True Love Cowboy

by Jennifer Ryan

The doctor stared at her hand trembling at her side. “Please follow through. And if any of your symptoms worsen, contact me immediately.”

  “I will. And thank you.”

  The doctor handed her discharge papers to Jon and left them alone in the dimly lit room again.

  Jon turned to her. “Have you called your psychiatrist and made an appointment?”

  “Trust me, I have no doubt my brother Drake already did.” She didn’t want to talk about her mental state. “Let’s get Emmy and go home.”

  Jon didn’t let it go. “I’m worried about you.”

  She pressed her hand to her forehead. “I need some time. And sleep. Then we’ll see where my head is. Right now, it’s too fresh and up front and overwhelming. I want to go home!” She couldn’t hide the desperation for wanting to get back to normal.

  “Okay. I’ll take you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, Trinity. For anything. If not for me, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

  She closed her eyes because she really needed to block out the light and sort of turn things down in her mind. “Jon . . .”

  “You’re tired. Okay. No more talk about it. Sit. I’ll help you put on your shoes and I’ll take you home.”

  “That’s all I want and need right now.” She opened her eyes and met his. “And you.”

  “You’ll always have me.” He helped her finish getting dressed and packing up the few items she had with her, which included her purse thanks to one of the officers retrieving it from Steph’s apartment last night and putting it in the ambulance with her.

  Emmy managed a smile when the nurses, who were pushing them both out in wheelchairs, pretended to race by letting Trinity get ahead, then racing Emmy ahead to take the lead to brighten her day.

  Tate, Declan, and Skye hugged her goodbye at the curb, promised they’d call and check on her first thing tomorrow, and waved as Jon drove her out of the hospital lot. Her eyes and brain couldn’t take watching the scenery pass by, so she closed her eyes and settled in for the drive out to the ranch with Jon’s hand on her thigh and Emmy softly humming in the back seat.

  Startled awake by something, she flung her hands up to ward off an attack she couldn’t really see and screamed.

  Someone grabbed her by the wrists. “Stop, Trinity. It’s me. It’s Jon.”

  The fight went out of her. She wrapped her arms around her middle and sucked in a slow breath as the pain in her ribs subsided to a dull throb again, even though her heart still pounded with fear. “What’s going on?”

  Jon stood close, so she focused on him. “We’re home.”

  She looked around, not recognizing anything.

  “I pulled into the garage and closed the door so you wouldn’t have to deal with the bright sunlight.” He gently took the sunglasses from her face, making it much easier to see in the dim garage interior.

  “Oh.”

  “Emmy’s already inside. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I . . . I don’t know what happened.”

  “As much as you need the darkness, it triggers too many bad memories. We’ll have to figure something out.” He stepped back to allow her to exit the car.

  She pressed her trembling hand to her temple. “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

  “After all you’ve been through, you’re working on pure instinct. I’ll try to be more aware of it and not scare you.”

  “It’s not you.”

  “I know. I just want to make things as easy as possible for you right now.” He followed her into the house through the door that led into a mudroom off the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”

  She went to shake her head, remembered how that set off all kinds of side effects and discombobulated her, and used her words instead. “I should eat, but I’m too tired.”

  “I’ll help you get into bed so you can sleep for a few hours.”

  Emmy lay on the sofa watching a cartoon on the big TV with her stuffed bunny and one of her super-soft blankets.

  Trinity leaned down and kissed her on the head. “I’m going to sleep. See you in a little while.”

  Emmy nodded but didn’t say anything.

  Trinity waited until she and Jon were in their room before she voiced her concerns. “I don’t like how quiet she is.”

  “Me either. The pediatrician said to give her some time and to coax her to talk and interact with us. I’m hoping you’ll both feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

  She dumped her purse on the floor beside the bed and kicked off her shoes. Jon pulled the covers back and she lay down and closed her eyes the second her head hit the pillow.

  He brushed his fingers through her messy hair, pulling it back and away from her face. “Rest.”

  Her phone vibrated in her purse again. She’d been ignoring it since she woke up in the car. “It’s probably one of my brothers. Will you check?”

  Jon made some ruffling sounds as he dug through her purse to get her phone. “Your battery is about dead. I’ll plug your charger in, but you’ve also got twenty-eight messages.”

  “Probably work stuff. Will you listen to them and call Adria with anything that needs to be handled right away?”

  “Sure, sweetheart.”

  With his assurance that he’d handle it, she gave in to the incessant need to shut off her brain and fell into oblivion, only to wake up sometime later caught in a barrage of nightmarish images, Steph’s warning ringing in her head, and a raging need to know why Jon deceived her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jon had enough to worry about with Emmy’s quiet intensity and Trinity sleeping for the last sixteen hours. He truly couldn’t handle anything else. If she didn’t wake soon, he’d go in and try to wake her again. His last attempt an hour ago got nothing but her mumbling incoherently and pushing his hands away from her. After watching her through the night restlessly shift and move in bed and listening to her muffled screams and babbling nonsense he wished he could decipher, he just wanted to see her awake and alert, not stuck in some nightmare.

  Emmy had her own nightmare during the night. It took him nearly an hour to calm her down and put her back to bed next to Trinity, which seemed to make her feel much better. He had a feeling she’d be sleeping with them for the foreseeable future.

  But those weren’t the only things keeping him up most of the night.

  Trinity asked him to listen to her messages and relay anything urgent to Adria. The messages were dire, and when he spoke to Adria, she had no idea how to handle the situation. Added to that, she was supposed to be on bed rest and couldn’t deal with the situation herself. Not without jeopardizing her health and that of her babies.

  After all Trinity had been through, he couldn’t let her wake up to this drama, so he offered to step in and take care of it. Adria agreed, so long as he kept her in the loop and all final decisions were made by either her or Trinity once she woke up.

  So he got on the phone with the Billings store manager to assess the situation and discovered it was far worse than the original desperate messages Nathan had left Trinity.

  Jon had handled a recall with one of his companies, but it had been small, voluntary, and didn’t risk anybody’s life.

  With twelve confirmed cases of food poisoning and four people in the hospital already, this had the potential to kill someone and potentially lots of people if he didn’t get the word out immediately. So he’d contacted the local news and given them all the information to warn the public.

  He and Emmy sat on the sofa watching the noon news while Tate made something to eat in the kitchen.

  “As we reported earlier, the FDA and Almost Homemade have issued an immediate recall on all prepackaged Caesar salads purchased in the last two days due to E. coli contamination of the romaine lettuce used in the salad kits.” A photo of the Caesar salad with the proper Almost Homemade labeling appeared on the screen in a box beside the anchor with a circle around the Prepared On date. “If you purchased one of these
salads, you are asked to either discard it or return the Caesar salad to Almost Homemade for a full refund. So far twelve people have fallen ill in the Billings and Bozeman area with four hospitalized. Anyone who has eaten one of these salads and is feeling ill should contact their doctor or seek immediate medical attention. Next up after the break, weather.” The news cut to a chicken nugget commercial with a cute kid, reminding him that he needed to pick more up for Emmy. Maybe she’d like them with some french fries for dinner. Anything to entice her to eat and talk.

  “You cheated on me!” Trinity stood just inside the living room, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed against the bright light coming through the windows, and spewed that accusation at him.

  Concerned she was having some sort of episode, he stood, and walked toward her. “Trinity, honey, are you okay?”

  Tate came out of the kitchen, a threat in his eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “He . . . he cheated?” Now she didn’t sound so sure about the allegation.

  Jon was completely confused, but remembered the doctor’s warning about her having trouble finding her words. “I’m not cheating on you, Trinity. You are the only woman I’ve been with since I moved to Montana. I love you. You know that. You know me. So what are you really trying to say?”

  “I think she made that pretty damn clear.” Tate didn’t seem inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt after an accusation like that.

  Trinity huffed and rubbed the back of her hand against her forehead. “You . . . you want Almost Homemade. You made me think . . .” She scrunched her face like she was thinking really hard. “You wanted me.”

  He was starting to catch on. “Yes. I want you. End of story.”

  Trinity scrunched her face again and shook her head, found that didn’t agree with her, and put a hand on the wall to balance herself.

  “Sweetheart, you need to calm down and relax. This isn’t good for your head injury.”

  Anger flared in her eyes. “She told me.” Trinity tapped her temple several times with her finger. “I hear her. I’m stupid. You used me.”

  He got it now. “Steph told you that all I want is your business. I come in and I take over.”

  She pointed her finger at him. “Yes. You used me.”

  “Do you really believe that after everything we’ve been through?”

  Tears gathered in her eyes, and it killed him to see them and the confusion making her so distressed and distrustful. “Something is wrong. We were supposed to talk and we didn’t and she said . . .”

  “I know, sweetheart. We were supposed to talk about the business ideas I had for you and Adria, but then Nathan thought I wanted to buy the company, and we had to go to Emmy’s school. Remember?”

  She nodded.

  Jon continued filling in the blanks for her. “And we never talked about it. You were upset that you thought I wanted to buy the company and expand it without you.”

  “Yes.” Understanding filled her eyes.

  “But that’s not true. And it doesn’t matter now. I threw the proposal away, because all I want is you, your love, and our life here together. Remember? We talked about that in the hospital.”

  She still looked upset and unsure.

  “Sweetheart, I swear to you, all I’m trying to do is what you asked and help Adria with Almost Homemade until you’re feeling better.”

  She went still. Her eyes locked on him. “Wait. What?”

  Now he was confused. “I thought you heard the recall announcement I put out on the news and that’s what upset you.”

  “What recall? What are you talking about?”

  Tate stepped closer. “Sis, you’ve been asleep for like sixteen hours. I think your brain needs time to boot up. You seem confused and unable to think straight.”

  She pressed her lips tight and furrowed her brow. “What recall?”

  Jon touched Tate’s arm to get him to back off and let him handle this. “When I brought you home, I told you your phone had all those messages. You asked me to listen to them and call Adria with anything important. I did. Several of the messages were from Nathan at the Billings store and Theresa at the Bozeman store calling to ask what to do about customers calling saying they got sick eating their Caesar salad that they picked up at lunchtime.”

  Trinity covered her mouth with her hand, the metal brace on her broken fingers touching the tip of her nose. “Oh no.”

  “Exactly. So I called Adria and we’ve been working together with the hospital staff.”

  “Were people that sick?”

  “A few. The lettuce was contaminated with E. coli. In one of my other businesses, we had to do a small recall of products that had a defective part. I kind of know the process, so Adria decided that I should take the lead and contact the Montana Food and Safety Bureau and the FDA and let them know we believed the lettuce was contaminated based on the sample that tested positive at the hospital. The FDA has since confirmed the E. coli contamination and is tracing the lettuce back to your romaine producer.”

  Trinity’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not right.”

  The doorbell rang. Tate turned and answered it, letting Adria and Drake inside.

  Jon tried to finish his conversation with Trinity. “The tests are conclusive. The recall went out on the morning and afternoon news. They’ll replay it tonight on the evening and nightly news. We phoned and emailed as many customers as we had contact information for, but we couldn’t reach everyone.”

  “No. That’s not right,” she repeated, getting that confused look again.

  He tried to be patient. “Take a second to organize your thoughts.”

  She gave him a dirty look. “I’m not stupid.”

  Adria put her hand on Trinity’s shoulder. “He’s not saying that.”

  He hadn’t slept in two days, but still tried to hold back the hurt she’d think he’d be so callous. “You have a major head injury. Your brain is not working properly. You say it’s not right. Why isn’t it right?”

  Her mouth tilted into a lopsided frown. She turned to Adria. “Hydro . . . hydro?”

  Adria gasped, covered her wide-open mouth, then spit out, “Oh shit. Pregnancy brain. I forgot.”

  Jon waved his hand between them. “Care to fill me in?”

  Trinity took a breath and went slow. “After there had been reports of several romaine recalls over the last few years, I knew we had to be careful about our supplier. Lettuce Harvest supplied all our greens until I read an article about a group of University of Montana students who were working with hydro . . . hydroponics,” she said, finally finding the word. “They had a small setup and were supplying high-end restaurants with clean, organic greens. Because they are grown indoors and everything in the process is strictly controlled, the likelihood of contaminations like listeria and E. coli are nearly nonexistent.”

  Brilliant. Jon loved how she thought outside the box. “When did you change suppliers?”

  “Last week at all the stores, but earlier than that at the Billings store, though I didn’t tell them when I accepted . . .” She pressed her lips tight. “No, not the right word. Um . . .”

  “Take your time,” Jon coaxed.

  “I received . . . No.”

  Adria’s eyes went wide. “You went to the new hydroponic warehouse to look at the operation and sign off on verification that they met the quality standards we put into the contract.”

  Trinity sighed with relief. “Yes. And while I was there, I took delivery”—she beamed with a smile that she’d finally gotten her words right—“early and brought several boxes of greens to Billings because they ran out.”

  “Because of the Robertson wedding!” Adria grasped Trinity’s arm. “So they’d switched over without even knowing. So what does that mean for the contamination and our customers getting sick?”

  “You don’t think it was the lettuce,” Jon said for Trinity.

  “Not if it was hydroponic lettuce. Can’t be. The stores would have run out of the Lettuce Harve
st greens early last week.”

  “You’re sure?” He needed to be before he started digging further.

  “As sure as I can be with you and the doctor warning me about not being able to think straight.”

  “But this makes sense to you?” Jon saw it in her eyes.

  “Yes.” She held his gaze, imploring him to believe her. “Something else is wrong. I can’t think of what it is, but it’s something about Bountiful Foods.”

  “Okay.” Jon remembered Nathan telling her she should take that deal. “They wanted to buy Almost Homemade, but you said no.”

  “Not about that. About lettuce.”

  “What about lettuce?” he asked, hoping to spark something more in her mind.

  Tate held up his phone. “Tree Top Grocery recalled all their romaine lettuce about ten days ago because of E. coli contamination. They are owned by . . .”

  “Bountiful Foods,” they all said in unison.

  Trinity sighed with relief again. “Yes. That.”

  Jon put his hand to her cheek. “You’re really locked in with the produce news.”

  She nodded. “It hurts to think right now though.”

  “You’re doing great.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek and she leaned into his palm.

  Drake chimed in. “So Bountiful had a recall of their romaine ten days ago. Did their grower also supply Almost Homemade?”

  Trinity almost shook her head, but stopped herself before the pain really hit her.

  “Try to keep your head still, sweetheart.”

  “I forget.”

  “It’s automatic, I know, but seeing you in pain is killing me.”

  Trinity drew closer to him, and he loved that she was finally putting her earlier thoughts and feelings aside and remembering they loved each other. “Not the same supplier, but I remember Nathan saying they took a hard hit for that recall because customers feared all the fruits and vegetables were contaminated in the stores.”

  He thought about how aggressive Nathan became when he thought Trinity was selling the store to Jon. “Is Nathan associated to Bountiful Foods in some way?” He sure did want Trinity to sell to them.

  “His father owns it.” An “ah-ha” lit Trinity’s eyes before she closed them and connected all the dots in her head she couldn’t earlier. “Nathan came to work for me because he wanted to be a chef and manager of the store to prove to his father he could run a successful business just like his dad. He wanted the inside track on the start-up. He is the point person for each new store we open because Adria and I can’t be everywhere at once. But what if the job with us was just a ruse so he could scout the business for his father’s company?” She opened her eyes and stared at him. “He cheated.”