Cowboy on Call

by Leigh Riker

  “But there’s something even more, isn’t there?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing right now.” He turned away, as if casting about for a reason to leave. “Think I’ll try to get another look at Nick’s chart. The neurologist was here just before I stepped into the hall.”

  Liza didn’t get the chance to say more. Sawyer kissed her cheek, and with what appeared to be a self-assured stride, he went back toward the nurses’ desk. Despite his show of confidence, he looked to her like another lost soul.

  Like Liza.

  * * *

  SAWYER STAYED AT the hospital for as long as he could manage without coming out of his skin. He felt constantly torn between being there for Logan and Olivia, as if she wanted him, and the desire to flee before the very smells made him fall apart. Liza was in the waiting room again, too, and he didn’t want to continue their hallway conversation within earshot of Olivia. Frankly, his problems—here or in Kedar—were no one else’s cross to bear.

  Sawyer had a hard enough time keeping his mind off Nick. Before he’d left today, he’d bought a teddy bear wearing a Superman costume and a big, encouraging grin in the gift shop, then left it with Olivia, whose murmured, if cool, “Thanks,” was the only word she spoke.

  Nevertheless, it had conveyed the message: Sawyer should have delivered the stuffed bear himself instead of handing it off without ever stepping foot in Nick’s room. He shouldn’t have discussed the horse tragedy with her, either; revisiting that had only raised his self-doubt.

  Feeling like a heel, he strode down the hall, then through the main lobby and outside to the truck—into a blast of summer heat. Knowing earlier that he wouldn’t be able to stick around too long, he’d borrowed a ranch pickup for the ride to Farrier General today.

  Olivia would probably spend another night by Nick’s side, in a chair that supposedly turned into a bed. An uncomfortable one, he thought, her sleep interrupted if not by her worried thoughts, then by the constant stream of staff checking Nick’s vital signs, giving him medication or inspecting his IV lines.

  Sawyer suppressed another twinge of guilt for escaping again, then got in, started the engine and sat there, letting the AC start to cool the interior, letting his pulse settle. He hadn’t put the truck in gear before his cell phone rang.

  Sawyer tried to sound calm, in control, but his most recent talk with Nick’s doctors hadn’t eased his mind. Nick’s brain swelling was now worse. So was Sawyer’s approaching panic attack. Olivia was right to resent him for keeping his distance from her son, for not stepping up, just as she’d been right to blame him for Jasmine’s death, but Sawyer was having enough trouble holding himself together. She probably didn’t want him taking part in Nick’s care now.

  “Hey, Charlie.”

  At the other end of the line, Charles Banfield IV, a true Boston Brahman who’d attended Exeter and Harvard before meeting Sawyer at KU School of Medicine, launched into all the reasons why Sawyer should be in Kedar. Yesterday. He finished, “I’m doing what I can, but the twenty-hour days are taking their toll. I’ve lost ten pounds and I look like hell—so bad I’ve been avoiding the mirror when I shave.”

  “Sorry, Charlie. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Tell me you’re coming back.”

  “I had the impression you didn’t want me there.”

  Charlie ignored that. “The other day we had—I should say, I had—a dozen kids come in. There are no more hospital beds since the landslide leveled the infirmary. I haven’t had saline solution in over a week, so I can’t even hang IVs. Two women gave birth in the clinic last night. One of the babies, a preemie, sadly didn’t make it. And I’m still stitching up cuts, treating abrasions as well as I can without enough gauze, bandages, disinfectant...”

  As Charlie trailed off, Sawyer remembered all too clearly the day he’d left Kedar as if he were being chased off the mountain by his demons. He’d left Charlie to handle everything in his absence, the one he wasn’t sure wouldn’t be permanent.

  “I couldn’t stay there. Not after what happened to...Khalil,” he said. But now, after dealing with the clinic’s overload of desperate patients for a while, Charlie needed Sawyer, though he probably didn’t want to.

  Was Olivia right? Had he made the wrong decision years ago with Jasmine, too? At least he hadn’t tried to manage Olivia’s son’s case.

  Sawyer rubbed his neck. His pulse beat in his ears so loud he could hardly hear himself. His palms grew damp.

  Charlie only said, “When are you coming back?”

  Maybe I’m not. At the same time, Sawyer knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself unless he returned, made up for his mistake somehow. Still, he feared he couldn’t make the trip to the Himalayas again. Not yet. “How’s the road in?”

  “Still blocked much of the way. Helicopters have been flying in whatever supplies are available. Sawyer, I know we had a pretty bad fight before you left. I apologize for anything I said that may have come across as, well, blameful. We’re still partners, aren’t we? The clinic needs you.” He hesitated, as if he hated having to say “So do I.”

  Sawyer cleared his throat. Through the windshield, he watched a man walk out of the hospital, an arm around a crying woman’s shoulders. Then he saw Everett and Liza coming across the parking lot holding hands, and he fought an urge to slink down in his seat so as not to be seen. But if they were leaving, that was a good thing, right? Nick must still be holding his own. He didn’t want to talk to them, though.

  “Listen, Charlie. I have to go.” Briefly, he filled him in about Nick. “I hope you can understand why I have to stay here awhile longer.”

  “Of course.” But Charlie sounded disappointed. No, resigned.

  “He’s close to...Khalil’s age.” And Sawyer hadn’t said five words to Nick. Why use him as an excuse?

  But Charlie understood family. He was an only child whose parents, a Harvard archaeologist and a well-known pediatrician who headed her department at Boston Children’s Hospital, had left him to be raised mostly by nannies before shipping him off to boarding school when he was Nick’s age. He’d often spent his college breaks and summer vacations with other people’s families.

  When they’d founded the clinic a few years ago, full of great plans to give back and make a difference in the world, Charlie had truly come alive. He’d found his passion. Before that, during his training, he’d met Piper, and they’d married and had two children. Sawyer had never seen a man take more readily to having a family of his own, as if to make up for his lonely childhood.

  “I hate to let you down, Charlie. But I need more time.”

  For a few minutes longer, they discussed Nick’s case as if they were together at the clinic, treating him rather than scores of needy people with more drastic conditions and worse prognoses. Struggling to cure diseases that couldn’t be cured in the end, performing surgeries that often failed to make the difference they’d hoped to make.

  “How much time?” Charlie asked, his tone strained.

  “I don’t know. I’ll keep in touch.” After he hung up, Sawyer wiped his damp hands on his jeans, then stared off into the distance.

  An ambulance raced toward the ER entrance. A young couple, the wife holding what appeared to be a newborn baby, got into a waiting car, headed home to begin their family life together.

  He seemed to be letting everyone down. Including—no, especially—Olivia. He could almost feel tonight’s nightmare coming on.

  Where did he belong? Here, or there with Charlie?

  Or in neither place?

  Sitara, Kedar...last spring

  THE EARTHQUAKE HAD come first. Without warning, the land began to shake, tremors shifting the simple huts of the village, sending people running into the street. The few two-story buildings swayed and windows shattered.

  From his office at the cli
nic, which was shaking right along with the rest of Sitara, Sawyer watched it happen. There was little he could do. Such quakes happened now and then, more often than he cared to think about. People huddled together, babies cried, dogs and chickens ran for shelter.

  After a minute or two, the quake subsided. Sawyer peered out the window but saw little damage. During the monsoon season after summer, he’d worry more about landslides, but in spring...

  The thought hadn’t left his mind before he heard the rumble of sudden movement, and to his utter horror the whole side of the mountain that reared up at the end of the main street began to shift.

  People looked up, screamed, then ran again, fleeing toward the clinic where he stood, waving their arms, looking back with their mouths open, gaping in terror.

  Sawyer froze. In a wide swath of grayish-tan dirt and a gathering cloud of dust, rocks and boulders swept toward them, toward him, ripping trees out by the roots, consuming houses and sheds and farm animals like some giant hand clearing the green mountainside, the growing crops and anything else in its path. Like some monster, roaring like thunder. He would never get that sound out of his head.

  Before he could move—but where to go?—some of the townspeople had swarmed into the waiting room of the clinic, weeping and moaning. Others hadn’t been as lucky; the landslide had buried them at the end of the street, sliding past the clinic but destroying the outbuilding that served as his and Charlie’s hospital. He knew the people inside would be crushed as the infirmary collapsed under the weight of rock and soil.

  A woman rushed through the clinic door, one arm hanging, obviously broken. A compound fracture. He had to move, to help.

  But shock had stunned him, and where was Khalil? After seeing him at the clinic earlier for a minor complaint, Sawyer had sent the boy back to school. Sawyer tried to move but couldn’t. He felt stuck, as if in cement or quicksand, and people were still yelling. Help us!

  * * *

  IN THE MIDDLE of the night, Sawyer jerked awake. He’d been dreaming, just as he’d expected he would, but the horrific images followed him into consciousness. He fell back against his pillow, sweating, remembering how he’d failed in Kedar.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “UNCLE SAWYER BOUGHT me this?”

  Two days later, after yet another brief scare that had taken ten more years off Olivia’s life, Nick was released from the hospital. To her vast relief, the edema in his brain had begun to resolve and his numbers had improved enough that he could be sent home—or rather to the Circle H.

  Olivia drew a chair up beside his bed in the spare room. She and Nick would stay here until Logan and Sawyer felt satisfied that it was indeed safe for him to go home. His primary care doctor, Cyrus Baxter, was scheduled to make a house call tomorrow.

  She tried to smile as Nick turned the Superman bear from Sawyer this way and that, examining its satin cape, then tracing a finger over its broad grin.

  “Yes,” she said, trying to suppress a fresh wave of anger. She hadn’t seen Sawyer since they’d reached the house—hadn’t talked to him since that day at the hospital. Apparently he was still making himself scarce, sending gifts through someone else as if to show he cared.

  “Why doesn’t he come to see me?”

  “I don’t know, Nick. Maybe he’s busy helping Grandpa Sam.”

  Sawyer wasn’t the only one among the missing. So was Clint. She’d enjoyed his company, but he hadn’t even called after Olivia first sent him the news of her son’s injury. Which said something about him, too.

  “But Daddy’s here,” Nick said. “Uncle Sawyer doesn’t need to help.”

  Olivia had no answer for that. She was surprised, to be honest, that Sawyer hadn’t already packed and left for—what had he called the place? Kebir? A few times, as she’d asked him to, Sawyer had talked to Nick’s doctors. He’d “translated” for Olivia. Then, after their talk about Jasmine, he’d relayed answers and she’d sent questions through Logan or Blossom. Even her father and Liza had delivered information to her. She hadn’t seen Sawyer again at Farrier General—not once.

  Now she would have to. Nick was at the Circle H. So was Sawyer.

  Olivia could feel thankful that her son was getting well. After hours of playing Minecraft with him, she was getting to be pretty good, but she felt exhausted. Her eyes had crossed from staring at the tablet screen all afternoon. “I’m glad you like your bear,” she said.

  Nick considered for a moment. “But I don’t know if I like Uncle Sawyer.”

  Neither do I, Olivia thought, which unfortunately didn’t seem to change the unwise attraction she still felt. She rose from her chair. “Why don’t you and your new friend take a nap? Grandpa Sam promised to come watch a movie with you after he feeds the horses. Your dad and Blossom are going to read a new book with you after dinner. Then maybe you can all watch a baseball game on TV tonight.”

  Nick yawned. “Where are you going?”

  “Downstairs,” she said, “to help Blossom with dinner.”

  He gave her a sleepy grin. “You just don’t want to play Minecraft. Do you?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said, then kissed the top of his head. “Rest, punkin.”

  Her heart full, Olivia paused in the bedroom doorway to take a last peek at Nick, who had already snuggled into his pillows, the bear in his arms. For now, their potential move seemed far from his mind, and she’d loved their closeness today. As she shut the door behind her, she could hear him tell the stuffed animal, “I’ll take you to meet Hero as soon as I get out of bed.”

  She turned away, blinking back happy tears. And ran into Sawyer.

  They each stepped back as if they’d been scalded. “Sorry,” he said.

  “Oh. I didn’t see you.”

  He glanced toward the room. “Nick okay?”

  Olivia looked at the floor. “He’s good. His headache’s still there but not as bad as it was. He still doesn’t remember his accident.”

  “He will, or maybe he won’t,” Sawyer said. “Sometimes our brains protect us from painful experiences.”

  The words reminded her of Jasmine, yet Olivia could still recall her horse shrieking in agony as if it were yesterday. She was still holding that against Sawyer, which if he hadn’t known before, he did now.

  “Kids are resilient,” he continued. “Other than a bit of confusion now and then, which should resolve over time, he’ll be fine, Olivia.” His gaze met hers. “And I should apologize. At the hospital, I—”

  “You were there but you never visited Nick. Why not?”

  “Do you really want to know?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “I wouldn’t bring this up—risk making you question my judgment even more—but I want you to understand.” He avoided her gaze. “This may not surprise you, but a month or so ago I lost a patient. In Kedar. A boy roughly Nick’s age.” Olivia guessed he knew exactly when that had happened. “He died, Olivia. Two strikes against me. I never want that to happen again.”

  She frowned. “That’s why you’ve stayed away from Nick?”

  “First, do no harm,” he murmured. “But I did. With your horse, as you believe, and in Kedar, I did. I’ll be trying to make up for that the rest of my life. Somehow. But I have to figure out the how. I’m sorry you feel I’ve neglected Nick but I’m not in the best shape right now—which must be pretty obvious.” Still talking, he started down the stairs, then stopped. “Olivia, my mistake was so basic that my license should be taken away. It’s not as if that boy came in with grievous injuries that no one could have fixed.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “He should have survived.” His back to her, his voice gathered steam. “Like Nick, he should be with his family, putting their lives together after the landslide. Playing with his friends. Hugging his mom and dad. Instead, he’s in a makeshift grave on the side of a mountain that could come down again at an
y moment.” He took a breath. “I won’t chance making another bad judgment call.”

  “Sawyer.”

  “Nick is better off without my ‘help.’ And so are you.”

  * * *

  “EASY, BOY,” Sawyer murmured, reaching a hand toward the black colt.

  Cyclone seemed aptly named. He danced out of Sawyer’s way, then pawed the straw bedding of his stall with a well-shod hoof that could deliver a lethal blow. Sawyer had left Olivia on the stairs at the house, and with his surprise confession still spinning through his brain, strode down to the barn.

  Years ago, after his parents were killed, this had been a place of refuge for him. Then, after he’d put down Olivia’s horse in the far meadow, she’d abruptly ended their fledgling romance and he’d begun to disengage from the ranch. Olivia had turned to Logan, and after their wedding, Sawyer had left. He doubted he’d find peace here now. He hadn’t meant to spill his guts tonight, especially to her.

  Cyclone snorted, his nostrils flaring and teeth bared.

  “This horse needs to be gelded,” Sawyer said to Logan, who had just come out of the nearby tack room carrying a bridle. “At least he didn’t bite me this time.”

  “You got off with a warning.” Logan cracked a smile. “I think he likes you.”

  Sawyer eyed the horse. Cyclone eyed him right back, as if he understood what Sawyer had said and didn’t like that any better than he’d liked him poking his hand through the stall bars again.

  “Whether he likes me or not, he’s showing serious signs of becoming a stallion. You really want to deal with that?” On the Circle H, the horses were all geldings or mares. “From what I’ve seen, his temperament isn’t the best to begin with and he’s not going to be easy to train.”

  “Sam says you volunteered for that.”

  “I welcome the challenge. But the last thing you’d want on the Circle H, especially with Nick around more often, is a rogue horse. Nick could get badly hurt, and his fall from the hayloft would seem like a minor scratch in comparison. I don’t mean to scare you—”