“Of course not. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. But I heard you, man. You tried to talk her out of it.”
Brady clenched his fists and took a step back—not to create a safe distance between himself and Stan, but to give himself room to throw a really effective punch. He’d just started to raise his fist when he heard Suze moan. It was a soft sound, so low he almost missed it, but it was something.
He spun away from Stan and headed for the spot where Suze lay, dropping to his knees and skidding toward her in the soft arena dirt.
“Suze? Hey, Suze?” He looked at one EMT, then the other. “Did you hear that? She said something. I heard her.”
“We heard her. Don’t crowd us, okay?”
Brady half stood and backed away.
“Why is she on that board? Why did you put that thing around her head?”
“It’s just a precaution. With head injuries, you have to stabilize the patient.”
Brady wanted to scream that this wasn’t “the patient”; this was Suze, Suze Carlyle, a woman who’d been barreling toward him just moments before, her rope twirling over her head. She’d been so alive in that moment. Surely that life would sustain her in spite of what had happened.
Surely it would.
The EMTs lifted the gurney and legs unfolded from beneath it. They rolled it through the alleyway between the bleachers to the ambulance. Brady followed, with Stan trotting behind him.
“Is she going to be okay?” Brady asked.
The tech shrugged.
Just then, Suze’s eyes flipped open, like the eyes of a doll. Her pupils were tiny, her expression frantic as she tried to turn her head and look around.
“I’m here, Suze,” Brady said. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Her gaze darted around, searching for something. And that’s when she started to scream.
“Speedo! Speedo!”
“He’s fine,” Brady said. “Speedo’s fine. I’ll take care of him, okay?”
But by then the gurney had slid into the ambulance, and he knew she couldn’t hear him anymore.
“Can I ride along in the ambulance? I’m a…friend, and I—I’m really concerned.”
He’d almost told the techs that he’d caused the accident. Stan had put his hand on his shoulder just in time. He felt bad about slapping it away earlier. He’d apologize. He would. He just had more important things to do right now. He could still hear Suze calling Speedo’s name.
“I need to tell her, her horse is okay. Somebody tell her that, okay?”
He shoved through the crowd of EMTs as the doors closed, muffling Suze’s cries.
“Can I ride along?” he repeated.
The tech turned. “Are you Brady Caine?”
Brady nodded. “Did she ask for me?”
The tech looked at him as if he was just another pile of horse leavings in the dust of the rodeo arena.
“Tell you what,” he said, “she’s only been conscious for thirty seconds or so. Normally, during that time, people say stuff like tell my mother I love her, make sure my kids are okay, stuff like that.”
Brady didn’t bother to tell the guy Suze didn’t have a mother or kids. The man was clearly making another point.
“She didn’t say any of that stuff. She said, and I quote, ‘Keep Brady Caine the hell away from me.’ So, no, you can’t ride along.”
Chapter 20
The emergency room at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center was a hive of activity, with bells ringing, nurses padding to and fro, and harried-looking doctors striding with the kind of self-importance only doctors can pull off.
“Excuse me.” Brady nodded politely to a pleasantly plump woman at the counter. Her head was bent in concentration as she tapped at a computer keyboard. “My girlfriend is back there. I wondered if I could…”
“Family only.” The woman spoke with all the animation of the Terminator and continued to stare at the keyboard.
Brady held his hat to his chest and turned on the smile that had won the hearts of half a dozen rodeo queens, but the woman continued to type. “Could you maybe just tell me how she’s doing?”
“That information is for family only.” Deft and efficient, her fingers danced over the keys. She still didn’t look up.
Maybe he needed to take a more personal approach. “Whatcha working on, hon?”
She finally looked up. Her snuggle-bunny figure and teddy-bear scrubs had led him to expect a cute little country girl, but her skin was pale as wax, and her eyes were bordered in an odd combination of dark liner and glitter paint that made her look like a cross between Cleopatra and Elvira, Mistress of the Night. He half expected fangs, but her teeth were actually a little smaller than normal and set slightly separated in her gums, like the tiny teeth of a child. Somehow, that seemed more ghoulish than fangs.
“What I’m working on,” she said, “is confidential.” She pulled a few pages out of a printer, tapped them on her desk to align the edges, and slipped them into a folder. “Now, can I do anything else for you?”
“No. No, forget it.”
He felt like he’d fired his entire arsenal and it had simply bounced off the protective layer of Goth she wore like a suit of armor. Backing away from the desk with his hat in his hands, he sat down on one of the plastic chairs in the waiting area. The chairs had once been white, but hundreds of waiting family members had scratched dark scars in them with the rivets on their Wranglers.
Brady had been here before—once when a bronc rolled over on his brother Ridge, and once when a buddy had an unfortunate encounter with a Brahma bull. But though he’d been anxious both times, they were nothing compared to this. The fluorescent lights seemed to flicker, and he was afraid he might throw up.
Maybe if he did, they’d take him back there as a patient. He tried thinking about a really terrible Mexican dinner he’d had once in Amarillo, but though the memory made him feel a lot worse, it didn’t quite do the trick.
Setting his hat on the chair next to him, he rested his elbows on his knees and ducked his head to rake his fingers through his hair. What the hell was he going to do now? He couldn’t leave Suze, but there wasn’t much point in being there if no one would tell him how she was.
“Little brother? You okay?” The voice was deep and familiar.
“Shane.” Brady slapped his hat back on, lurched to his feet, and stepped into his eldest brother’s arms in a shameless display of relief and gratitude. The embrace lasted mere seconds before the two of them backed off, glanced around the room to see if anyone was looking, and switched to more manly displays of affection that ended with the two of them standing side by side, heads bowed. Shane put his hand on Brady’s shoulder and squeezed.
“How is she?” Shane asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t get past the guardian of the gates over there.” Brady gestured toward his nemesis.
“You’re kidding. Brady Caine can’t charm his way past a woman?”
“Nope.” Brady scuffed his feet, still staring at the floor. “She’s too smart to fall for my shit. I mean, what have I got? I’m a cowboy. Buckle bunnies love me. But there’s not much going on under this danged hat.”
He took off the offending hat and flung it on the floor. It slid over to the reception counter and slapped into the paneling. The receptionist paused in her typing just long enough to toss him a disapproving glare, then returned to her task without the slightest hitch in her rhythm.
“I don’t know,” Shane said. “You’re pretty funny, and she looks like she could use a laugh. You try teasing her? See if you can get a giggle out of her?”
“She look like the giggling type?” Brady asked.
Shane ducked his head to get a look at the girl’s face and shook his head. “Nope.”
“See? I’m telling you, I got nothing.” Brady dropped into one of the hard
plastic chairs like he’d been shot. “This whole thing’s taught me to take a hard look at myself. I’m nothing but a good-time cowboy. A goddamn punch line.”
Shane bent down and picked up the hat, setting it beside him as he sat down beside his brother. “You’re way more than that.”
“Am I?” Brady gave his brother a hard look, and Shane couldn’t hold it. “You said it yourself once. I’m wasting what God gave me on buckles, babes, and beer.” He walked over and picked up the hat. “You know why she’s back there?” He waved his hat toward the double doors. “Because I’m not man enough to admit it when I’m outmatched. I knew I couldn’t pull off that stunt, but I wouldn’t admit it. And now she’s hurt. Bad. Because of me.” He returned to his chair, mashing his hat down on the chair beside him, crushing the crown.
Shane put a hand on his brother’s back and stayed silent. That was one of the things that made Brady glad to have him for a brother. Shane knew when to keep his mouth shut, which was most of the time. He could be bossy, and as the oldest of the three foster brothers, he could be stern. But he cared, and he was kind.
Luckily for Brady, he was family—by the grace of God, Bill Decker, and the Wynott Home for Boys.
The two men sat silently under the yellowed lights of the waiting room, watching an orderly dance a mop down the adjacent hallway in a slow, swirling tango.
Suddenly Brady leaped to his feet. “Speedo,” he said. “Goddamn it, I forgot about Speedo.”
“Suze’s horse?” Shane pulled his brother back into the chair by his shirttail. “Quit worrying. Ridge put him in a stall at the rodeo grounds for now. He didn’t have a trailer or he’d have taken him home to the ranch or over to Suze’s.”
“Thanks, bro.” Brady put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll pick him up later. Soon as I’ve seen Suze.”
“Take Ridge with you,” Shane said. “He said that animal’s a real handful.”
“For anybody but Suze, I guess.” Brady glanced at his watch. “I should probably go get Ridge and haul the horse home,” he said. “He’s probably nervous, being alone in an unfamiliar place.”
“Yep.”
Brady looked longingly at the double doors that barred him from the treatment area. “I just want to see Suze first.”
“Does she want to see you?”
Brady shook his head. “Probably not.”
“Maybe you should take care of the horse, then.”
When a doctor stepped out of the double doors, Brady lurched to his feet. The doctor never shifted into a trot, but he somehow passed the orderly and his dance partner and disappeared around a corner before Brady could say a word.
“I’ll get the horse later,” Brady said. “They have to let me in eventually.”
“Do you want to see her for your sake or for hers?”
Brady sat down and sighed, feeling about as lost and hopeless as he’d ever felt in his life. Glancing at his face, Shane rose and went over to the Goth girl. Bending his dark head over the computer monitor, he managed to engage her in a whispered conversation. At one point, the two of them both looked at Brady. He tried to look like a responsible party. Normally, he was just a party—a walking party, in boots and a hat. That was Brady Caine.
The woman talked to Shane a little longer, then gave him a ghoulish smile. Her lipstick was practically black. It made her teeth look nice and white, but it had the same effect on her complexion. Brady was going to have scary clown dreams tonight for sure.
Shane raised his eyebrows, obviously asking a question. The Goth girl nodded twice, in a way that made her head seem completely disembodied from the rest of her.
Scary puppet dreams, maybe.
Shane walked back to Brady. “She says you can go on back there. Just don’t tell anybody she saw you. Don’t even tell them you saw her. She’ll say she was making copies and you must have slipped by her.”
Brady stood and put his hand on Shane’s shoulder, bowing his head. “Thanks, man.”
Shane gave him a little shove. “Just go. And then take care of that horse.”
Glancing left and right, making sure the mop man was gone, Brady strode toward the double doors, smacked them open, and slipped through.
Chapter 21
Brady found himself in a hallway lined with cubicles, each containing a cot and an assortment of beeping, blinking medical equipment. Most of the curtains were open, revealing empty cots, but a few were occupied, the patients hidden by drawn curtains and hushed voices.
How the hell was he going to find Suze? He needed to hurry. Shane was right; she’d want him to rescue the horse first. But he had to know if she was okay.
He edged back the first curtain and peered inside.
A woman lay on the cot, staring unseeing at the ceiling. An elderly man sat on a chair beside her, holding her hand while he rested his forehead on the edge of the cot and stared down at the floor.
Wincing, Brady let the curtain swing closed. He felt like he’d intruded on a moment as private as lovemaking.
The next two carrels were unoccupied. When he pushed back the curtain that hid the fourth compartment, an elderly woman propped herself up on her elbows. She had sparse apricot hair organized in neat swirls over a shiny pink skull, and wore cat-eye glasses with bright red frames.
“Well, now, look at you,” she said. “Did I die and go to heaven?”
“No, ma’am,” he said.
She slumped back down and rested her head on the pillow. “You got that right. In heaven, the good-lookin’ cowboys don’t call me ma’am.”
Brady smiled. “What do they call you?”
She smiled. “They call me sweetheart.” She turned sharp eyes on him and scanned his clothes top to bottom. “You’re dirty.”
“Been in a wreck.”
“You remind me of my husband. He was a rodeo cowboy.” She smiled at the memory, staring at the ceiling. “He’d get dirty like that, and I’d make him clean up before I’d let him touch me.” She sighed. “We were married almost sixty years.”
“You must have married mighty young,” Brady said gallantly.
“I was seventeen,” she said. “We had a little ranch. Raised three kids.” She shot a sharp look at Brady. “You got kids?”
“No, ma’am.”
“What’re you waiting for?”
He smiled wryly. “A sweetheart like you, I guess.”
“You got one in mind?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
She propped herself up on her elbows again. “Why not?”
Brady shrugged. “I like ’em all. It’s hard to choose.”
She lay down again. “You haven’t met the right one yet, then. You’ll know her the minute you see her.”
Brady had a flash of memory, bright as the fluorescent-lighted corridor. In it he saw Suze riding around her home arena, bent over her horse’s neck like an avenging angel bent on destruction. The moment she’d rushed past him on that hot summer day, something inside him changed. A part of him grabbed that image and held on tight, and he was pretty sure it was his heart.
It sure as heck wasn’t his brain, because anybody could see Suze Carlyle was too good for the likes of him. Baggy pants and untucked shirts couldn’t hide class and talent.
“What if the right one doesn’t even like you?” he asked.
“Then you set your mind to proving her wrong,” the woman said. “Show her you’re deserving of her respect.”
Now that Brady thought about it, he realized he’d never done a danged thing to earn Suze’s respect. He’d just kept on being the same empty-headed, charming cowboy he’d always been, and expected her to eventually break down and admit how lovable he was.
“I’ll try that.” He moved toward the hallway, but the woman looked scared for the first time since he’d seen her.
&nbs
p; “Don’t go,” she said.
He couldn’t leave her there alone. She seemed like a nice old lady, with a sort of wisdom about her. He sat down. “How are you feeling?”
“Not so good,” she said. “I got a bad heart, and I guess it’ll kill me. But it’s okay. It’s my time. I’ve done what I needed to do on this earth. It’s time to stir up some trouble in heaven.”
“I bet you will.”
He needed to go find Suze. He needed to go get Speedo. But he couldn’t leave this woman, even though she made him uncomfortable. The sharp eyes behind those outlandish glasses saw right through him.
“Young man?” She sat up, popping upright so suddenly Brady would have fled if she hadn’t reached out and grasped his hand in a surprisingly powerful grip. Ranch work made a woman strong as most men, and she’d apparently done her share.
“I need to tell you about dying,” she said.
Brady wasn’t sure he wanted to know about that particular topic, but she wouldn’t let him loose.
“It’s not so bad except for the regrets,” she said. “And I’ve only got one.” Her voice was a little slurred, as if she was getting sleepy.
“What’s that?”
“I wish I hadn’t asked that man of mine to clean up before he touched me. Wasted too much time.” She lay back down on the bed and the sharp eyes softened. He could see that she’d been beautiful once. Still was, actually.
“Him touching me was the best thing in my life, and I wasted precious moments,” she muttered to herself. “Precious, precious moments.”
She closed her eyes and seemed to drift into sleep. Her grip on his hand eased, and then she let go altogether. She seemed safe, so Brady pulled the curtain shut as quietly as he could and moved on down the line.
He passed three more empty cubicles before he found Suze. She was either sleeping or unconscious, lying eerily still while a little dark-haired nurse bustled around her, checking various machines that beeped and booped, blinking like sparkling party lights. The lights, along with the noise and bustle, made the cubicle seem strangely festive.
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