In a Cowboy's Arms (Hitting Rocks Cowboys)

by Rebecca Winters

  Sadie clung to the back of one of the kitchen chairs. He could tell she was fighting not to break down. Jarod had seen that look too many times in their lives. He planned to wipe it away for good.

  “The ranch and everything else on the property is yours, Zane.”

  Sadie looked as if she was going to faint. “Ned said you were the buyer, but I didn’t believe him.”

  A dazed Zane got to his feet. “What’s all this about?”

  “We’re not the buyers, and we aren’t out any money. But Ralph and I didn’t want Ned to get the ranch, so our attorney acted as the straw buyer to make certain you were able to purchase it before he did. Your offer was accepted, Zane.”

  “Jarod—” The emotion in that one word caught at his heart.

  “Bree will be calling to set up a time for you to drive to Billings and sign everything. He’ll give you the deed, and that will be it.”

  Zane cleared his throat. “I don’t know what to say. ‘Thank you’ could never cover it.” He walked over and gave him a long hug.

  Jarod was moved by the other man’s gratitude. “I’m the one who’s in your debt. No amount of money could compensate for what you’ve done to help take care of Sadie and Ryan. We should have been married eight years ago, but that was not our path until now.” He darted Sadie a speaking glance. “There’s nothing else to prevent us from planning our future.”

  Zane’s eyes had gone suspiciously bright. “I’m going to leave you two alone to get started on those plans.”

  “Did you hear all that?” Jarod whispered after Zane disappeared. Sadie was still clinging to the chair. He’d been waiting for her to run to him, but she hadn’t moved. He reached for her. “What’s wrong?”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “How do you thank someone who’s just given you the world? Tell me how you do that.” Her voice shook. “I love you so desperately, Jarod, you just don’t know. That’s why I’m so worried to tell you something that has to be said before we talk about the wedding.”

  “What’s happened?” He sounded anxious.

  She put her hands on his chest. “This is about the children you want to have with me.”

  He saw fear in her eyes. “Go on.”

  “There’s no easy way to say this. I have a heart condition you need to know about.”

  His own heart almost failed him. “Since when?”

  “At my last rodeo two weeks before graduation, I developed palpitations. My heartbeat accelerated abnormally during the barrel racing. Mac drove me to White Lodge to see the general practitioner at the hospital. He put me on birth control and a medication that really helped, but I had to stop the barrel racing. Then he advised me to see a cardiac specialist in Billings.”

  “That was the reason I couldn’t find you after your performance that night?”

  She nodded. Jarod was dumbfounded. “Since we were making plans to get married and I felt all right on the medicine, I decided not to tell you about it until after we were married. But three days later you had your accident.”

  “Sadie—” Fear caused him to break out in a cold sweat. He gripped her shoulders. “Your mother died of a bad heart having Ryan.”

  “That’s true, but in her case there were extenuating circumstances.”

  He couldn’t throw this off. “How serious is your condition?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not fatal. As you can see I’m still alive and have been doing just fine on the medication.”

  “You haven’t answered my question. What’s wrong with you exactly?”

  “Once I arrived in California and told Mother what had happened, she took me to see her heart specialist. I was diagnosed with paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia.”

  “Explain that to me.”

  “It’s called PSVT and occurs when any structure above the ventrical produces a regular, rapid electrical impulse resulting in a rapid heartbeat. The technique to fix it has been perfected and involves placing small probes in the heart that can destroy tissue and then are removed once the tissue is altered.

  “The procedure is called catheter ablation. The doctor inserts a tube into a blood vessel and it’s guided to your heart. A special machine sends energy through the tube. It finds and destroys small areas of heart tissue where abnormal heart rhythms may start. You have to go to the hospital to have it done.”

  “Did your mother undergo this procedure?”

  “Yes, but it didn’t work. Sadly, in her case, the arrhythmia brought on cardiac arrest, something very rare. Her older age and stress played a big factor in what happened to her. I’m thinking of having the procedure done before we’re married. Otherwise I won’t be getting pregnant because the medicine I take can cause a miscarriage. I’ll have to stay on birth control and won’t be able to give you a baby.”

  “I don’t like it, Sadie. I don’t want you to do anything that will put your life in more jeopardy than it already is.”

  “I’m not in jeopardy. Listen to me, Jarod. Today I talked to my heart doctor in California. He gave me the name of a specialist in Billings named Dr. Harvey who does this kind of procedure. I’m going to call tomorrow for an appointment. We’ll go together. If I find out I’m a good candidate, I’d like to have it done right away.”

  He struggled for breath. “What if it isn’t successful?”

  “Then my other doctor told me they’d put in a pacemaker. But think how wonderful it would be if I could plan to get pregnant without the fear of something going wrong.”

  “I’d rather we adopted children.”

  “If it comes to that, then I’ll get my tubes tied and we’ll go in that direction. But more than anything in the world I want to try the procedure so I can have your baby and give it a good Crow name.”

  Jarod wrapped his arms all the way around her and buried his face in her hair. “More than anything in the world, the only thing I want is for you to be in my bed for the rest our lives. We have Ryan. Let’s let that be enough for now. Later on we’ll consider adoption.”

  “Will you at least be willing to go to the doctor with me?”

  His eyes closed tightly. “You’re asking too much. We almost lost each other before. I can’t go through that again.”

  She eased herself away from him. “Do you really mean that?”

  “I do. My mother died after she had me. Your mother died after Ryan was born. Now you’re asking me to live through more torture while you undergo some procedure that could go wrong and you’d need a pacemaker to keep you alive?”

  Her face was a study in pain, but he couldn’t stop.

  “What if that fails? Then it would mean another procedure and another until...” He shuddered. “I can’t go along with it.”

  Sadie’s complexion lost color. “What if I told you I’ve always wanted to have your baby and will do anything to make it possible?”

  “Even chance death?”

  “That won’t happen! I want to do this for us. Remember what you told me a few nights ago? You said, ‘The dreams I’ve dreamed, Sadie. My grandfather’s health has to hold out long enough to see our first baby come into the world. I can hardly wait to feel movement inside you.’”

  He searched her eyes, gutted by this conversation. “I said that before I knew about your heart problem. Don’t put me in this position, Sadie.”

  She looked at him with a pained expression. “I won’t, because I can see your mind is made up.” Her chin lifted in that unique way of hers. “You deserve to have your own baby. You’ll make the most wonderful father on earth. So I’m going to do you a favor and release you from your commitment to me.”

  He stared at her, incredulous she would go this far.

  “I shouldn’t have accepted your proposal without telling you of my condition, but the night we got back together I wasn’t thinking about
babies. I was very selfish, only thinking about myself and my happiness. But let’s be frank. There are many women out there like Leslie Weston who’d give anything to meet a man like you, and they don’t have my heart ailment.

  “I’ve always been a problem for you and it hasn’t stopped. One day when you have a wife and several children of your own, you’ll thank me. I love you, Jarod. I’ll love you till my dying breath, but you shouldn’t have to sacrifice every part of your life because of me. You did enough of that while my father was alive and it simply isn’t fair to you. It’s your turn to find happiness.”

  “You really want us to be over?”

  “No. I want us to have our own baby, and the only way we can do that is for me to go to the doctor to see if he can do that procedure on me. If you’re too afraid to even accompany me to the appointment to find out my options, then we shouldn’t be together because I don’t want to put you through that kind of agony. I’m a liability and have always been.”

  An overwhelming sadness filled her eyes, but Jarod knew she was determined.

  “I—I think you should go,” she said. “After fighting a fire and subduing Ned, you must be feeling worse than exhausted.”

  This just couldn’t be happening, but it was....

  With the blackness descending upon him, Jarod left the kitchen and headed for his truck.

  * * *

  “SADIE CORKIN, YOU’VE just done the only terrible thing in your whole life.”

  Shocked at the tone of Zane’s voice, she wheeled around white-faced.

  “Because your voices carried, I didn’t have to eavesdrop. Don’t let him go like this or you’ll never get him back. You’re the woman he’s always wanted, but you just threw everything he ever did for you back in his face. Sadie... You don’t tell a man it’s either my way or nothing. Not a man like Jarod. You’re talking about your lives here!

  “The poor man hasn’t had two seconds to digest all this new information. He’s terrified you might die. Forget having a baby right now. Even if you didn’t have a heart problem, how do you know you can get pregnant? And Jarod might not be able to give you children. You’re only twenty-six. You’ve got years to worry about that. Jarod wants marriage. He wants to live with you. You’ve put having a baby before him!”

  Sadie had never seen Zane so impassioned.

  “If your positions were reversed,” he went on, “and he’d given you an either/or proposition, I can guarantee you’d be in such horrendous pain I don’t even want to think about it. Take my car. It’s all gassed up. Go find him!”

  Sadie half expected him to point a finger at her. “I don’t want to see you walk in that door again without him. Remember, it’s my house now. Your place is with your fiancé.”

  Zane was right. He was right about everything.

  She dashed to the bedroom for her purse. He met her at the door with the keys. “Go get him, Sadie. All the man wants is to be loved.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered against his cheek.

  Sadie flew to the car with her purse and drove off.

  Jarod usually went to the reservation when he was in pain. She knew that about him, but he’d only had a five-minute start. Just to make sure, she drove to the Bannock Ranch to check if he’d stopped there first.

  Thank heaven she’d followed her instincts. There was his truck parked in front. She got out of the car and ran to the front door. Afraid to waken Ralph if he was already sleep, she knocked several times instead of using the bell. In a minute Avery opened the door.

  “Sadie—”

  “Hi,” she said, out of breath. “Is Jarod here?”

  “Yes. He passed me on the stairs a few minutes ago looking like death. You look the same way.”

  “I have to talk to him.”

  “Come on in and go up the stairs. His bedroom is at the end of the hall on the left. I’m glad you’ve come because you’re the only one who can fix what’s wrong with him.”

  Sadie rushed past her and raced up the steps straight into Connor, who steadied her with his hands. Her head flew back as she looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Connor. I didn’t see you.”

  “Jarod had the same problem when he came up a few minutes ago.” He grinned. “That’s twice I’ve been run into tonight. Jarod’s at the end of the hall on the left.”

  She nodded. “Avery told me.”

  “Then don’t let me keep you. One piece of advice. Don’t knock. Just walk in.”

  That wisdom from Jarod’s brother told her everything. If she knocked and Jarod knew who it was, he’d tell her to go away and never come back.

  Taking his advice, she hurried down the hall and started to reach for the handle when the door opened. Jarod appeared, carrying a saddlebag and bedroll. If she hadn’t caught up to him in time, he’d be off to the mountains and she would never have found him.

  Without hesitation, she threw her arms around his neck and clung to him, forcing him to drop his things. “I’m sorry, darling.” She covered his face with kisses. “Forgive me. The second the words came out of my mouth earlier, I wished I hadn’t said them.”

  His body remained rigid. She knew she was in for the fight of her life.

  “I want to live with you. You’re all I want! We’ll worry about children later. I wanted everything to be perfect for us, but as Zane let me know in no uncertain terms, nothing is perfect or set in this life. We need to seize our happiness while we can. There’s no life without you. Please say you forgive me.”

  His grave countenance made him look older. “Only on one condition. That we leave for the reservation and ask Uncle Charlo to marry us tonight.”

  “Tonight? Isn’t it too late?”

  “No. I refuse to spend another night alone without you. It’s your decision.”

  Sadie didn’t have to think. “My place is with you.”

  Jarod’s black gaze pierced through to her soul before he shut the door behind them. “Did you drive the truck over?”

  “No. Zane’s car.”

  “Give me his keys.” She followed him to Connor’s room. When he appeared with Avery, Jarod said, “We’re getting married tonight.” He handed him the keys. “Will you two see that Zane’s car is returned to him? Tell him we’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Sure. Can you get a marriage license this late?”

  “We’ll take care of that later. We don’t need one on the reservation.”

  “In that case, I claim my right to kiss the bride ahead of time.” Connor pressed a warm kiss to her lips. “Take care of my big brother,” he whispered. “He badly needs to be loved by a woman like you.”

  Sadie nodded and threw her arms around him. “I love you, Connor.”

  “Welcome to the family.”

  “Amen,” Avery chimed in from behind them and reached for Sadie. “Grandfather and I have said every known prayer in the universe for this night to happen.”

  She laughed through the tears. “I love both of you, too, Avery.”

  They walked her and Jarod out to his truck.

  As they drove away, Sadie waved until she couldn’t see them any longer. After closing the window, she realized Jarod was on the phone talking to his uncle. Their conversation lasted a while before he rang off.

  “I want you near me.” He pulled her against him so possessively, it sent a tremor through her body that didn’t stop, even after they reached the reservation.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Apsáalooke settlement of two thousand looked like a surreal painting in the moonlight. Most every home had a white tepee in its yard.

  Though all the signs of modern civilization were there, in her mind’s eye Sadie could see the proud, courageous warriors of years ago mounted on horseback in their search for buffalo. In a fanciful moment, she could imagine Jarod riding with them, hi
s long black hair flying in the wind.

  His mother came from this wonderful heritage. Tonight Sadie was going to experience a part of it. When they pulled up in front of his uncle’s house, she was excited for what was about to happen.

  Pauline Black Eagle was a lovely woman who came outside with her pretty eighteen-year-old daughter Mary Black Eagle and younger son George, otherwise known as Runs Over Mountains. They were all smiling as they greeted Sadie and Jarod.

  His uncle stood on the porch steps in his plaid shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. “Kahe,” he called to them. Jarod responded and they spoke in Siouan, the language Sadie was determined to learn.

  “My uncle just welcomed us. Let’s go in.”

  They entered the house. Once inside the living room Charlo asked them to sit. Only in his fifties, the tribal elder had obtained a Juris doctorate from the University of Montana School of Law. He stood in front of them, an attractive male figure with black hair to his shoulders. His dark eyes fastened on Sadie.

  “My nephew says he wishes to get married. Is that your wish?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see you wear the bracelet of our clan.”

  She nodded. “Jarod gave it to me eight years ago.”

  His eyes glimmered with satisfaction. “I once told Sits in the Center that the wolf must decide it is better to risk death for some chance of finding a mate and a territory than to live safely alone. I am happy to see he took my advice...for a second time,” he added, causing her to glance at Jarod, who stared at her with smoldering eyes.

  “I’m sorry about the first time and all the preparations you made that had to be canceled,” Sadie said.

  “It was no trouble. We were sad that Jarod had to suffer from an accident. But tonight there is only happiness because the circle of your lives has brought you together again.”

  “I’m so happy I could burst.”

  The women smiled broadly.

  “My nephew has told me of your great interest in our culture, so he wishes to recreate his father and mother’s wedding night. Pauline has some things for you to wear. If you’ll go with her and Mary, George and I will see to Jarod and meet you outside in back. We’ve invited a few aunts and uncles to celebrate with you.”