“Speaking of good deeds, I didn’t get a chance to tell you that what you did for Brent in Silver Creek, that was good work too. The Goodfellows were obviously so grateful and…you were generous without knowing it could benefit you as much as it did.” He’d taken the lead with us, ensured we had food and water and were safe, and he’d taken the opportunity to help others along the way too, whenever he had the skills.

“Thanks, Em.” We were on a quiet stretch of road where we hadn’t seen travelers on foot in a while and we swayed along, the surroundings made dreamy by the pink-hued sky. We were both quiet for a moment, our thighs touching as the horse moved steadily in front of us. “You want to hear something kinda funny?”

I glanced at his profile and nodded.

“The reason I knew how to set that bone in particular was because I performed the same maneuver in prison.”

I gave him a confused smile. “What? Why?”

“A buddy of mine, this dude who’d had my back a few times, had gotten injured in a fight out in the yard and dislocated his elbow. Going to the infirmary would have raised questions and he only had a few months of his sentence left. So, I got this medical book out of the library and learned how to pop the bone back into place.”

“Oh my gosh, of course you did.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t tell Sheriff Goodfellow that. I thought the felon thing might concern him more than letting someone with a small amount of veterinary experience touch his son.”

The felon thing. That phrase echoed. But I could see why the coincidence of the dislocation pleased Tuck. I liked it too, the idea that even if the knowledge one acquired was due to a negative or painful circumstance, it was still knowledge and it might come in handy when you least expected it. Even the hardest parts of our lives provided positives from which to draw.

I wondered what this whole experience would leave me with.

And beyond that, I wondered what Tuck had done to end up in prison, wondered if he’d tell me. But knew that if he did, it would be because he’d decided to trust me for more than just a fleeting moment. I was surprised he’d brought up his time behind bars at all and sensed it might be some small surrender that perhaps he didn’t even realize.

But in any case, for the first time, it felt like I was talking to Tuck. Not the man I was hiring to be my bodyguard, or the stranger I’d once known but didn’t any longer. Tuck. My friend.

There you are. You’re still in there. Something about that made me want to smile. And cry. Because it made me realize just how much I’d missed him.