by Becky McGraw
In the years she’d been around him at the rodeo, he’d always been gruff and edgy with Twyla and snarky and arrogant with her. Maybe the drugs had softened his edges. Whatever the cause, seeing his softer side had her reevaluating her opinion of him. Zack Taylor was a steel-coated marshmallow, and that description made her want to laugh, because it kind of described her too. Letting people see her softer side made her vulnerable to them. Maybe he felt the same way.
Miraculously, Heather relaxed and dozed off. Her final thoughts made for some really odd dreams of Zack Taylor, including a hayloft and a bottle of wine, so she was a little upset to be shocked awake by a loud squeal that could be from none other than her best friend, Twyla. With a sigh, Heather opened her eyes, rubbed them then waited for them to focus. She sat up on the concrete block of a sofa and looked to find Twyla draped across Zack’s chest, her shoulders gently shaking. Ryan’s sister Mary stood by the wall, twisting her hands, looking unsure what she should do.
“Goddamn, Twy—back off, I’m hot!” he growled, shoving her off of him just as the door opened again and Ryan Easter walked into the room. He pulled off his hat and shoved a hand through his hair. It was obvious he hadn’t taken time to shower before they hit the road. Hay littered his shirt, along with what Heather hoped was dirt.
“Don’t cuss at my wife, asshole,” Ryan growled, walking over to stand beside Twyla at the bedside. “And my sister doesn’t need to hear that either.”
Zack rolled his eyes, huffed a breath then slammed his eyes shut, appearing to be gathering his patience. “I don’t need y’all here. My damned—um,” he stuttered then opened his eyes to cast a glance at Mary. “My arm is fine, it’s just a few stitches,” he lied, and Heather sucked in a breath for patience too.
Twyla put her hands on her hips, and narrowed her eyes. “And you are a liar, brother. I know what happened, so don’t try to feed me your bullsh—” She stopped to look over her shoulder at Mary. “Your bull!”
“You wasted your time coming here. I’m fine and will be back with the circuit in a week,” Zack said arrogantly, then looked to Ryan to rally support. “Easter, you know this little scratch ain’t a thing. You should have kept your wife at home where she belongs.”
Ryan was quiet a second, then a grin cracked his face. “You know I’m married to your sister right? You think I could keep Twyla anywhere? I’d end up in that bed with you.”
“Damn straight,” Twyla grumbled, folding her arms.
Zack blew out a breath. “Yeah, I know.” He looked at Twyla. “At least call mom and dad and tell them to stay put. I’ll be back on the circuit before they can even get a flight down here!” The hospital room door swung open, and all eyes turned that way.
“I hate to dissuade you of that opinion, son, but I’m afraid I have to,” a somber man in green scrubs said as he walked to the bed. “You’re going to be out until you’ve had extensive physical therapy. You’re right handed, correct?” Zack flinched, his lips turned white and he nodded. “Ride right handed?” Zack looked sick as he nodded again. “You’ll be out for the season at least. Maybe for good, if the therapy isn’t successful.”
Straight, to the point, without any kind of compassion for the man lying in the bed, his face now as white as the sheet at his waist. Where the hell did this guy get his license? A Cracker Jack box? At least give it to him softly, give him some kind of hope. That man was talking about Zack Taylor’s career like he was discussing the weather.
He wasn’t God. He didn’t know everything. And he didn’t know Zack Taylor.
Heather grabbed her crutches, stood and shoved them under her arms then swung over to the foot of the bed. “Excuse me, doctor,” Heather said, leaning on her crutches, so she could add pointed jabs with her index finger to her words. “You don’t know this man. He’s as tough as a nickel steak, and twice as determined. He’s a tough bullrider—an athlete who loves his career. He will get better quicker, because he’s willing to put in the work to make that happen to get back to riding. Don’t you dare come in here and tell him he’s done. You’re not the almighty, and your bedside manner sucks!” The doctor looked stunned, his mouth wide open.
Heather sucked in a breath, and glanced at Twyla whose eyebrows were near her hairline and matched her husband’s. Her face heated as she glanced at Zack and saw him grinning from ear to ear, his blue eyes sparkling. Laughter rumbled, then exploded from Zack. He closed his eyes and laid back on his pillow. Sucking in gulping breaths, he said, “I’d applaud, sweet thing, but I only have one hand right now.”
“Well, since he’s so tough, I guess I should up the therapy to three times a week,” the doctor said shortly. “He’ll have to be near the hospital though. The therapy center is in the west wing of the hospital. I could put him in the skilled nursing facility for his rehab…”
“No!” Zack shouted, sitting up and paying for it from the pained look on his face. After several gulping breaths, he swallowed. “I’ll just drive in.”
“You won’t be driving for a while either,” the doctor corrected. “It will take six weeks or so for those internal stitches to heal.”
“We’re two hours away,” Twyla said, and Ryan shot her a look. “Can’t you refer him to a physical therapy facility near us?”
The doctor shook his head. “The center here is the best in the area. If you want him to get better quicker, this is where he needs to be.”
“That makes mom and dad’s place out too,” Twyla said looking at Zack.
“He can stay at my apartment,” Heather offered, the words falling out of her mouth before she thought about them. “I’ll drive him in for the sessions.” This man had saved her life, and she owed him. It was the right thing to do. “I have a spare bedroom he can stay in.”
Twyla laughed, looking at Heather like she’d lost her mind. “Um, you sure you want to do that, Heather? I can attest that my brother is not an easy man to live with.”
Heather wasn’t sure about anything other than she had a debt to repay to Zack Taylor, and she was going to pay it. Once he was back on the bull, she would be glad to go her own way. Until then, she would play nursemaid and chauffeur to him. She would do whatever it took to make sure he didn’t lose his career for trying to help her.
It was the least she could do.
Chapter Four
“Heather! I need your help!” Zack yelled, as Heather was in the middle of cooking dinner before she went to work for the first time after injuring her knee. He needed help to the bathroom again. If he wouldn’t drink so damned much, he wouldn’t pee so much. The pain medication made him dizzy and he was scared he’d fall into a wall and reinjure his arm. She was sure the whiskey was making that effect much worse. He’d almost emptied a fifth of Jack since they’d gotten to the apartment two days ago.
What the hell had she been thinking? She’d been a fool to get it for him when she stopped at the drugstore to fill his prescriptions when he asked. Well, she wouldn’t be refilling that for him again for sure. Once the bottle was gone, he was going to deal with just the pain medication. What would he do when she wasn’t here? When she had to go to work and leave him to do it himself? Fall into a wall and knock himself silly, or open that wound on his arm again. And now she was worried about leaving him, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter.
No, she definitely wasn’t buying him more liquor. Worrying about someone else was something she’d never done, and Heather couldn’t say she liked it one bit. But she owed the man she was worrying about her life, so she would do it until he got well, or until she started emptying whiskey bottles herself to deal with him.
Next week Zack’s therapy started, and she was going to have to arrange her schedule around it. Hopefully Leon would understand and work with her. Tonight would tell the tale of whether her knee would hold up to dancing yet. Her own pain meds were almost out now, and the doctor who treated her had only given her one week’s supply. By the time she got up on that bar tonight, she’d be on the tail en
d of her last pill.
Heather laid the spatula on the counter to look down at the ugly purple bruise which covered half her calf and crept up over her knee to her thigh. She’d bought some thick pancake makeup at the drugstore to doctor it up tonight, but she was starting to think it may not do the job. Flexing her knee she cringed at the residual pain and stiffness in the joint. Heather didn’t drink, and Leon didn’t allow it of the dancer’s when they were working. They usually used iced tea for their belly shot tricks, but once she got to the bar tonight, she was having a shot of whiskey to make sure she could do her job.
A loud thud, glasses rattling and blue curses had her hop-sprinting down the hallway to the spare bedroom. “What in the hell are you doing?!?” she shrieked, as she stopped in the doorway to find Zack Taylor face down on the floor with her corner rack of shot glasses from her collection on top of his head. She walked over there and lifted the rack off of him, put it back in the corner, then gathered up her glasses to neatly arrange them again. Zack hadn’t said a word, so she knelt down beside him, pushed his overly long blonde hair aside and felt the pulse beating regularly there, then she heard him snoring. The bastard was asleep!
Heather shook his left shoulder. “Get up, Zack! I can’t lift you!”
He mumbled something and sucked in a shuddering breath, before rolling over on his left side then his back. His eyes were bright-blue-tinted roadmaps when he opened them to look up at her. A smile curved his mouth, as his left hand shot up to finger a strand of her hair. “I didn’t know angels had black hair…”
That little curve on his full mouth, his soft words caused her anger to settle. “Although I’d like to kill you right now, you’re not dead, cowboy. And trust me when I tell you, I’m about as far from an angel as a woman can get.”
With a sigh, Heather put her hand on his tightly-muscled chest to get up and his hot, dry skin scorched her palm. “Zack, I need to call the doctor. He said to call if you got a fever.”
“I don’t need a doctor, I just need a kiss from an angel,” he slurred, as he shoved his hand into her hair to grip her skull and pull her down to him. His mouth came closer, Heather smelled the warm liquor on his breath and her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest.
Flashes of the night her drunken stepfather tried his moves on her came back. She pushed against Zack, broke his hold then stood to glare down at him. “You need to lay off the hooch is what you need to do! You can’t drink when you’re on pain meds!”
Zack sighed and flung his left arm over his eyes. “I know that, and I’m not. I’ve been hurt enough to know I have to take it easy on the pain meds or I’ll get addicted to them.” He shrugged. “I take shots, instead of the pills when it isn’t too bad to make sure that doesn’t happen.” So he wasn’t a raging alcoholic fool like her stepfather had been. He was being careful with the drugs. That made Heather feel better.
“Well, you have a high fever, and we need to call the doctor.” And she needed to call Leon to tell him she couldn’t come in tonight. There was no way she could leave Zack here alone with that fever. But she’d already called off two days, because she knew her knee wasn’t ready. The last two nights she’d lied and told him she had singing gigs, and he didn’t like it, told her maybe she didn’t need her job at the Cowgirl since she was such a big singing star now, but he let her off. Tonight would be a different story.
Zack sat up, and grabbed her hand. “Stop being a mother hen. Just give me some ibuprofen and help me to the couch so I can watch TV. I’ll be fine.”
“I have to go to work tonight, but I don’t want to leave you here alone.” There was no way she could work worrying about him. Zack could be burning up here, having convulsions or something, his fever could get worse, and she’d be dancing on a bar twenty minutes away.
“You singing tonight?” he asked, using her arm to pull up to his knees.
“No, dancing,” she replied, grabbing his elbow to help him to his feet.
His tawny brows crashed down over his angry blue eyes. “Dancing? At that titty bar where you dragged Twyla?”
Heather stepped away from him to put her hands on her hips. The old judgmental sonofabitch in Zack Taylor evidently couldn’t be softened by pain pills or alcohol.
“It’s not a titty bar, and I didn’t drag Twyla anywhere. You ran her off being an asshole, just like you are being now. I helped her out, because she’s my friend and doesn’t judge me!” Fists clenched at her sides, Heather turned toward the door. “Get yourself to the couch. I’ve got to finish dinner and get ready to go to work!”
Heather didn’t even feel the soreness in her knee as she stormed down the hallway, walked into the kitchen and found the fried pork chop she’d been cooking was way past done on one side. She didn’t care, he could eat it or starve. Picking up the spatula, she flipped it to the other side, then bent to open the cabinet and get a pot for the mashed potatoes.
A damned sandwich would have done for her, but no, she thought Zack needed a good meal to help him heal faster. So much for giving a shit about the judgmental bastard. She slammed the pot of water on the back eye of the stove, then moved the pot of green beans to the counter. The biscuits should be done any minute. She hoped he choked on one. That would save her a helluva lot of trouble taking care of him. Grabbing the oven mitt, she flung open the oven door, and bent to drag out the pan. The wave of heat brought tears to her eyes, as much as the hurt that she refused to admit.
An arm closed around her waist to drag her backward. Her teeth rattled, and a box of cereal fell from the top of the refrigerator as Zack’s back crashed into it. Heather tried to pull away, but he held her firm. His hot whiskey-tinged breath brushed her cheek as he leaned close to her ear. “I’m sorry,” he said, and his deep voice rumbled through her. “You’re right, I am too quick to judge sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” she scoffed, leaning away from him.
“All the time,” he corrected, kissing the top of her hair. “I appreciate you helping me, and I’m sorry for judging you.” His left arm loosened from her waist, and Heather spun away. He stepped forward, crowding her into the counter to grab her chin and lift her face toward him. “I have one question though…”
Her heart did a funny thing in her chest again when their eyes met. The heat flowing between their bodies was hotter than the oven produced, and she attributed it to his fever.
“What’s that?” she asked, wondering what that rough beard shadow on his cheeks would feel like against her skin.
“Why the hell are you dancing at that bar when you sing like you do?” His eyes glided down to her mouth, and her lips tingled. “Twy said you were good, but I’d never heard you sing until the rodeo. You’re better than that.”
Because she just couldn’t catch a break. In life, in her career, anywhere.
But Heather refused to poor mouth to this man, and she refused to let those negative thoughts take hold of her again. Feeling sorry for yourself got you nowhere in life. You had to create your own opportunities, because nobody was going to hand them to you.
“I’m paying my dues like every other singer out there has done. My day will come, but it isn’t today. Today, I have to pay the bills, which means I have to go to that bar and dance.”
“Isn’t there anything else you could do?” Zack asked, his eyes sliding back to hers.
“Prostitution?” Heather offered with a laugh.
Zack’s lips pinched, and he didn’t laugh. It wasn’t a laughing matter to her either, because she had been there, tried that. Once. Although that led her to find Tim and a way out from under that bridge, it hadn’t been a shining moment for her. Desperation led people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise. Thank God Tim had been the one to pick her up, and realize how scared and young she was.
“Don’t you ever say that again,” he growled, his eyes sparking with anger again. “I meant you could work at a recording studio as an assistant or something else related to the industry, make contacts, get your foo
t in the door.”
“I have no office skills, and they would want my social sec—” she stopped when she realized what she almost said. “It’s not a cash job,” she finished, hoping he’d let it drop.
No such luck. His eyes narrowed, and his fingers tightened on her chin. “Why do you need a cash job? Why can’t you give them your social security number, Heather? What are you running from?”
Her heart shot to her throat, she twisted her chin from his grasp and pushed on his chest to put some space between them. The front of her body immediately felt the loss of heat, as did her insides. “None of your damned business,” she said shortly, turning to reach up and open the cabinet to drag down two plates. “Just get better, Zack. I’m going to help you do that, but we’re not getting all cozy while you’re here, or making friends. I know exactly what you think of me and where we stand.” She spun and put the plates down by the stove, then opened the cabinet on the far side of the stove, where she pulled down the bottle of ibuprofen. Uncapping it, she shook out four tablets, recapped the bottle and put it back, before handing them to him. “Take these, and go sit down on the sofa. I’ll bring your supper, but then I have to get ready to go.”
“You really are like an armadillo aren’t you?” he asked, taking the pills and popping them into his mouth.
“An armadillo?” she repeated shortly, as she turned off the heat and shook potato flakes into the boiling water. It was the state animal for Texas, but next to a porcupine, that animal was about the ugliest she’d ever seen, and she couldn’t help but be insulted. Again.
Zack picked up a glass by the sink, filled it with water and drank it down, before setting it down again to face her with a grin. “Yeah, that’s the nickname the guys on the circuit gave you. They said you had a shell harder than an armadillo, and were twice as mean when you were cornered.”
