Cowboy on Call

by Leigh Riker

  She clamped both hands on her hips. “You and Shadow have finally picked a date? You know, reserving a venue for a reception can’t be done at the last minute. Even having the wedding at the ranch like Logan and Blossom did at the Circle H requires some advance planning.”

  “Nag, nag.”

  Olivia smiled. Unable to resist, she tugged his black Stetson over his eyes. “What are big sisters for?”

  Grey resettled his hat. If she’d done that to him once, she’d done it dozens of times from childhood until now. “No date yet. You’ll be the first to know.”

  “Then what’s the news?”

  “You won’t like it,” he said, his gaze on a mahogany escritoire in the far corner of the room. Grey took a long breath, then let it out. “Dad and Liza. They’re coming for another visit.”

  Her heart sank. “So soon?”

  “Apparently she misses everyone. Go figure. It’s not as if we’ve rolled out the welcome mat. But I have to tell you, Libby, and I guess I’ve said this before. To me, it feels weird. I mean, being hugged as if I were six years old feels just plain strange. I know she means well...”

  “It’s not as if she’s a bad person, Grey. But you’re right. It’s not an easy adjustment—and with us it’s one thing. She and Dad spoil Nick. You should see the building set they gave him before they went back to Dallas. I know this sounds petty, but sometimes I wonder if she’s trying to buy our affections.”

  “She tries too hard.” Grey rubbed his forehead under his hat brim. “The thing is, I probably haven’t talked to our mom in a year, and when I do I always come away mad. Now I’m supposed to have a second mother in Liza? What if that goes bad, too?”

  “Mom is fine,” Olivia said. “I admit, she was peeved with you when I talked to her last week—please give her a call—but I can’t tell you how to deal with Liza. On one hand, I like her a lot. On another, I wish they’d stay in Dallas. At least awhile longer. I’m not that eager to see Everett.”

  Grey sighed. “Unfortunately for you, he and I have an appointment with Barney at the bank this week. So he had to come. We didn’t get around to that last time. Dad still plans to cosign that new loan for me. Then he and I are going to talk with Finn Donovan. The sheriff wants to throw the book at Shadow’s brother and his friends, and there’s another hearing coming up, but that doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t want to break Shadow’s heart, and if he gets sent to prison over the rustling thing, that’s what will happen. I’m hoping, instead, Finn cuts him a break—and I hire Derek on to see what he’s really made of.”

  Olivia was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that her father hadn’t broken his promise to Grey. “That’s a nice idea, but is it wise? He stole your cattle. You were lucky to get them back. He and Calvin Stern—and Cal’s uncle—were involved, not to mention the other kid you hired who turned out to be part of their gang. They could have driven you out of business. I’d have lost my share of the ranch, too.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe love and settling down have blinded me to Derek’s faults. But speaking of mothers, doesn’t Shadow’s mom deserve a break?”

  He had a point. Shadow’s mother had lost her oldest son in an accidental shooting in which Grey had played a part and been blamed for ten years ago. Now, thank goodness, the whole town at last knew he was innocent, but Jared Moran was still gone. If Shadow’s mom lost another son to a long prison sentence...

  “You have a good heart, Grey. I hope you can convince Finn to go easy on Derek—the judge, too—if that’s what you think is best.”

  “As long as Derek understands this would be his last chance. He messes up with me, he’ll learn the meaning of the word trouble.”

  Olivia almost smiled at her brother’s tough-guy stance, but he was right. And she was very happy Grey had moved on with his own life. If he got that loan, his recent financial troubles with Wilson Cattle would finally be over. He and Shadow could get married and have the family, in addition to their daughter, Ava, that Grey had always wanted. He’d have a legacy to hand on to the next generation.

  Nick was part of that, too. With her share in Wilson Cattle and Logan’s in the Circle H, Nick would be a wealthy man.

  Olivia eyed an elaborately framed Western print on the wall. It hung slightly crooked and she fought an urge to straighten it rather than ask the question. “Are Everett and Liza staying with you again?”

  “Yep. Dad may have handed the ranch to me on an official basis, but it’s still his home. Guess I’ll be walking on eggshells again soon.” Grey looked at her as if prompting a response. Surely he didn’t expect her to offer her place. For one thing, the sprawling ranch house at Wilson Cattle had plenty of space and her house didn’t. For another, she didn’t want to see her father more than she had to.

  “I’ll come to visit,” she said.

  * * *

  SAWYER JUMPED AT the chance to have dinner the next night with Grey and Shadow. He didn’t think he could stand one more meal at the kitchen table across from Sam with neither of them speaking. Several times Willy and Tobias had joined them, and the conversation had been livelier—if he ignored the fact that Sam barely said two words. Those recent moments in the barn with him, and Sam’s obvious mistrust of Sawyer’s intentions with Cyclone, had made the situation worse.

  He arrived at Wilson Cattle, carrying two bottles of good wine and a bouquet of flowers for Shadow, who was playing hostess tonight. He’d just stepped inside the kitchen, which smelled of something delicious and homemade after too many makeshift meals at the Circle H, when he saw Olivia.

  He hadn’t expected her to be here, though he should have. In the room behind her sat Grey and Shadow, Everett Wilson and his wife, Liza—the guests of honor tonight—so her presence did make sense. His didn’t, really. It was a family affair. Or, he supposed now, family and friends.

  Olivia took the flowers from him. She was wearing a killer dress, a summery shade the color of peaches, her hair drawn back in a loose knot. “How’s... Cyclone?”

  “Pretty hostile right now,” he said. “The vet had time today after all, so he took care of business. That colt won’t have to worry about the ladies anymore.”

  Her eyes widened. “You gelded him?”

  “Didn’t have much choice. Sam doesn’t need a stallion at the Circle H. Mares and geldings make better cow ponies. You know that.”

  “But he’s such a beauty. He would have passed on some lovely genes. Poor Cyclone,” Olivia murmured.

  “He’ll be much gentler, believe me. He’s on stall rest for the next day or two. Let me know when you want to come out for a first training session.”

  Shadow swept into the kitchen from the dining room on a pair of awesome high heels but with a worried look. “I almost forgot the roast. I hope it hasn’t burned to a crisp.”

  She pulled open the oven door, checked the simmering beefy goodness inside, then shut it, apparently satisfied dinner would go through as planned. She straightened to hug Sawyer. “I’m glad you could make it. If you’ll open this excellent-looking wine and pour for everyone, we’ll be ready to eat.”

  Sawyer didn’t know who had made the seating arrangement, but he sat next to Olivia. At the heads of the table were Grey and his father with Liza to Everett’s right. Shadow took the chair next to Grey and closest to the kitchen. Three couples, he thought, an even number of people. That was why he’d been invited.

  Sawyer hadn’t had a dinner date in...he couldn’t remember how long. Since he’d moved to Kedar, he’d spent most of his time at the new clinic, working almost twenty-four seven with Charlie to establish the facility.

  The dinner conversation seemed to ping-pong from one topic to another, everyone eager to share a funny story or factoid, and there was a lot of laughter.

  Sawyer realized he hadn’t heard much of that in the past few months. After the la
ndslide, the surrounding mountains had seemed to go quiet, hushed, as if afraid to breathe in case another part sheared off and crashed into the village yet again. Even children playing in streets still filled with rubble had been mostly silent. He missed their laughter, missed seeing Khalil among his friends or tagging after Sawyer, missed him.

  He frowned at his plate. He barely heard Shadow, Grey, Liza and Olivia, Everett—until he glanced over and saw the older man sitting frozen in his chair with one hand clutched to his throat. His face was turning blue. Everett made a motion at his opened mouth, which was gaping, but no sound came out. He was choking!

  For a single instant, Sawyer felt paralyzed, too. The moments with Nick lying on the barn floor and then in the hospital, examining Fred Miller’s arm, answering those phone calls at Doc’s place flashed through his mind.

  Then Liza cried out, “Everett!” and Sawyer bolted from his chair, rushing around the table to stand behind Olivia and Grey’s father, while the others looked on helplessly.

  Sawyer locked his arms across Everett’s chest and applied the Heimlich maneuver, sharply lifting up against the man’s diaphragm, then repeating the motion until, at last, a chunk of beef flew from his mouth.

  Everett gasped, starting to breathe again.

  Liza and Olivia had gone white as sheets. Grey’s blue-green eyes were wide, his face flushed. Stunned, Shadow had a hand to her own throat. Then, a second later the tension broke.

  Everyone grinned and a spate of talk began, including some giddy laughter. Sawyer returned to his seat, shaken a bit himself, but more than relieved. He’d done it. He’d possibly saved a life—and wasn’t that a nice change?

  Everett sounded hoarse. “Thanks, Sawyer. I can never repay you.”

  “I don’t need anything except to see you sitting there okay,” he said.

  Everett grinned weakly. “Never hurts to have a doctor in the house.”

  After that, Sawyer didn’t really listen to the conversation. Part of him was still back in Kedar, triaging patients after the landslide.

  “Sawyer...anyone in there?” Grey’s father had asked him some question.

  “Sorry.” He waved a hand at the table laden with vegetable dishes, a fresh fruit salad, the meat platter. “I think so much beef has put me into a food coma.”

  Everett appeared concerned. “I hate to bring up a sensitive topic, but my little episode here made me think... I asked you about the landslide over there in Kedar. We saw some of that on TV when it happened, but how are things now?”

  The image of Khalil, rolling a hoop down the street in the sun or popping into the clinic to say hi after school tightened his throat. Khalil flying a kite in a spring breeze, such a popular pastime for kids in the village. A rush of guilt ran through him.

  “Um, I really can’t say.” He hadn’t talked to Charlie again. Had kept away from the news and Google. “When I left for the States, it was still bad. Large patches of the only access road were blocked by rocks and debris and there aren’t many earthmovers or backhoes to clear things. Much of the work gets done by hand.”

  Everett frowned. “And your clinic?”

  “We suffered about seventy percent damage. Completely lost our hospital building. It’s a tiny compound, and since the landslide, getting supplies delivered has been all but impossible. I want to send some stuff, put together a shipment, but it may just get stuck in the capital city, hundreds of miles away.”

  A care package, he thought. Some contribution. How could he have left Charlie there with only his wife, Piper, to help run things? To dig out, repair, rebuild? What kind of doctor was he? What kind of man?

  He and Charlie were equal partners, but Sawyer wasn’t pulling his weight. No, he was sitting here, feeling guilty, in a candlelit dining room with friends—people he’d also turned his back on—having the best meal he’d eaten in a long time. Sitting beside Olivia, the only woman he’d ever loved. Still wanted to love. How could she want him, even as a friend?

  As if their history wasn’t enough, he’d ignored his own misgivings about Nick’s condition, handed him off to other physicians, made another mistake.

  Don’t let me down, Sam had said about the colt. But he had. He kept letting people down.

  Sawyer pushed back his chair. “Sorry,” he said again. “I need some air.”

  Olivia laid a light hand on his arm but he turned away and left the room.

  The quiet buzz of conversation—quite possibly about his mental state—didn’t pick up until he’d reached the front porch. He stood there, taking in deep gulps of too-warm, even sultry, night air.

  In the mountains, it was rarely this humid. Winter started early and ended late, and the growing season was shorter than it was in Kansas by months. Even in good weather, the soil was rocky and lacked all kinds of nutrients. Yet in spite of that, at certain times of the year, the hillsides were lush and green...until the slide had left that naked slash of gray-brown earth.

  “Sawyer.” Olivia opened the screen door. “Are you all right?”

  He leaned on his arms, elbows locked, at the rail. He studied the scrape on his arm. He felt brittle, as if his bones might break. “Yeah, sure.” His tone didn’t invite company.

  He wanted to be alone, but she came outside. She stood next to him on the porch, letting the silence grow before she finally said, “I can’t imagine what you went through over there.”

  “What those people went through,” he said. “What they’re going through.”

  She rested a hand against his back. “You really care for them.”

  He could only nod. His vision had blurred and his throat clenched so tight he couldn’t speak. And still, she stayed with him. Her very empathy threatened his control. You’re thinking about going back, Sam had said.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked. “I mean, besides stay here until Logan gets home.” Her tone lightened. “And Cyclone learns his manners?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, as he had to Sam. He hadn’t known anything since the landslide. Since he hadn’t only let down Charlie.

  Like another force of nature, he’d destroyed everything.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  WHEN SHE REENTERED the family room a few minutes later, Olivia went straight to her father. “How are you? Okay now?”

  He looked at Liza, not at her. “I’ve been okay since Sawyer jumped in with the Heimlich maneuver. Quick thinking. Serves me right for taking a third helping of Shadow’s excellent roast.”

  Sawyer hadn’t come back inside. While Olivia was still on the porch, he’d gone down the steps to his truck and driven off toward the Circle H. In the house, she made his excuses, which no one believed, and Sawyer hadn’t asked her to do. The others had seen his distress for themselves before he’d abruptly left the dining room.

  She should be more concerned about her father, who had almost choked to death at dinner. To her relief, he sat now with Liza on the sofa, her slender hand nearly swallowed up in his much larger one.

  Olivia’s heart clutched. Everyone in Barren knew she didn’t have a good relationship with her father, and she avoided even being in the same room alone with him, but she’d never feared for his life before. In middle age, her dad looked the very picture of hale and hearty, his brown hair barely touched by gray, his blue-green eyes still sharp, like his mind. She’d expected him to live to be a hundred, but in a split second he could have been gone.

  Shadow was in the kitchen with Grey, doing dishes. “Thank you, Everett,” she called out. “But I should have helped you cut your meat.”

  He laughed. “Grey’s got a good woman there,” he said.

  Liza kissed his cheek, then got up. “Think I’ll help with those dishes.”

  Olivia wanted to call her back. Liza had urged her before to smooth things over with Everett. Yet she hadn’t
been here when Olivia was a girl, being torn apart by her parents’ divorce, always privy to their disagreements and the sound of voices raised in anger. She could tell her father also knew what Liza wanted, but he was avoiding it, too—just as he’d avoided keeping his promises to Olivia, time and again.

  He broke their awkward silence. “Sawyer all right? From the little I heard about that landslide, it must have been like Armageddon.”

  “Obviously, he’s still feeling that.”

  “What a shame. A tragedy, for him as well as all those people.” He didn’t miss a beat in changing the subject. “We both missed seeing Nick tonight.”

  “My sitter stayed with him.” She glanced toward the front door. “I need to go. I don’t like her walking home alone from my house after dark.”

  He frowned. From the kitchen, Olivia heard the clatter of flatware, one pan being banged against another. His tone was casual. “Maybe Liza and I will come by tomorrow then.”

  “I’ll be working all day,” she said.

  He tried another tack. “How’s the store doing, Olivia?”

  “It’s doing well. I started out handling estate sales, auctions and the like, but I was doing too much travel. For Nick, I decided to stop that and repurpose, to sell antiques only, which gives me more regular hours and less running around to different places. Recently, I traded in my car for an SUV, more practical for business. I’m also trying to buy another shop, expand...”

  “Well, you’re obviously busy, but we can save you a sitter tomorrow. Liza and I will stay with Nick.” He forced his frown into a smile. “You know she’s always eager to spend time with him.”

  “Everett, please...”

  “You think I wouldn’t show up,” he said, sounding disappointed.

  Olivia wasn’t fooled. He always took on that tone when he failed to keep a promise, as if that were her fault rather than his.

  All right, then. He’d brought it up. Liza would come for sure, but him? She wasn’t going to lie. “There’s always that possibility, yes.”