for waking you up. I-I wanted to talk to you.”

“It couldn’t wait until I see you tomorrow?” I asked through a loud yawn.

“No. Well, yes…I guess. But, no. I need to talk to you now. I couldn’t sleep.” Everything about him was off—unlike any version of Denver Wells I’d seen before. No self-assured confidence behind his words. No warm smile. No light. “I just…Blair, I don’t know why I’m here.”

A shiver racked his body and, without a word, I turned and opened my closet door. Then felt around in the dark for a pair of buffalo plaid pajama pants and a baggy old T-shirt.

“Here. Get out of the wet clothes,” I said, thrusting the pants and shirt toward him. And when he stepped toward the door, I shuffled to block his path, my palm falling to his damp chest. “You can’t go out there and get us caught. I’ll go so you can change.”

I gingerly stepped into the hallway and padded to the kitchen, pretending to get a glass of water for enough time I could be sure he was fully dressed. Fighting to stop myself from thinking about him half-naked in my room. I’d had a crush on him for so long, I forgot what it was like not to have a crush on him. But it was painfully obvious those feelings were never going to be reciprocated. He told me about girls who passed him notes in class, teased me relentlessly for being weird, and introduced me to people as his best friend—there had even been times where he referred to me as his sister.

I desperately needed to get over my crush. And picturing his bare chest, cold and damp from the rain, wasn’t helpful. Picturing him slipping out of his wet jeans wasn’t helpful. And picturing him naked in my bedroom definitely wasn’t helpful. But there was no stopping it. My glass of water went down in slow, painful gulps as the tiny clock hand skipped forward.

He was sitting cross-legged on top of my bed when I slipped back through the door. Denver Wells was in my room. Wearing my clothes. On my bed.

Crying.

“What’s going on?” The door shut behind me with a soft click, and I crawled across the floral bedspread to sit in front of him.

“It’s Mom,” he muttered. “She’s sick.”

“What?” I croaked, feeling as though my ribs were imploding.

“Cancer.”

The world stopped, air falling still. I couldn’t breathe or think or see. In the dark quiet of my room, I reached for his hand, looping my fingers around his. His grip held strong, clung to my touch like a life raft, squeezing around my knuckles with each slow, shaky breath. The bones in my hand pressing together hurt, but the pain was dulled by the excruciating ache in my chest.

“Is she…” Scared of the answer, I struggled to ask the question. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Mom and Dad say she will be.”

“Okay. So then…it’s okay. She’ll be fine.”

She had to be.

I didn’t see how there could be any option other than her being fine. Aside from the junk food when we were on the road for rodeos, Lucy Wells was the healthiest person I’d ever met. She was young. She was amazing. Everyone loved her. People like that need to be okay, because the world is counting on them to stick around.

And if I was wrong, I had to pretend that things would be fine. That’s what Denny needed from me. It wasn’t my time to be emotional or scared.

I ran my thumb across the back of Denny’s shaking hand. “Your mom is the toughest person I know. She’s going to kick cancer’s butt.”

“Yeah.”

And then it dawned on me….

“Wait. How did you get here? It’s like one o’clock in the morning.”

“I stole Grandpa’s truck,” he said matter-of-factly. As if it wasn’t a big deal for a fifteen-year-old to steal a truck and drive through a storm in the middle of the night.

“Denver Wells,” I whisper-yelled. Regardless of the fact that he couldn’t see a single detail of my face, I shot him a look. “That’s seriously illegal. What if you got caught or crashed the truck?”

He shifted on the bed, releasing the death grip on my hand. “I’ve been driving around the ranch since I was six. I’m fine.”

“Even still. It wasn’t worth the risk to drive here. You could’ve texted or called or waited until I saw you tomorrow to talk to me.”

“I couldn’t.” His rough exhalation was hot against my cheek, and I realized how close we were. “I tried to sleep. Forget about it. Everybody else in the house seemed to have no trouble sleeping….”

“She’s going to be okay.”

“And if she isn’t?” He sniffled, and something wet landed on my calf, quickly soaking through my thin pajama pants. “What then?”