Harlequin Romance July 2013 Bundle: A Cowboy To Come Home ToHow to Melt a Frozen HeartThe Cattleman's Ready-Made FamilyRancher to the Rescue

by Donna Alward

  Brendan hated that he was awake enough to notice those things, to wonder at her history, what had brought her and her nephew to this remote corner of British Columbia.

  Doing his best to detach, he asked more questions. She remembered what had happened right before she was knocked down and right after, though she did not remember precisely what had knocked her down. She could follow the movement of his finger with her eyes.

  “You seem fine,” he finally decided, but he felt uneasy. A concussion really was nothing to fool around with.

  “She is fine,” Deedee snapped. “Meanwhile, Charlie could be expiring.”

  “I’ll just have a quick look at the cat,” Nora said.

  “He’s lasted this long. I’m sure he can wait another five minutes. You need to go have a shower and put on something dry.”

  “Are you always this bossy?”

  He ignored her. “If you feel dizzy or if you vomit, or feel like you’re going to be sick, you need to tell me right away. Or Luke after I leave. You may have to get to the hospital yet tonight.”

  She looked as if she was going to protest. And then she glanced down at herself, and surprised him by giving in without a fight.

  “All right. Luke, come with me for a minute. You can see if you can find a shirt that will fit Mr. Grant. He’s soaked.”

  That explained her easy acquiescence. She was going to go talk it over with the kid. They were going to get their stories straight and figure out who had done what.

  Brendan already knew precisely what she was going to do. She had already started to set it up when she’d said the money had been taken by accident, mistaken for a donation. She was going to take the blame.

  Personally, Brendan was strongly leaning toward the conclusion her nephew had done it. How could she possibly think that not letting him accept responsibility was going to do the boy any good?

  “Brendan?”

  He turned to Deedee, impatient. Was she really going to insist that cat come first again? She did love to have her own way, largely oblivious to the larger picture.

  “I’m not feeling well,” she said.

  He scanned her face. She loved to be the center of attention. But the fear he saw was real.

  “My heart’s beating too fast,” she whispered.

  He crossed the room and lifted her frail wrist. Her pulse was going crazy. She searched his face, ready to panic, and he forced himself to smile.

  “Let’s make it a double header,” he said. “We’ll take you to the hospital and they can check out Nora at the same time.”

  He cast Nora a look.

  Her protest died on her lips as she read his face and then glanced at Deedee.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AT HIS AUNT’S declaration, panic twisted the boy’s features, but only for a second. He took in the situation in the room, his gaze lingering on Deedee. Brendan saw calm come to him, almost as if he had breathed in the truth.

  “What about Charlie?” Deedee half whispered, half sobbed. “I can’t leave him! Not when he’s—”

  The steadiness remained in the boy’s eyes as he looked to Brendan and then his aunt. “I got the cat,” he said, and Deedee relaxed noticeably, slumped against Brendan.

  Ninety-two. Deedee could die right now. She could go before the cat. Life liked to put ironic little twists in the story line.

  Becky, young and healthy, gone at twenty-six. To this day, it seemed impossible.

  A week before she had died, she had said to him, out of the blue, “If I die first, I’ll come back and let you know I’m all right.”

  “You won’t be all right,” he’d said, uncomfortable with the conversation, pragmatic to a fault. “You’ll be dead.”

  So far, she hadn’t been back to let him know anything, even how to keep on living. So he’d been right. Dead was dead.

  And he’d been prepared to deal with it tonight with Charlie. Not Deedee. Not on his watch. With a sense of urgency he was trying to disguise, and feeling somewhat like the ringmaster at a three-ring circus, Brendan pulled his cell phone from his pocket and herded all his charges back out the door into the rain.

  * * *

  “Can you get in the back with her?” he asked in an undertone. “Kick my seat if anything changes. You know how to monitor her pulse?”

  Nora nodded and climbed in the backseat of the car with Deedee. Luke and the cat got in the front with Brendan. The car smelled of new leather and luxury. It screamed a man who had arrived.

  The type of man who would never see anything in the slightly eccentric owner of a struggling animal shelter.

  Not that she cared who found her attractive and who didn’t! Good grief! The lady beside her could be having a heart attack. This was not the time or place!

  Starting the car, Brendan never lost focus. He tucked the phone under his ear. “Hansen Emergency? It’s Brendan Grant here. I’m on my way in. I have a ninety-two-year-old woman who has a very fast pulse. No history of heart problems. No chest pain. I also have a young woman who has had a head injury. Who’s the doctor on call tonight? I know you’re not supposed to tell me, but I want to know.”

  Nora took it all in. How his name had been recognized, how the name of the on-call doctor had been surrendered to him with a token protest only.

  She took in his confidence as he dialed another number. “Greg? Sorry to wake you. Becky’s grandmother is not well.”

  Becky? She’d thought it was his grandmother!

  “Who’s Becky?” she asked Deedee.

  “My granddaughter. Brendan’s her husband.”

  Married. Why would that feel the way it did? Like some kind of loss? Why didn’t he wear a ring? Nora hated married men who didn’t wear rings. They were sneaky, they were looking for—

  “She died,” Deedee said tiredly.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nora said, and thought of what she was sure she had seen in his eyes when he’d first leaned over her. The common ground. Now she understood it. Sorrow.

  “In a car accident,” Deedee went on. She was talking too loudly, the way people who are hard of hearing did. “Brendan doesn’t talk about her. I need someone to cry with sometimes. But he never will. He didn’t even cry at the funeral.”

  It was said like an accusation, and so loudly the man in the front seat could not miss it. Nora watched his face in the light coming from the dash. He didn’t even flinch. It was as if he was cast in stone.

  But she had seen the pain spilling into his eyes in that first unguarded moment when he had stood over her in the paddock.

  “People all grieve in their own way,” Nora said, and saw him cast her a quick glance in the rearview mirror before he reached for his phone again. “And it seems to me maybe he’s there for you in other ways that are just as important.”

  Not everyone would be chauffeuring an elderly woman and her sick cat around the country in the middle of the night!

  “Of course, you’re right,” Deedee murmured, and leaned her head on Nora’s shoulder. Nora had her hand on the woman’s wrist and noticed, gratefully, the pulse was slowing to normal.

  She listened to the deep gravel of Brendan’s voice as he spoke on the phone.

  “And I have a head injury, too. I think mild concussion, but a confirmation would be good. See you there. We’re five minutes out.”

  He clicked the phone shut and stepped on the gas. The night was wet and the roads had to be slippery, but he oozed calm confidence as he navigated the twisty, mist-shrouded road into Hansen. The powerful car responded as if it were a living thing.

  The way a man handled a powerful car told you a lot about him. The way a man handled an emergency told you a lot as well. Not that they were tests, but ha
d they been, Brendan Grant would have passed with flying colors.

  His calm never flagged. Not on the wet roads, not as they pulled into Emergency, not as he helped his grandmother out of the back of the car. There were obviously benefits to being emotionally shut down.

  “What about Charlie?” Deedee wailed again.

  “I’ll stay with him,” Luke said. “Out here. I’m not going in there.”

  Nora doubted that he was ever going to get over the thing he had about hospitals. He’d spent too much time in one while his mother was sick. He hated them now.

  Brendan didn’t question why, just flipped a set of keys at Luke. “Her house is three blocks that way. The address is on the chain. I presume you have your cell phone with you and that your aunt has the number?”

  “Why can’t I stay here?”

  “Because if that cat pees in my car,” he said in a low tone that Deedee didn’t hear, “it really isn’t going to survive the night.”

  Nora was appalled, but it was a guy thing, because Luke chuckled. Then he sobered. “You’re trusting me to go into her house?”

  Brendan’s eyes locked on his. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”

  Luke ducked his head and didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t know how long we’ll be here. Get some rest. Let the cat out of that purse, near his litter box if you can locate it. If your aunt is released, you’re going to have to look after her for the rest of the night.”

  Luke glanced at the address on the key chain. “I hope none of my friends see me with this dorky thing,” he muttered, but Nora did not miss the fact that he looked pleased—if somewhat guilty—about Brendan’s trust.

  “I could drive him,” she said tentatively, “and come back. I really don’t need—”

  Brendan gave her a look that was so don’t-mess-with-me it made her stomach feel as if it was doing a free fall from ten thousand feet. She just didn’t have the energy to take him on.

  In the hospital, she had that same sense that you could tell a lot about a man by the way he handled an emergency. Again he passed. He handled the nurse with confidence that was palatable, not the least intimidated by her officiousness. In fact, the exact opposite might have been true. He was obviously well-known in the community, and respected. The nurse treated Brendan as if he was part of that inner circle of the emergency ward.

  Interestingly, Vance had been terrible at emergencies. He became so flustered if a badly injured animal was brought in that he could not inspire confidence in anyone. You would have thought with practice he would have gotten better, but he never did. He liked catering to the pudgy poodle set, doing routine checkups and giving shots, neutering, and cleaning teeth.

  In fact, he’d opted for regular hours only and hired a young vet to handle the nighttime emergencies, and finally any emergency at all.

  A few weeks ago, Nora had heard he was engaged to that young vet. Up until then she had nursed a secret fantasy that he was going to show up on her doorstep, confess the error of his ways and beg her to take him back.

  She shook it off. For whatever the reason—she suspected because Brendan Grant made things happen—she found herself ushered into an examination room in record time.

  In short order, a young doctor was in, a nurse at his side.

  “How’s Mrs. Ashton?” Nora asked.

  “Old,” he said with a resigned smile. “We’re going to keep her for observation. So, Brendan says a bump on the head? Maybe knocked out?”

  “Maybe,” Nora admitted.

  “How do you know Brendan?” he asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  The doctor laughed. “That’s what he said. He designed our house and supervised the build. He’s an amazing architect.”

  Great! In her weakened state, Nora just had to know Brendan Grant was an all-around phenomenal guy.

  The doctor repeated some of the questions Brendan had asked her earlier, shone a light in her eye, got her to follow the movement of his finger.

  “I should keep you for observation, too.”

  “I can’t!” she said. “I have animals that will need feeding in—” her eyes flew to a nearby clock “—two hours.”

  The doctor sighed. “He said you’d say that. I’m going to send you home, but with strict instructions what to watch for. And what to do for the next few hours. Any dizziness, any nausea, any loss of consciousness, you come right back in. I’ll give you a handout with symptoms you need to watch for over the next few days. Sometimes even weeks later symptoms can come up.”

  After having the nurse go over the sheet with her, they let her go. Brendan was in the waiting room.

  “You didn’t have to wait.”

  “Uh-huh. How were you going to get home? And collect your nephew?”

  “Taxi, I guess.”

  “And would the taxi driver be watching you for signs of concussion?” Brendan held up duplicates of the instructions the doctor had given her.

  The truth was she was glad she did not have to worry about a taxi right now, or how to find Luke. She was glad this man was in charge. And she might have a concussion, so it was okay to be weak. Just this once. Just for tonight.

  The animals needed to be fed in a few hours.

  She felt like weeping.

  Brendan was watching her closely.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly.

  But just as if he hadn’t heard her, he slipped his arm around her waist, and just as if she hadn’t claimed she was okay, she leaned heavily into him.

  They collected Luke and, since no one had any idea when Deedee would be home, recaptured Charlie. Nora tried to stay awake and couldn’t. She awoke to find herself in Brendan Grant’s arms for the second time that night.

  There was absolutely no fight left in her.

  None.

  Because Luke was bringing Charlie into the house instead of out to the barn. She didn’t allow any of the animals in the house. How could she? If she did, soon they would be overrun!

  But she just didn’t have the energy to make a fuss about it right now. Instead, she snuggled deep into Brendan’s reassuring strength and let him carry her into her house and up the stairs to her room.

  * * *

  “Is she okay?” Luke asked, pointing Brendan to a room on the right of a narrow hallway. He disappeared with Charlie and the cat carrier into a doorway farther up the hall.

  “She’s just done in,” Brendan assured him. He nudged open the door and hesitated on the threshold of Nora’s room.

  It was confirmed she was completely, one hundred percent single. No man could be trusted with so much white: white walls, white curtains, white pillows, white bedspread. Her room reminded him of innocence. There was something alarmingly bridal about it.

  And that was the last thing Brendan wanted to be thinking of as he carried Nora Anderson across the threshold!

  He looked down at her and felt a wave of relief. Still wrapped in his too large jacket, mud from head to toe, she was the world’s least likely bride. In fact, her bridal vision of a room was about to be damaged by her muddy little self.

  Brendan took a deep breath, stepped in, and quickly made his way to the bed, where he set her on the edge.

  Luke appeared in the doorway. “Anything I can do?”

  “Oh, Luke,” Nora said. “Where did he come from? You know the rules. We can’t have animals in the house.”

  Brendan turned, expecting to see Luke had Charlie. Instead, he had a black-and-white kitten riding in the palm of his hand.

  “This one’s different,” Luke said. “I’m calling him Ranger.”

  “We don’t name them!”

  Luke looked mutinous. “I’m keeping him. For my own.”

  Nora chew
ed her lip. “We need to talk about that,” she said.

  “But not tonight,” Brendan said firmly. “Luke, can you get rid of the kitten for now, and find me a flashlight?”

  He disappeared and came back, with no kitten, but a flashlight.

  “Shine it right in your aunt’s eyes. Do you see what it does to her pupils? That’s called dilation. It’s very important that both her pupils are dilating in the same way. I need you to try it.”

  The boy grasped the flashlight without any hesitation. Brendan was going to take it as a good sign that Luke was not nearly as rebellious as his aunt was.

  “Yes, her eyes are doing the same thing. The black part is getting smaller when I hold the light up.”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”

  “Good. That’s exactly what you are looking for. You need to wake her up every hour after I leave and check her eyes. If you see a change you need to call 9-1-1.”

  “There’s no need to frighten him!” Nora protested.

  “I’m not frightening him. I’m asking him to step up to the plate. I’m treating him like a man.”

  Luke puffed up a bit at that.

  “Well, he’s not a man.”

  And then deflated.

  “He’s not a child, either.”

  The boy puffed up again.

  “Either he checks you or I stay for the night.”

  She blanched at that, then folded her arms over her chest with ill grace and glared at him. That settled, Brendan conducted some very simple tests on his unwilling patient while Luke watched.

  “The doctor already did this.”

  “Luke needs to see what to do.”

  Finally, Brendan was satisfied. “Do you need anything? A drink of warm milk, maybe?”

  “Oh.”

  There was something kind of sweet and kind of sad about her surprise that anyone would look after her.

  “That would be nice,” she said shyly.

  “Luke, can you go warm some milk?”

  Luke left and Brendan leaned over and pulled off her shoes. Gently, he tugged the jacket off her.