by Deb Kastner
It was high time for the townsfolk to get over what had happened in the past between Ange and Rowdy. After what they’d shared earlier today, opening their hearts to each other, he hoped he could convince her to stay in town long enough for them to truly pursue their relationship.
His attention had been distracted just for that one moment, as he was considering the future, when Philip nodded and Shy Boy sprang into the arena, furiously bucking and kicking and turning in tight circles, determined to get the flank strap off at any cost, never mind the rider on his back.
For the first couple of seconds, Philip looked as if he was off-balance and Rowdy thought he’d probably hit the dirt pretty quickly and end the ride, but then Philip somehow shifted and regained control.
But Shy Boy was having none of it.
One second the horse was in the middle of the arena as he twisted and turned and altogether put on a good show for the spectators, who were yelling and hooting and cheering him on.
The next moment, the crowd went dead silent as Shy Boy charged straight toward the wall.
Rowdy didn’t think. He just acted, pressing his heels into Hercules’s side and leaning forward, giving Hercules his full head.
Hercules launched into a gallop, sensing his rider’s inner torment.
Rowdy’s first thought had been to try to herd Shy Boy away from the wall, but he immediately realized that wasn’t going to happen.
Shy Boy was going too fast and was too panicked to realize what he was doing. The whites of his eyes were showing and his ears were pinned back as he whipped his head from side to side in a frantic attempt to lose the rider.
Philip was yelling for Shy Boy to stop and clinging on to the saddle for dear life, with one hand twisted into Shy Boy’s mane.
But despite everything, Shy Boy put his head down and made straight for the arena wall.
“Jump off,” Rowdy hollered. “Philip, jump off.”
But Philip either didn’t hear or couldn’t move. He appeared every bit as spooked as his horse and only clung tighter as Shy Boy continued galloping forward.
Rowdy reined Hercules between Shy Boy and the wall. He had purposefully picked Hercules because of his size and speed, but he could never have imagined that the scene would play out before him the way it did.
All he knew was that he had to slip into the space between Shy Boy and the arena wall.
As the air created by Hercules’s gallop drove the hat off Rowdy’s head, Rowdy gritted his teeth and prayed that God would keep Philip safe. Hercules safe. Shy Boy.
And him.
A moment later, Shy Boy lit into Hercules’s side and both horses reared and made course corrections—Shy Boy to the middle of the arena and Rowdy into the wall, where his entire left side, head to toe, collided with the concrete.
Pain detonated in Rowdy’s knee, and his head exploded with fireworks as bright as the ones Serendipity planned for this evening.
Rowdy had picked Hercules in the hope that the larger, stronger horse would help keep the teenagers’ horses under control, and he had.
But at what price?
Rowdy’s gaze was clouding in pain.
Something was off.
He felt as if he was seeing everything at a great distance, and then his vision blurred and doubled and he tried to blink it back into focus.
He was mindful enough to pull his boots from the stirrups so he wouldn’t be dragged around the arena as he had been last time he’d found himself in this position. With his strength greatly failing, he gripped at his saddle horn and plunged one hand into Hercules’s mane. The horse slowed, but it wasn’t enough for Rowdy to stay in the saddle.
He was going to go down.
His left leg would give out on him the moment he hit the turf and his vision was already gray, but he did everything he could to remain on Hercules for as long as possible.
Before his body gave out, he had to see what was happening with Philip and Shy Boy.
Had he saved them?
Gritting his teeth, he narrowed his gaze on Philip, trying to focus through his double vision and the darkness threatening to overcome him.
He watched as Philip slid safely from Shy Boy and ran toward the arena gate while one of the mounted ranch hands released the flank strap from Shy Boy.
Rowdy had done it.
Philip was safe.
His last thought before slumping over the neck of Hercules and giving in to the darkness was of Ange and Toby.
He hadn’t been able to express how he really felt.
Now the game had changed once again.
She might never know that he was in love with her.
Chapter Twelve
“N-o-o-o-o!” Angelica screamed as Rowdy’s limp body rolled over Hercules’s neck and he slammed to the ground, flat on his back.
“Please, God, let him be okay.” She was praying aloud and she didn’t care who heard her.
She grabbed Toby, in his car seat, and dashed out of the announcer’s booth and onto the arena floor, where Rowdy was surrounded by the ranch hands, who had been pickup men like Rowdy, one on his horse and two on the arena floor, crouched around Rowdy’s unmoving form.
Paramedics were on hand and were also running toward Rowdy with their equipment and a stretcher. Angelica wanted to be right beside him, but there were too many people already there and the paramedics needed room to do their work.
Her heart hammered as her gaze took Rowdy in.
His left leg was bent at an odd angle and a large purple bruise and enormous goose egg was already coloring his forehead.
Oh, Lord. Please no.
Was he breathing?
She couldn’t tell.
His chest wasn’t visibly rising and falling, as it should have been after surviving such a fall.
She wanted to be beside him, to hold him in her arms and tell him all the secrets of her heart that she had tried to hold back.
Oh, why hadn’t she just been honest and told him how much she loved him?
Now he might never know.
Jo reached her and restrained her from moving to Rowdy’s side with a firm, no-nonsense hug around her shoulders that Angelica, feeling as weak as she ever had in her life, could not break.
Who knew that the old woman was so strong?
“You have to let the paramedics do their job, honey,” Jo coaxed. “I know you want to be at Rowdy’s side, but right now what he needs is medical help. And our prayers.”
Angelica knew Jo was right, but her heart was shattering into pieces as she watched the paramedics kneel before Rowdy and assess his injuries.
“He’s not breathing,” she sobbed. “Do something!”
Why weren’t the paramedics doing CPR?
“He’s just had the wind knocked out of him,” Frank Spencer said, arriving at his wife’s side and awkwardly patting Angelica’s shoulder. “He landed flat on his back.”
Angelica’s tears poured and her breath came in tiny bursts of hiccups. She was hyperventilating, but she couldn’t control her breathing as she watched the paramedics put an oxygen mask over Rowdy’s mouth and a neck brace to guard against spinal injuries.
What if this accident was worse than the last one? What if Rowdy was paralyzed? He was a fighter, but he was also a rancher. Taking his life’s work away from him would kill his spirit.
After the paramedics had stabilized his breathing and his neck, they carefully rolled him onto a backboard and stretcher. Angelica followed them to the ambulance, feeling entirely helpless as they loaded him up and headed off down the road.
“What about his knee?” she asked to no one in particular, her voice nothing more than a dry croak.
“They’ve stabilized him, which is the most important part,” Jo said. “And now they want to get him to the hospital as soon as possible. I’m su
re they’ll splint his leg on the way.”
“The hospital is nearly an hour away. Shouldn’t they have their lights and sirens on? Or be using a helicopter?”
“It’s their call, sweetie. If the paramedics thought this was a life-or-death situation, you’d better believe they would have called a helicopter to transport him. If they think he can travel in an ambulance, especially without hitting their lights, that’s a good thing, right? It means he’s stable enough for them to continue care on the way.”
“I need to be there with him.”
Jo didn’t appear surprised at all by her admission.
“Of course you do. What do we need to do to make that happen?”
Toby kicked off his blanket in a not-so-subtle reminder that Angelica had other responsibilities than just Rowdy. She couldn’t leave Toby and run off to be with Rowdy, no matter how much she ached to be by his side.
“Toby will have to go with us, as well, of course,” Jo said, as if reading her mind. “I’ll tell you what. How about if Frank and I rent a couple of rooms at the hotel next door to the hospital—one for us and one for you and Toby. That way I can babysit Toby while you are visiting with Rowdy, but you won’t be too far away from your son.”
Tears burned her eyes so that she could barely see Jo through the moisture.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“Did you hear anybody asking? You just let old Jo take care of everything, okay?”
Angelica felt like she was not all there. Her mind was in a haze and her heart was with Rowdy. She wouldn’t have been able to work this out on her own, and was more grateful to Jo than she could have ever expressed.
Barely aware of the crowd of people exiting the bleachers, Angelica allowed Jo to lead her to a place to sit down, then Jo pulled out her cell phone, promising she wouldn’t be more than a moment.
“On hold,” she told Angelica after she’d dialed. She shook her head and her red curls bobbed. Covering the receiver, she nodded toward her husband. “Frank, honey, pull the truck around.”
“Already going,” he assured her.
“Yes, hello,” Jo said as someone picked up on the other end of the line. “I’m going to need two rooms for an indeterminate amount of time. Please make them adjacent, if possible. We’ve got someone in the hospital and it will help us tremendously if we can be next to each other. Oh—and can you please add a crib to one of the rooms?”
She nodded. “Good. Fantastic. We will be checking in in a couple of hours. Put everything in my name.”
As Jo continued to give the hotel her information, Angelica fed Toby a bottle of formula and tried to pull herself together. She would be no good to Rowdy if she was a blubbering mess, and Toby was picking up on her distress.
She needed to be strong for both their sakes.
Waiting for Jo to finish and Frank to pull around, she watched a couple of Rowdy’s friends loading her sheep into a trailer.
“Those are mine,” she said as Jo ended her call.
“They know, honey. You and Rowdy planned this gig, but there were more than just the two of you involved in the execution.”
“There were?” Angelica wondered why she hadn’t noticed. Maybe because she’d been too wrapped up in Rowdy.
“Yes. Don’t worry. They’ll deliver your sheep back to your property.”
“All of my sheep,” she squeaked. “And Rowdy’s. What am I going to do? I can’t just leave. The ranches don’t run themselves.”
“That’s what friends are for,” Jo affirmed.
“But I don’t have any friends.”
Jo shook her head. “I don’t think that’s true. Maybe when you first came back to town, it might have been. But people have been watching you with Toby. And with Rowdy. They’ve seen you in church. They may not know quite how to approach you without bringing up your past, but trust me when I tell you they will have your back during this tribulation. That’s just how the folks in Serendipity are.”
Angelica fought the sobs that threatened to erupt. She simply could not keep crying every time something happened to her, bad or good, or she wouldn’t be able to get through this.
Rowdy needed her to be strong.
So did Toby.
No matter how she felt inside, no matter how her stomach churned and her heart ached and worry clouded her mind like a thunderstorm, she had to be strong.
And she would be.
* * *
Rowdy groaned. His eyelids felt like hundred-pound weights had been placed on each of them and he couldn’t force them open no matter how hard he tried.
Every muscle in his body ached, even ones he hadn’t known he had. He focused his mind on attempting to move, but nothing seemed to work. When he finally got his left fingers to wiggle, they sent a shot of white-hot pain up his arm.
Where was he?
He could hear a steady beeping from some kind of machine to the left of him, but not much else. He knew he was in bed, but for some reason he felt pinned down, as if someone had taken away his ability to control his own body.
And there was something else—something so quiet it took a moment for him to identify what it was.
Breathing.
Soft, steady breathing.
As his eyes slowly opened, he blinked heavily to focus his gaze. He tried to lift his head, but a gentle hand on his shoulder eased him back down.
“Take it easy, son. Try not to move.”
He knew that voice.
Jo Spencer.
Why would Jo Spencer be...?
Suddenly it all came back to him in a horrifying rush that made him so lightheaded he nearly passed out again.
Shy Boy heading for the wall with a terrified Philip on his back.
Rowdy urging Hercules between them.
And then—nothing.
“H-hospital?” he asked through dry lips.
“That’s right.” Jo brushed a sliver of ice over his lips and then gently slid it into his mouth. “We’re at Mercy Medical Center in San Antonio. You were taken here yesterday by ambulance from the ranch rodeo. You’ve been pretty out of it since then.”
He groaned.
“You’ve had surgery on your knee and they set your left wrist in a cast. You’ve got a big ol’ purple goose egg on your forehead. Thankfully, you have a hard head.” Jo chuckled at her own joke.
“Water?”
With Jo supporting his neck, he lifted his head just enough to be able to take a sip of lukewarm water out of a straw.
It was only then that he realized someone else was in the room with him.
The breathing he’d heard.
It hadn’t been Jo.
Ange had dragged a chair to his bedside and had crooked her elbow on the side of his mattress. She was sound asleep with her head in her palm.
Jo chuckled. “That woman won’t leave your side. Hasn’t budged since the moment we got here. She would have been in surgery with you if they would have let her. As it is, I’ve been bringing Toby to her here at the hospital so she doesn’t have to leave you alone.”
“She doesn’t need to do that.”
Ange had to be really exhausted. She was still slumped in a dead sleep with her head in her hand, despite Rowdy and Jo having a conversation. That couldn’t be comfortable.
He felt guilty that she’d refused to leave even to take care of Toby or get a good night’s sleep, but at the same time his heart welled with the thought that she cared enough to stay with him.
Rowdy’s right hand was near enough to her arm that he was able, with effort, to stretch his arm out to touch her elbow.
She jumped up as if she’d been zapped with a bolt of electricity.
“What?” she asked, coming immediately alert. “What’s wrong?”
Rowdy tried to chuckle, but it sounded like tires
on gravel through his dry throat.
“Rowdy.” The sound of his name in her rich alto warmed his chest like a cup of hot chocolate on a snowy day. “Are you hurting? Should I get a nurse?”
He chuckled, then cringed at the rippling effect of his sore muscles on his extremities—especially his left wrist and his knee.
He was in pain, all right, but he didn’t want Ange to call a nurse. Not just yet.
“What happened at the ranch rodeo?” he croaked.
Jo patted his shoulder and then gave Ange an animated hug.
“I’ll just leave the two of you alone for a minute while I check on Toby. His honorary uncle Frank is entertaining him at the moment with his gruffy, growly faces, but I’ll bet that sweet baby is ready to be loved on some by Auntie Jo.”
“Thanks,” Ange said, her voice cracking with emotion.
With a sigh, she straightened her chair and sat down, pulling her knees up and circling them with her arms.
“What’s that face for?” he asked, trying to smile for her sake but not sure he got much past a grimace.
She shook her head and tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t speak.
Wow. Did he really look all that bad?
He felt awful, but now it was as much because she was distressed and his heart was hurting for her as that he’d clearly sustained some injuries in the ranch rodeo.
“Hey, do you think you could hitch this bed up for me so I can sit up?”
She rose the head of the bed enough for him to view the damage and take stock of why his pain was a six out of ten on the pain scale.
His left knee was in a brace. That bit of news didn’t surprise him, but he felt a little discouraged by it. He’d recovered from a knee injury before, and no matter how long it took and how hard he would have to work, he would recover again.
His chest was tightly wrapped and he suspected he might have bruised a rib or two. And as Jo had said, his left wrist was in a cast.
“Well, I can see that my left side took the brunt of whatever happened to me,” he said, and then paused, hoping to encourage her to fill in the blanks.
She just stared at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
