“Hey there, did you need me?”
“Actually, I was hoping Vaughn would be here,” her father said, his brow furrowed.
T.J. was lucky her parents were open-minded and Vaughn was like a second child to them, because the fact that he was virtually living with her on their property could have been awkward. As it was, her parents hadn’t blinked an eye, just set another place for Sunday brunches.
“I thought he’d be here when I got home, but he must have gotten caught up in something. You want me to call him?” she asked, stepping onto the porch to avoid getting pelted with the rain that was rapidly moving from sprinkles to full-on rainfall.
Her dad rubbed the back of his neck. “Eh, it’s okay. He’ll be here in a bit, right?”
“We had plans tonight, so yes, he should be here soon.”
“That’s fine, then. I need an irrigation gate closed out east. This storm’s predicted to drop so much rain, we need to divert the runoff. If we don’t, it could flood the barns.”
T.J. nodded, her thoughts turning serious. The barns were the heart of the ranch and might have as much as half the herd there at any one point in time. Flooding there wasn’t something their business could afford to risk. The channel her dad was talking about was used to supply water to the pastures directly adjacent to the barns.
“You want me to go with you out there?” she asked.
“No, I’d have done it myself, but my back’s been acting up, and you know what a bitch those gates are to shut. I think it’s going to take Vaughn’s muscles to get the job done. Don and Randy are both at auction in Sacramento.”
Unlike the Big Sur Ranch, T.J.’s father’s operation only had two full-time ranch hands and some part-time and seasonal help. With Don and Randy gone, T.J.’s dad was the only one around after midday.
Her dad pulled his felt Stetson down onto his head further, then turned up the collar on his jacket.
“Just have Vaughn come up to the house as soon as he gets here,” her dad instructed before he bent his head and stomped out into the downpour. She watched him make his way up the road toward his house, and jumped as a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning lit up the area in front of her house like a spotlight. Rivers of water were already streaming down the road as she watched it come down heavier and heavier.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked it. No word from Vaughn. So she texted him.
T: Hey. I’m home. Where are you? My dad needs some help with floodgates. You able to come over soon?
She watched the rain from the safety of her porch for a few more minutes as no answering text came and the water continued to come down in wild sheets. Anxiety rippled through her while the road spread into the adjacent land. Becoming washed out to the point that it wouldn’t be traversable if the rain kept up much longer.
The simple fact was, they didn’t have time to wait for Vaughn. If someone didn’t get on the road right away, there’d be no road to get them to the floodgates, and the water would flow directly to the barns. There were dozens if not hundreds of animals housed there. If that water hit the metal structures with enough force, it could knock down walls, sweep cows off their feet, drown the calves. And there was no way to move that many head of cattle in a storm like this. She had to redirect that water.
Her course of action decided, she grabbed the key from under her flowerpot, unlocked the door, and went inside to retrieve one of her dad’s old Stetsons she kept, along with a rain slicker and boots. After she was suited up, she grabbed a flashlight and the keys to one of the farm trucks. She closed up the house and ran down the road to the barns to grab the truck. Before she started it up, she texted her dad.
T: Can’t track down Vaughn, taking the truck and going out there before the road washes out. I’m stronger than I look. I’ll take care of it.
Then she started up the old pickup, hit the windshield wipers, and drove into the heart of the storm.
Vaughn’s day had been productive as hell, but also long. He’d spent the morning going over supply orders and the maintenance log with Dirk, the ranch’s oldest employee. It still wasn’t his favorite thing, but he was learning the business bit by bit, and more importantly, he was learning how much of it wasn’t unique to ranching, but was just business. Expense and income reporting, personnel costs, taxes and maintenance budgets. A lot of the basics of running a business were universal, and he knew that learning at Big Sur would help him to succeed in his other plans.
Because he did have plans now, and that was why he’d spent four of the last five hours with a real estate agent looking at properties all up and down the coast from Big Sur to Monterey. And he’d found the place, the one that was his and T.J.’s future, but now he was tired, hungry, and of course he’d forgotten his phone, so he hadn’t been able to tell T.J. why he was so late.
He stopped off at home to grab a change of clothes for the morning, wondering if possibly he should start keeping some of his things at her place. He didn’t want to presume, but he was also ready to stop being a vagabond.
“Your phone’s been chiming like crazy,” Ty said as Vaughn walked into the kitchen where dinner cleanup was ongoing.
“Yeah, I forgot the damn thing when I ran out this afternoon.”
He reached the counter where it lay and picked it up. As expected, there were several texts and even a voice mail from T.J., but following those were a voice mail and two missed calls from her father. Something in Vaughn’s gut twisted uncomfortably, and his entire system went on alert.
“You okay?” Ty asked as he watched him from the other side of the bar top, where he was helping Katie wash dishes.
“Uncle Vaughn?” Katie asked. “You mighta’ seed a ghost. That’s what Aunt Lynn says when I looks like that.”
Vaughn glanced up distractedly as he hit call back on the phone and brought it to his ear. “It’s okay, I just need to return this call…” His voice faded away as Ted Brisco answered on the first ring.
“Vaughn? That you?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry I missed your calls. I left my phone at home.”
“I need you over here right away, son.”
Vaughn’s unease grew, and somehow he knew. He knew that this wasn’t good, and he knew that if anything had happened to T.J., he’d never survive.
“Where is T.J.?” he asked, his voice sounding hollow and hard.
Ty looked up, his gaze sharp, his body tense. Even Katie quit talking as if she could sense the electricity in the air.
“I needed the east floodgate closed. That channel irrigates the pastures right next to the barns, and with this amount of rain, it can’t handle it all.”
Vaughn’s heart beat heavy and fast.
“I wanted you to go do it. My back’s out, and it needs a lot of muscle. But she couldn’t reach you and decided to go out there herself. She didn’t tell me before she left.”
Images of being caught in a storm out on the land flashed in Vaughn’s head. Rushing water, eroding soil, a boulder that trapped him. Alone, cold, wet, bleeding. Fuck!
“Did she take a radio?” he asked.
“There’s one in the truck she drove, but she’s not answering.” Her father paused. “You know my girl is as tough as they come, and she grew up on this land, but my guess is the road’s completely washed out by now. She might be caught out there with the truck three feet deep in mud. I won’t lie. I’m worried.”
Worried didn’t begin to cover what Vaughn was feeling. Frantic, panicked, livid. That was only the tip of the iceberg. Goddammit! This was all his fault. It should have been him out there. He was the one who Ted had wanted to go do the job—and with good cause. Those metal floodgates were hell to open and close. Never in a million years would T.J. be able to do that on her own. His heart jumped and lodged itself somewhere north of his chest, nearly choking the breath right out of him.
“Hey,” Ty said quietly, “what’s going on?”
Vaughn shook his head, silently telling his brother tha
t he couldn’t answer him. In his mind, he was calculating—how long to drive to the Briscos and then out to the floodgate. What he’d do if the roads were washed out. What he’d do if one fucking hair on his woman’s head was harmed.
“How far east is that gate?” he asked, moving to the back door and grabbing a heavy-duty rain slicker.
“About two miles,” Mr. Brisco answered.
His hands began to shake, and Ty took a step toward him.
He knew what had to happen now, and even though it terrified him, the thought of anything happening to T.J. terrified him a hell of a lot more.
“I’ll get her, sir,” he said definitively. “I’m going to saddle up right now. I can get there a lot faster from our side. I’ll just cut the fencing and ride on through. Won’t need to worry about the roads at all.”
T.J.’s dad started to say something else, but Vaughn was gone. “I’ll call on the radio as soon as I have her,” he said before disconnecting.
He shoved the phone in his pocket and looked up to find Ty standing there with one of the radios in his hand.
He looked at Vaughn with concern as he handed it to him. “You really think this is the way to test how well you ride with one leg?” he asked quietly.
“She’s out there alone,” Vaughn said, his voice choked with anguish.
“I’m coming with you.”
Vaughn looked at Ty in his T-shirt, jeans, and bare feet.
“Catch up,” he said gruffly. “I can’t wait.”
He was out the door without another word, and he strode to the barn with determination and hardly a second thought. By the time he had Jetson saddled, Ty was coming out of the house, heading to the barn as well. Vaughn grabbed a set of wire clippers from the shelf of tools on one wall and stuffed them in the saddle bag along with a bottle of water and a flare gun from the tack room. His father had always been religious about keeping the barn stocked for emergencies, and Cade was no different. Vaughn mentally added one more thing to the enormous list of things he needed to thank his brother for.
He walked Jetson out into the rain, just as Ty reached them. He didn’t say a word to his brother, just gave him a sharp nod, then lifted his leg, used his hand to help slide the prosthetic foot into the stirrup, and grabbed on to the saddle horn before pushing off hard with his good leg and pulling with his arms. As soon as his hips were level with the stirrup, he was able to get some help from his bad leg, and before he knew it, he was in the saddle, his leg still attached and both feet in the stirrups.
Ty looked up at him, and there was a moment of silent communication that only siblings could have. A thousand things passed between them in that heartbeat—be careful, I’m proud of you, thank you, I love you—and then Vaughn clucked to Jetson, pulling him around toward the open land to the east, as Ty gave the horse a slap on the ass.
The rain was relentless as Vaughn set off over the land he’d traveled so many times before. Jetson’s hooves sank in mud and pockets of standing water, while water dripped off the hood of Vaughn’s rain jacket, running in rivulets down his chest and onto the horse’s back. But Jetson never once shied. The going was slower than if it had been dry, but the horse was steady and quick, and they covered the stretch fast.
When he reached the point that he thought would be directly south of the irrigation gate, he pulled Jetson to a stop next to the two-strand wire ranch fencing that delineated Brisco land from Jenkinses’.
Reaching into the saddle bag from his seat on Jetson, he pulled out the wire clippers and leaned down. He was able to reach the top strand without falling from his perch, but there was no way he’d get the bottom strand without dismounting, something he had no intention of doing before he reached T.J. Too many things could go wrong with that scenario.
So he clipped more off the two ends of wire where he’d cut the top strand, making a small opening in the fence. He slipped the wire cutters back into the pack, then backed Jetson away a few feet before leaning down over his neck, talking to him softly.
“Okay, big guy, I know it’s been a while, and I’m sorry for not spending time with you like I should have been.”
The horse neighed softly as if he understood every word.
“I need you now, though, buddy. And more than that, T.J. needs you. Help me get her, and I promise I’ll never leave you like that again.”
Then he gave a kick to Jetson’s sides and clucked his tongue. The horse took off at a jog that quickly morphed into a lope. Then they were at the fence line and Vaughn bent down, squeezed his knees into Jetson’s sides and let the big horse take charge. The buckskin did a neat jump over the remaining wire, and then they were off again, trying to keep up a consistent pace while dodging mud pits and the ever-expanding pools of water that were collecting all over the lowest parts of the land.
Vaughn gave a breath of relief, because while the wire hadn’t been high, it had been hard to see, and the ends of the top wire he’d cut brushed against Jetson’s sides. If the horse were finicky at all, he could easily have pulled to an abrupt stop at the fence and thrown Vaughn.
But some sort of luck was finally on his side, because he was still on the horse, with both legs attached, and up ahead, he could just make out the outline of a white pickup truck—T.J.
He grew more and more anxious the closer they got, no sign of lights or activity in or around the truck. The floodgate was directly in front of the hood, making it obvious that she’d intended to have the headlights shine on the area she needed to work in. But no lights were on, and no humans were visible.
As he reached the passenger side of the truck, he started calling for her. “T.J.!” he yelled, looking frantically up and down the length of the truck, leaning down to see into the cab. When he looked through the glass, lightning lit up the sky and he saw that the driver’s door was open, rain blowing into the cab like spray from the ocean onto the beach.
Fuck. “T.?” he called again. “T.J.!”
He pulled Jetson back and made his way around to the far side of the truck, and that was when he saw her. Lying on the ground like a broken doll, the rain and the mud splattered from her hair to her boots.
“Oh fuck, baby, no!” he rasped as he reached down and tugged his prosthesis out of the stirrup. Without even thinking, he lifted his good leg and rolled at the same time, ending up with both legs dangling while he was on his stomach on the horse. Jetson, nervous at T.J.’s form on the ground, shuffled a step as Vaughn slid down, but while he stumbled, he didn’t fall. He took two giant strides to her side before he sank down with his bad knee on the ground and carefully peeled the wet hair from her face.
“Dammit, baby,” he whispered. “I can’t tell anything in all this fucking rain.”
He knew it was a risk to move her, but the rain was coming down so hard, there was no way for him to tell if she was breathing or bleeding or much of anything. So he took action and prayed it was the right choice. Reaching under her knees and shoulders, he lifted her into his arms, then stood carefully before setting her on the bench seat in the front of the truck cab, climbing in after her.
Once he was inside, he shut the door and felt for the keys in the ignition. They were there, but when he turned them, nothing happened. Not a sound.
Hell. It was like anything that could go wrong was. Pulling the flashlight out of his pocket, he shone it on her pale, wet face. She was so still that for a moment, he thought she wasn’t breathing, and fear ripped through him so hard, it nearly left him breathless. Leaning over, he watched, each second an exercise in terror. But then he saw the faintest movement of her chest, and putting his fingers along the tender column of her neck, he felt for a pulse. And yes! There it was. Not strong, but there. Tears came to his eyes as the relief washed through him.
Lifting one of her hands to bring it to his mouth, he placed a gentle kiss on her fingers. “I love you, baby. You hang on for me,” he said softly.
And that was when he saw it, the burned flesh that ran across her hand and up onto her
wrist.
“Oh, Jesus,” he exhaled, starting to shake. The pieces came together—burns to her skin, unconsciousness, a truck that was dead—lightning. She’d been struck, probably while she was getting out of the truck. The charge had burned her and rendered the truck useless.
He pulled the radio out of his pocket and pressed the button. “Lynn?” he called. “You there?”
There was crackling and humming, but then his aunt’s voice came through. “Oh my God, Vaughn, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “I found T.J., but I think she’s been struck by lightning. She’s breathing and she has a pulse, but she’s unconscious.”
“I’ll call 911,” his aunt said immediately. “Ty left fifteen minutes ago. He should be there to help you any minute.”
He gave his aunt the best approximation of his location and put the radio on the dash. Then the panic really set in. T.J. was so very cold when he touched her skin. Doing one of the few things he could under the circumstances, he stripped off her rain slicker and wet shirt, then pulled his own coat off along with his Henley and denim jacket underneath. He put the shirt and jacket on her and wrapped her in the rain jacket before pulling her onto his lap. Her face was still deathly pale, her eyes shut, her breathing shallow.
If anything happened to this woman, his life would be over. And that was when he realized that there were some things so much more important than how you looked in other people’s eyes, more important than proving yourself or being some idealized version of what you thought others wanted to see.
Because right then he realized that he’d wasted six years because he thought he wasn’t enough.
Six years of making love to T.J., six years of holding her in his arms, waking to her beautiful face every morning, listening to her laugh, watching her grow and change, and become the amazing woman she was today. He’d missed it all because of his stupid pride.
And he could never get it back.
Vaughn's Pride: California Cowboys Page 17
