Cowboy on Call

by Leigh Riker

  “He’s also seven years old and small for his age—” She broke off. Shadow was right. Olivia wasn’t making sense. More than anyone else, she knew how strong-willed Nick could be. “I’m sorry, I’m such a mess.” Shadow was aware of how overly protective she’d been of him since the flood at the ranch. “I was making good progress,” Olivia said. “Now this. I can’t stand waiting.” She gestured at the Staff Only sign. “I want to charge through those doors—”

  “Of course you do.” Shadow drew her close and gently pressed her head against her shoulder. “Try to relax. Deep breaths. I’ll tell you as soon as I see someone coming.”

  Olivia wasn’t sure whether she meant a nurse, a doctor or Sawyer, or which one she should hope for.

  * * *

  “NICKY’S BACK IN the hospital?” Logan asked, sounding tense. Sawyer could hear the hum of the highway in the background, the blast of a horn from what sounded like a semi blowing past Logan’s car. “Why?”

  He’d told Olivia he would call his brother, the last thing he’d said to her before he escaped the waiting room.

  “He’s being admitted.” Sawyer tried to downplay the seriousness of the situation. He’d made a quick report to Olivia after first speaking with the doctors, but he didn’t know exactly how bad Nick’s condition was yet.

  Sawyer had been pacing the hospital cafeteria for the past hour. He’d memorized every food item available, but the sight of bins of meatloaf with onions swimming in gravy, pale yellow corn and anemic-looking peas, limp french fries, and slices of lemon meringue pie turned his stomach. With every step, he’d been debating with himself. Rush back to the waiting room? Be there for Olivia, assuming she would want him by her side? Or—and he was leaning most strongly toward this option—hurry out to the parking lot and borrow her car? Get away from here? He could pick her up later or Shadow could drive her home. On the other hand...

  He was licensed to practice in the state of Kansas. He’d gotten his degree, done his internship and residency here after he left the Circle H for good. And then, overseas, he’d failed in the most basic way when someone needed him most.

  Nick is a different person, he told himself. Nick was his nephew, as Olivia had pointed out. But to Sawyer, that was splitting hairs. He didn’t have an affiliation with this hospital. You could study his chart, though. You could discuss his treatment plan. You could screw up again.

  “What did the doctors say?” Logan was asking. “What do you think?”

  Sawyer couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to admit he’d all but recused himself from the case, as he had every right to do. Nick was a close family member, and because of emotional involvement, Sawyer could opt out—as if he’d been asked to take part. But Logan was his only brother. Didn’t he owe him more than that? Wasn’t a nine-year absence from all their lives enough? If he couldn’t atone for Kedar, he should at least try to make up for that. And the other doctors were willing to talk to him as a professional. He could share his views. Although they had disagreed, he suspected Nick’s headache might be due to a hematoma. Had they since scanned his head?

  “I’m turning around,” Logan said.

  In the background, Sawyer heard Blossom agree. “We have to make sure Nick’s okay. Poor little guy...”

  Of course they did. Sawyer didn’t try to dissuade them. Maybe by the time they got here, Nick would be out of danger and released again, and they’d all share in various expressions of relief sprinkled with laughter, as if they’d been foolish to even think he could be in real trouble. In any event, Sawyer knew Logan needed to see his boy for himself. “Drive safe,” he said.

  After the call ended, he resumed his circuit of the cafeteria. The lemon pie’s meringue was starting to curl with beads of moisture glistening from the overhead lamp. The meatloaf’s gravy had congealed in its steel bin and... You’re a coward.

  Sawyer made an about-face. What kind of brother, uncle, friend—ex-friend, to Olivia—was he? He’d been trying to protect himself to the point of being unable to protect a vulnerable child. Nothing new there, but not very admirable, either.

  He marched toward the exit, out into the hall and down another back into the emergency department to collar Nick’s doctor. Even the well-known smells of antiseptic, of medications and of illness and fear, including his own, didn’t stop him.

  Olivia was nearby, waiting. Reason enough.

  She didn’t need him to treat her child, but she did need his knowledge.

  Sawyer went to see about that scan.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “TELL ME,” Olivia said, rising from her seat as soon as Sawyer reentered the waiting area. While he’d been gone to call Logan and she’d been trying to hang on to her sanity, the small TV on the wall had kept playing the same video loop over and over again, informing any viewers about the most recent treatments for diabetes and elder incontinence. Olivia had been about to lose the rest of her mind. The only ailment she wanted to hear about was Nick’s. Leaving Shadow, she marched out into the hall with Sawyer following.

  He ran a hand over the nape of his neck. “Try to be patient. The doctors are doing all that’s necessary, Olivia.” Sawyer focused on a point beyond her shoulder. “This is all I know right now—we’ve finally agreed that Nick has a hematoma.”

  She felt her body drain of strength. “Sam also had a blood clot, or whatever,” she pointed out. “Didn’t he?”

  “No. Well, as far as I know, he had a concussion. This is subdural.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck again. “I didn’t like the look of his pupils last night and this morning—”

  “Then why didn’t you say something? Do something?”

  “I’m not practicing right now. I’m not his primary physician. All I could do was make sure his head stayed elevated during the night in a midline position and that he remained responsive. Otherwise, I don’t make the decisions—for which you’re probably glad.” Sawyer’s explanation made her head spin, but he went on. “Nick’s initial score on the Coma Scale we use was around fourteen when Nick was sent home last night, meaning he didn’t need to be admitted. But today, as you know, his condition became worse.” He softened his tone. “He’s had a CT scan now, which they didn’t do last night. With kids, we worry about the radiation exposure, so we avoid CTs if their initial scores indicate only mild head trauma. As in a certain percentage of cases, he has a faint linear skull fracture and now, some brain swelling.”

  Olivia shook her head to clear it. “Does that mean surgery?”

  Sawyer cupped her elbow, as if he guessed she might faint. “I hope not. His other signs are pretty good. Unless the swelling gets worse, and fast, it’s likely a wait-and-see scenario. In lots of cases, the swelling goes down on its own. But I’ll talk to his doctors again later.”

  She was shaking now, and she poked his chest with her index finger. “Your silence—your selfish silence—could have resulted in tragedy for Nick. It still might, from what I hear. You might not be his doctor, but you still could have said something last night, if you thought— And you haven’t even bothered to visit his room. All you can say now is that waiting’s just part of medicine?”

  “Olivia, he’s getting good care. What else would you have me do?”

  She glared. “Nothing, I suppose. Or no, maybe I should be grateful you didn’t intervene like years ago when—”

  His mouth tightened. “Seriously? You want to bring that up now? Compare then, and a horse, to your own child? It’s not the same, Olivia.”

  “I know it’s not. But you were guilty then. As far as I’m concerned, you’re guilty now—and this time it’s my son who has suffered.”

  Sawyer’s blue eyes darkened. He seemed to collect his thoughts before he said, “Fine. You want to rehash the past? Okay, let’s. If you remember, years ago,
yes, I challenged you to that race across a dry field littered with stones. There’d been no rain for weeks, but I had a sudden urge to fly like the wind. To hear you laugh,” he said. “I knew we shouldn’t, but it wasn’t like we hadn’t done it before. All of us.”

  Her mouth turned down. Olivia didn’t welcome the memory, but she’d started this. And that day they had been alone, not with their brothers. By then, she and Sawyer had been seeing each other for about six months, their childhood friendship left behind for a new relationship that was turning into love...until her feelings for him had led to tragedy.

  Her eyes filled with fresh tears, and he tried to reach for her hand but Olivia stepped back. She knew they were both picturing the same moment: galloping neck and neck until, suddenly, Jasmine had lurched, stumbled, then fallen, taking Olivia down with her. Reining his horse to an abrupt stop, Sawyer had jumped off, dropped to his knees to make sure she was all right. Bruised but unbroken, Olivia had already started to cry. It took Sawyer another second to realize how badly hurt her horse really was.

  Her beautiful black mare lay on her side, breathing hard, her normally calm brown eyes wide with pain and fear before they rolled back in her head. Her left foreleg had been shattered by the fall.

  “I’m sorry, Olivia. I should have known better. If I hadn’t argued with Sam again that morning, maybe I wouldn’t have suggested the race at all. But I did. And that’s no excuse. I’m not sure if I’ve told you before, but we were fighting about med school. About my being away from the Circle H so much. Sam wanted me there more often instead. I had so much anger then. Probably still d—”

  “She died.” Olivia’s tone held the unshed tears that had filled her eyes, partly for the horse, partly now for Nick. Maybe—no, definitely—it was best that Sawyer hadn’t tried to treat Nick. “You didn’t even give her a chance. You shot her, right in front of me.”

  “I put her down,” he said, and she bristled at the euphemism. “We were a mile from the ranch yard, the barn, probably an hour or more from the vet getting there. What else could I do?” He’d repeated the question he’d asked about Nick. “Like Logan, Grey and me, you’d been riding since you were two years old. You knew why I had that rifle with me, why any other rancher would have one, too. Warding off coyotes isn’t the only reason. There wasn’t time, Olivia.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Would you rather have watched her suffer?” Sawyer shook his head. “Jasmine broke her leg in about a hundred places. There was no putting her back together. Trying to reconstruct that foreleg would only have caused her more pain and wouldn’t have worked in the end. She’d have gone crazy shut up in a stall for weeks, maybe hurt herself again with the same result.”

  She pressed her lips together, then said the words anyway. “Is that how you manage your human patients?”

  Sawyer turned pale. “I’m not managing anyone. I told you that.”

  He started to walk away, but Olivia went after him, grasping his arm and feeling the hard muscle under her fingers. His whole body was taut. Her voice trembled. “You just can’t say it, can you? That you were wrong—she might have survived—that you made a bad decision. That was my horse—the best horse I ever rode—a horse that could have been a national champion barrel racer.” She hadn’t ridden since, perhaps another reason she’d been against Nick getting Hero. “A horse I loved with all my heart. How am I supposed to forgive you for that?”

  “You’re not.” He removed his arm from her grasp, then touched the corner of his right eye. Hysterical at seeing her horse destroyed, Olivia had struck out, cutting Sawyer with a ring she wore. “But if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t forgiven myself, either. I wish I’d had another option. I wish there was some way I could...make amends. Atone.”

  He was halfway down the hall, and Olivia was still shaking, before the thought crossed her mind. He hadn’t just meant Jasmine. He hadn’t even meant Nick.

  * * *

  LIZA WILSON STEPPED out into the hallway of the pediatric neurosurgical wing. She’d gone in to visit Nick again until she could no longer blink back tears, so she’d finally left his room to get control of her emotions. Since his admission several days ago, she’d been running back and forth from Wilson Cattle to see him, but worry was never far from her mind. Liza didn’t have children of her own, and she’d taken a shine to Nick the instant they’d met.

  The feeling seemed to be mutual, bless his heart. Which only made her worry more for his well-being. So far, surgery hadn’t been on the schedule and for that she felt grateful, but Nick wasn’t out of danger yet.

  Understandably, Olivia was still a wreck, but she wasn’t inclined to lean on Liza, who had left her in the waiting area with Blossom, Logan and Everett. Liza knew Olivia liked her, yet they weren’t friends, much less stepmother and stepdaughter—family—except in legal terms. Neither Olivia nor Grey had fully accepted her, and Liza couldn’t blame them. As adults, perhaps they felt they didn’t need another mother, especially one who was only four years older than Olivia.

  At thirty-six, Liza was twenty years younger than Everett Wilson. And his grown children already had a mother. A mostly absent one, Liza thought, but still... She might never be accepted, and the reality saddened her. The Interloper. Liza didn’t fit in here. But oh, she wanted to.

  Halfway down the hall, she spied Sawyer and her opportunity to learn more about Nick’s condition. He was standing at a window that looked out onto the parking lot, his broad shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets.

  Liza laid a hand on his forearm. “There you are.” Her pulse beat heavily. Why had he left the waiting room? Overcome, like her, by his feelings for Nick? Sawyer knew him less well than Liza did, not that that precluded concern. But, she realized, she hadn’t seen him in Nick’s room once. Had he just heard bad news? Or, no. Maybe he felt unwanted as she did. The Prodigal Brother.

  “Hey, Liza.” Sawyer turned, forcing a smile. “I couldn’t take all the gloom and doom in there,” he said with a wave toward the waiting room. “Thought I’d catch some air, but no one opens windows here. The AC doesn’t cut it for me. Summer in the mountains of Kedar can be brutal, but here in Kansas...” Outside, heat and humidity shimmered off the pavement. Liza was used to that in Texas.

  She couldn’t keep from asking. “What have you heard?”

  “Nothing more. ‘Watchful waiting,’ his doctors say.”

  “Do you agree?”

  Sawyer glanced out at the blacktop. “They don’t need me to. I’m lucky to get a look at Nick’s chart now and then and try to read the scribbles. Olivia seems convinced I can read ‘doctorese,’ but that’s only my own. You’d think Farrier would have gone to electronic records by now, but handwriting’s closer to what I’m used to at my clinic. Or was,” he added.

  “What do those scribbles tell you?”

  “The brain swelling isn’t any worse—but it’s not that much better, either.”

  “I see.” She’d been wrong. Apparently something hadn’t gone well between him and Olivia. If only her stepdaughter would let Liza hold and comfort her. Yet even in Nick’s room, standing together by his bed yesterday, Olivia had kept her distance and Liza had taken to seeing Nick alone or with Everett.

  “I’m sure Olivia is grateful to you for staying close,” Sawyer said. “Grey told me he’s glad you and Everett decided to extend your visit.”

  “Did he?” Her spirits brightened. Maybe Sawyer had noticed Olivia giving her the cold shoulder and was trying to comfort her. Liza had already seen that he was a sensitive person, one with a deep-seated pain he tried not to reveal to anyone else. “Grey’s a good man. Everett is proud of him.” So am I, she thought, though he probably didn’t want her approval.

  Sawyer smiled without it reaching his eyes. “I hear Grey went through some hard times with the ranch, but he sure looks happy now. His cattle are b
ack, and he’s engaged to Shadow. Guess there’ll be another wedding in your family soon.”

  Liza couldn’t smile. My family. She wasn’t about to tell him that was a first for her, as if she truly belonged. She didn’t care to ponder her own painful past. “Everett and I eloped to Palm Springs. We had just the two of us and a pair of witnesses we tapped from among the other resort guests.”

  “You didn’t want a big wedding here?”

  Liza decided they were both sticking to safe topics. “No,” she said, not willing to mention that at the time Olivia had seemed to oppose the marriage, possibly wondering why her father needed to tie the knot a second time with someone so much younger than he was. Grey had said little and Liza had chalked that up to his usual reticence to talk about his feelings. Oh, they were both polite to her and included her in family events now, so maybe this would be a gradual thing, but Liza could always feel their reluctance to consider her a real part of the group.

  Or was that her insecurity showing? “I was more than happy with a quiet ceremony and—” she added with a smile “—a good glass of wine to celebrate.”

  “Grey tells me you also took a cruise for your honeymoon.”

  Liza laughed at the memory. “Yes, would you believe? To the Galapagos on one of those expedition ships. As you can imagine and after living in a remote area yourself, it was quite a challenge—Everett’s idea. I always tell him he was hard to keep up with. I did enjoy seeing the unusual flora and fauna there. Thank goodness for my new hiking boots. And, of course, I loved just being with my new husband.” With Sawyer, she didn’t need to hide her love for Everett.

  Sawyer glanced toward the waiting room. His eyes had turned from that compelling deep blue to indigo.

  She touched his arm again. “Sawyer, what is it other than Nick? I know being home again after so long has its issues, but I’m sure Logan is pleased—”

  “He tries hard not to show it.” He paused. “I almost wish he and Blossom had continued with their honeymoon.”